Fatal Exchange

by Russell Blake

  “I’m listening.”

  “One of the two corpses was a security guard with pronounced cyanosis, and I found a small puncture in his neck. He didn’t move, so I’m betting whatever the agent that killed him was, it paralyzed him first, probably instantly. I’d really like to know the results of the toxicology scan,” Ron said.

  “What were you doing at a double murder in mid-town? Is it related to our serial?”

  “Peripherally. Or at least maybe,” Ron countered.

  “Tom can be tight-fisted with his info, Ron, but for you I’ll do my best.” Amy was a goddess.

  “I appreciate it. Any updates on our two girls?” Ron asked.

  “It’s strange. We know he’s killing them somehow, but I can’t find any indication as to how.” Amy didn’t like when she couldn’t figure out how the puzzle pieces fit together. It bugged her.

  “Could it be an aerosol? Something they inhale?”

  “I thought about that, but the lungs aren’t giving up any evidence, and neither are the nasal membranes. And nothing’s showing up on the tox screens. So that’s a dead end.”

  “Well he’s doing it somehow. I have a bad feeling we’ll get another shot at trying to figure out how.” They were no closer than when they started. “What about the blood? Where’s the blood? There should be at least some.”

  “We found a bloody garbage bag in each of the dumpsters so far. We think he puts their heads on the bags before he scalps them. The blood pools to their backs once they’re dead, so virtually no blood from the breast cuts.”

  “He really tries to think of everything, doesn’t he? I just wish we knew why he was doing it; then we could predict with some sort of accuracy.”

  “We’ll figure it out. It’s just going to take time.” Amy was trying to be upbeat.

  “That’s running out, unfortunately. Thanks, Amy.”

  * * *

  Ron reviewed the stack of messages that had backed up while he was out interviewing, scanning them for any feedback from the national databases. One of the calls was from the FBI’s data center; the guys responsible for the agency’s cross-matching and profiling. He dialed the number.

  “Jim Duggin, FBI.”

  “Hi Jim, Ron Stanford from NYPD. I was running a search for a serial who’s taking trophies and doing some very specific mutilation, and I got a message you called…”

  “Hello, Ron. I saw your query and I tried for more obscure match-ups—files that didn’t necessarily have a one-hundred-percent match, but that were still interesting. There were two young women killed over a year ago in Ohio who’d been scalped, but there wasn’t anything resembling the eyes and the breasts. Not recently, at any rate.”

  “What do you mean, not recently?” Ron asked.

  “Well, about four and a half years ago, there were several punk rock–related murders in Pittsburg, where someone took the eyes and the breasts, but no scalps. So close. But not that close,” said Jim.

  “Could you e-mail the files on both of those, please, let me look them over? I think I vaguely remember reading about the Pennsylvania cases,” Ron recalled.

  “Sure. And keep us posted if more of these come up. We try to stay current on the latest fashions in Crazy Town.”

  “You bet.”

  * * *

  A late lunch with wine had made Gordon sleepy, and he’d decided to call it an early day and take a nap. The market had closed down; he’d made his money and bought his options, and walked away up for the day except for his oil futures, which were tanking. Not to worry, pretty soon there’d be a bigger demand for oil than anyone could have predicted.

  He’d found the Burmese several banking contacts in Japan and Europe who would accept large cash deposits from them—they could confidently say the money wasn’t drug-related when it came from a government, even if one so closely associated with the heroin trade and Chinese criminal syndicates. So the conduit and distribution system for the first wave was in place.

  Gordon Samuels didn’t consider what he was doing to be criminal or treasonous. His perspective was that he was simply leveraging a risky business opportunity. He had no particular dislike for or allegiance to the United States, or for that matter Myanmar; he considered himself a pragmatic citizen of the world whose soon-to-be-billionaire status would enable him to be a nation unto himself.

