* * *
Duff inserted the lock picks into the cheap deadbolt on the front door of the ramshackle tenement and had it open within forty-five seconds. He could have probably done it with a paper clip—that’s how scrappy the place was. He nodded to J, who’d been blocking his actions from anyone viewing from the street, and J nudged Tess, who terminated the fake cell call. Duff and Tess turned and entered the building, leaving J out on the stoop.
Both Duff and J were strapped, and weren’t particularly worried about being interrupted. They knew their admirers had their backs, and that the second-floor apartment’s occupant wasn’t home. Duff had confirmed that the tenant’s shift didn’t end till five at the same time he’d gotten the address—when Leticia had gone to the bathroom and asked him to watch the front for her. She’d been surprised to see him on a Saturday, but he said he needed something out of his locker, and she bought it.
Saturdays were lousy, slow shift days, and only the newest rookies worked them. There was no money to be made; most offices were closed, so it was a skeleton crew. Red Cap was one of the few messenger companies that was even open.
Tess and Duff ascended to the second floor and Duff expertly picked the apartment lock. He wiped the knob off and they entered, making a point to turn on the lights in the living room and bedroom. They didn’t want anyone confused about where they’d gone. Duff unpacked the two partially inflated balloons he’d put in the bag to make it look full and let the air out. He pocketed them, then folded the bag and stuffed it under his loose shirt. Tess removed some tape from her fanny pack and taped it flat against his torso.
She spotted the killer’s computer and walked over to the desk. When she moved the mouse the screen popped on, and she tapped a few keys and scanned his browser's history files. The blood drained from her face.
“Duff, come here,” she said, staring at the screen.
He approached. “What’s up?”
“This is my building. He’s looking up information for my building.” She appeared truly scared for the first time that day.
“So this is the right thing, then. You called it. This prick killed Loca and all the others, and he’s gonna come for you next.” Duff had liked Loca a lot, and his face was clouded with emotion. It’s one thing to suspect, another to know.
Now they knew.
Tess looked at her watch. Five o’clock on the nose. It would take the killer maybe ten minutes to get home, so they were on schedule.
They turned the lights back off, careful not to touch anything, and Duff wiped down the light switches and the computer equipment. They exited, wiping the knob again, and waited a few minutes, then went downstairs and rejoined J on the stoop. Tess pulled out her cell phone and made another call, gesturing at the building, nodding. The trio conferred amongst themselves then descended the stairs and ambled slowly down the street.
The Asians didn’t know what was happening, and that made them nervous and uncomfortable. They watched as the lights went on and saw shadows as people walked around inside. They quietly discussed going in but decided against it—the man on the stoop looked a little too casual, and had one hand in his loose sweat jacket, obviously holding a gun. His eyes were moving back and forth down the street, and it would be difficult to take an armed man expecting trouble, even with the pens.
So they watched, and waited.
After fifteen minutes the lights on the second floor went off, and a few minutes later the girl and the other man exited without the bag. That was a problem.
Now the Asians were on full alert, and they didn’t like their choices. They could either stay at the building, or follow the girl; they argued it hurriedly, and decided to stick with the building. They couldn’t take the chance the money had been left there, and they had to see where this led. Normally they’d have split up, but the taller man was still not up to snuff, and it might take both to do whatever was required here. Besides, they knew where the girl lived, so it wasn’t like they couldn’t pick her up again later. But the priority was the cash, and it was likely their money was now on the second floor.
* * *
The killer finished up his day at work and climbed on his bike to go home. He was feeling good, glad to be done.
When he got to his apartment, he went through it and ensured everything had been removed, that every shred of evidence was gone. The freezer and fridge still needed to be sanitized, but he’d already mopped the kitchen floor and vacuumed multiple times, throwing out anything resembling evidence, including the clothes and shoes he’d worn to hunt. He really wasn’t expecting trouble, or any kind of search, but you could never be too careful.
He flipped on his stereo and hummed along with his favorite song, and felt a stirring, an old call to action, which he resisted. Now wasn’t the time, he needed to understand where he’d slipped up on the last bunch of trophies.
It wasn’t like he did this for fun; there was a purpose to it all, and the girls were just necessary cogs in the big wheel of life, grist for the mill. He simply needed to fine-tune his process, get it right on the next batch.
* * *
The hit men watched as a man on a bicycle pulled up to the building a few minutes after the girl and her companions left. He shouldered the bike and walked through the run-down doorway, and after a few moments the second floor lights went on again. Bingo. It had been some kind of a drop. Now the question was, how could they get in and find out what had been dropped off?
Chapter 33
The killer was in the bathroom, having just taken his first hit of ecstasy of the weekend. He’d munched on a few of the mushrooms as well to add some color and fun to the party—he liked the hallucinogenic quality they brought to the front-end rush of the X. He was transfixed by his reflection in the mirror, his nose about two inches off the grimy glass, staring at his eyes staring back at him, entranced, humming along with the music.
He was conflicted over having to stop in his quest to become, but rationalized that it was a temporary setback. His metamorphosis was pre-ordained, and nothing could stop it. The drug was starting to kick and he had an overwhelming urge to masturbate, thinking about the one that was to come: Tess, the first of the real ones, as he now saw. He pulled his pants down as he continued to stare at himself, and slowly closed his eyes as he began the process of ridding his body of filth.
When he’d been a boy of maybe nine or ten his mother had caught him playing with himself and had been mortified. She’d always suspected he was dirty, and this was her proof. She’d been furious, and had made him go out in the front yard with his pants off, in the snow, and do it while she “and the whole neighborhood” watched. He’d never been sure whether anyone else had seen him, it having been dusk, but from that point on he’d lost any ability or desire to do anything similar unless it was early evening, and he was high. He’d been horrified at the idea of people watching him, judging him as he went about his filthy chore, but over time he