  Gordon rationalized that the U.S. was just as guilty of reprehensible behavior as any other nation, and shouldn’t be immune from the repercussions when smaller, less fortunate, countries tried to get a piece of the action. It wasn’t like he was aiding in genocide or shipping nuclear secrets to terrorists, or anything evil. He was just participating in a money-making opportunity that would ultimately only cost the American taxpayers a percent or so of their worth at worst. Hardly noticeable—a sliver, a rounding error.

  His cell phone vibrated.

  “Samuels.”

  “Ah, we seem to have a situation. We may need to ask for some local help in the near future.” The voice was unmistakable.

  “Whatever I can do, I will,” he responded. The Asians were huge customers of his; that was the only acceptable response, but he didn’t want to get into too much detail on a cell phone.

  “It is possible we will call you again on a landline over the weekend, and ask you to help our friends. They are making progress, but may have hit a stumbling block. It is too early to know for sure.”

  “I’ll remain available at all times,” Gordon said, wondering what they wanted.

  “Your understanding is appreciated. Perhaps it will be unnecessary. We will not call unless it is unavoidable.”

  “Whatever you need, if it’s feasible, I’ll deliver.” Gordon had a good network of friends in high places. He figured they wanted him to call in a favor or two and get them some information. No big deal. It wasn’t like they were going to ask him to transport a dead body in his trunk or play trigger man.

  “Have a good weekend,” the singsong voice said.

  “You too.” Gordon stabbed the off button, calculating. He really couldn’t wait to get home and take that nap.

  * * *

  The police were finally done at the shop around five-thirty. The crime scene tape stayed across the door, and two officers watched carefully as Nick locked the door, set the alarm, and pulled down the metal grid to protect the glass storefront. He gave them his contact numbers in case they needed to get into the shop again. They’d requested he leave it closed and taped for a week.

  Nick had no problem doing so, as technically Tess now owned the store and the inventory. He made a list for the police of the stuff her dad had kept in the safe, for placement on the “hot” list, and he’d left a copy in the store so Tess and he could file the insurance claims once she was back to normal.

  Normal.

  He wondered how long it took to get back to normal when you’d found your crippled dad tortured and killed.

  Nick liked Tess, but it wasn’t love and he didn’t pretend it was. He thought she was a cool chick, but he was in a band and wasn’t interested in getting tied down. He met her when she came into the shop to visit her dad, and they hadn’t started dating until almost two years after they’d first laid eyes on each other. One afternoon he’d invited her to a show, she’d accepted, they’d hung out, gotten drunk after, and fucked like minks all weekend.

  They were both biding time, enjoying the physical stuff and the companionship but not thinking about anything more. That was fine by him. He had the band, which was priority number one, and the gig with the watches. He’d learned about it from his dad, who collected rare timepieces—fifty-two of them at last count. He’d been raised around expensive wristwatches, had learned their nuances while growing up, and knew them cold.

  When Robert advertised for an assistant, Nick had figured what the hell, might as well apply. He’d correctly identified the first three watches Robert showed him, surprising him and landing Nick the job. That was four years ago, and now he knew as much about P
ateks and Rolexes and Breguets as Robert did.

  As Robert had.

  Nick lived in a little apartment by NYU, but spent most nights with Tess. He’d graduated from NYU with a degree in philosophy, which was useless in the real world but had interested him greatly while he was in school. He dragged the student experience out as long as possible, but after six years he didn’t have too many convincing reasons to stay in school.

  So he got the watch job and played with his band, which was enough for now. His dad threw him cash here and there so his life was comfortable, and he knew someday the family fortune would come his way, split with his sister. There’d be plenty to go around, so he wasn’t stressed over the future.

  He looked at his watch, calculated he had a few hours before load-in at the club, and decided to hit his pad, take a shower and get ready for the show.

  The Asians regarded each other as he walked down the street and proceeded to follow him, maintaining a safe distance.

  Chapter 14

  Tess was lying on her couch, having slept for several hours after crying herself to sleep. She surfed aimlessly through the channels on the TV, hardly registering any of the programs, not caring. It was just something to do.

  She reflected on the day, her dad’s killing, Loca’s murder, and felt dead inside. If she’d been the drugs or heavy booze type, she would have been blotto right now. But that wasn’t her thing.

  She’d ignored life for a long time, stayed in denial, lived in her own reality, and everything had been fine. Now she couldn’t do it anymore—life had pushed back, intruded into her world, and she’d been forever changed.

  Tess had first pulled into her shell after her dad’s accident. When her mom died, she threw her back into learning programming, creating her own little safe technology cocoon where nothing could hurt her. After she snapped and started her wild period, she started using sex as a refuge from reality, and that had also distracted her for a time.

  Tattoos and piercings and running with the hard crowd had enabled her to re-invent herself as a tough, street-wise urban warrior woman, and she liked that creation; it beat the hell out of being a vulnerable, scared, weak little girl in the big city. But she’d been dealt a body blow, and a wave of suppressed feelings had rushed forward uninvited and unwelcome.

  Now she was alone, and make-believe wouldn’t work anymore. She had to deal with the real responsibilities of burying her dad and dealing with the shop, and figuring out what to do next besides just waking up and delivering packages.

  She hurt inside like her guts were going to come out her eyes, and she’d cried so hard and so long her abdomen felt like she’d been mule-kicked. She wanted to curl up in a ball and die, give up, make it stop.

  But slowly, self-pity and anguish were replaced by anger. The first glimmerings of outrage and fury were emerging at the forefront of her brutalized emotions. Somebody had walked in and slaughtered two innocent men in broad daylight, and done so with impunity. She tried to imagine what kind of human being would torture and kill a defenseless handicapped man whose only interest was in small baubles of infinite delicacy. It had to be a sociopath, someone for whom life was meaningless. And then there was Loca and the nameless girl at the club. Some monster was killing helpless women whose only sin was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What kind of world had she wound up living in, where she could barely count on her hand the number of friends and family killed in one week?

  * * *

  The Asians followed Nick and watched as he boarded a subway running downtown. They got on the car with him, remaining at the far end. The subway was packed with the tail end of rush hour and the beginning of the dinner crowd, so it wasn’t hard for them to stay invisible. Nick was oblivious to his surroundings; they could have been playing trumpets and he wouldn’t have noticed. He stood up after ten minutes and exited the car, as did the two men and a third of the remaining passengers.

  Nick walked slowly up the stairs to the street and they followed unobtrusively. The area was buzzing with activity, the streets teeming with college-aged kids and the flotsam that frequented school perimeters: the rastas, the haris, the burnouts and the perennially stoned. They watched him enter an apartment complex, and took up a position across the street at a small restaurant. It was a beautiful evening and they had nowhere to be.

  * * *

  Stan called Tess at 7:30, checking in on her. He offered to bring her dinner; she politely declined, wasn’t in the mood. She did want to talk about her father’s last days, though. She’d been churning in her head, mulling over the circumstances surrounding his death and the police mutterings about it not seeming like a robbery, and she felt like she was missing some pieces.

  Tess asked about the hundreds, and how her dad had wound up with so much cash, and for the details of his last adventure; she figured that was a good place to start.

  Stan recounted the whole story. He left nothing out and also resisted his natural urge to embellish, and gave her the blow-by-blow.

  “So that’s why you were questioning the bills,” she observed.

  “That’s right. Although my buddy Saul said they look genuine on a cursory pass, so what do I know? We may be trying to read too much into this,” he said.

  “And this Korean diplomat bought the watches and handed over a million bucks, cash? Is that common in Dad’s business?”

  “You mean in your business? …Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. But it is your business now. You can sell it and get a good premium; there are a lot of folks who’d love to have the customers and the location.” Stan realized he was digressing. “Anyway, no, a transaction that size is rare,” he answered.

  “Nick said the watch on the counter was one of the ones Dad sold the Korean. What was it doing back at the shop?” She asked.

  “That, my dear, is a genuine mystery. There aren’t a lot of people who would leave a quarter-million-dollar watch behind, even if they were in a pretty big hurry. And no one interested in robbery could have afforded that watch in the first place, much less would leave it. None of it makes any sense, especially since your dad got the impression the Korean was buying the watches as an investment.” Stan was equally puzzled.

  “My head hurts the more I think about it. I’m going to take a sleeping pill and hit the sack, Uncle Stan. I’ll call tomorrow, okay?” She was fading fast, and wasn’t processing much Stan was telling her.

  “All right, beautiful. Why don’t you call the bike place and tell them you’re going to take a week or two off? You’ll need time to deal with the shop and your dad. I’ll be happy to help as much as I can.” He paused. “Your father had a good amount of money, Tess. I think you’ll be surprised, between the life insurance and the shop and the savings. You don’t have to worry, that’s for sure.”

  “Thanks, Stan. That’s a small comfort, anyway. I completely forgot about Red Cap. I’ll call. And I appreciate the offer to help—I have a feeling I’m going to need it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good night.”

  “Good night, Teresa.”

  She got one of the night dispatchers at Red Cap, and explained about her dad’s murder and how she needed a few weeks off, and would be back in touch once she got her head together. Next she called Nick’s cell and heard guitars blaring in the background. They had a halting discussion; she told him she was going to crash, so he should spend the night at his place—she wasn’t going to wait up. He didn’t have a key to her loft, so he understood.

  Tess thought about Nick, and about the next week and the difficulties she would have to confront; it could all wait until tomorrow. She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and swallowed two sleeping pills, then folded back the sheets on her bed, stripped naked, and was asleep within ten minutes, her racing mind finally stilled, if only for a while.

  * * *

  Saul was whistling to the radio, munching potato chips. He knew he was dangerously obese, and also knew it imperiled his health, but he found it extremely hard to really give a shit.


  It wasn’t that he was a stupid man, or reckless; he just didn’t have a lot that interested him outside of currency and food. His wife left him when he was drummed out of Treasury, claimed she couldn’t take his constant paranoia, the obsessive compulsive behavior, yadda yadda yadda. He’d been heartbroken but unsurprised. He was hard to live with; he knew that. And he was too old to change. He didn’t really want to, anyway.

  So he was left to his own devices, and those devices included mastication and minutiae. Saul got progressively larger, and was able to spend fourteen hours a day on his passion and vocation—which fortunately didn’t involve a lot of movement, so everything worked out nicely.

  His current object of interest was one of the bills Stan had dropped off. He’d just about given up and decided they were genuine, but something was niggling at him, so he kept at it. His eyes told him it was the genuine article, but his gut said it wasn’t. Eventually his eyes won. He was too tired to stay interested, and had gone over every detail of the bills without finding anything, so he decided to call it a day and watch some TV instead. You could only spend so much time staring at the same thing before you had to take a break, allow your mind to mull over its unconscious observations, so you could start again with a new perspective.

  * * *

  Candy was looking good. She knew it. A transplant from Georgia, she was the new Southern belle, self-possessed and full of piss and vinegar. She’d been in the city for three years, working on getting her acting career off the ground. She liked the bike messenger thing, because it kept her in shape and the hours were flexible enough that she could take off with a little notice for auditions or workshops whenever she needed.

  Her aspiration was to be a stage actress, and she spent much of her extra cash attending Broadway shows and studying the techniques of the successful. She’d had a few minor roles in some off-off-Broadway runs, but nothing even close to the big time. Her story was all too familiar in New York: A promising young talent from Nowhere, USA, hits town loaded with dreams of success and visions of grandeur—usually based on some limited success in some local or regional theatre/ballet/talent show—and then gets a rude awakening when confronted by the real game. Everybody is equally as talented as you, if not more so, and you’re all competing brutally for a very limited number of slots.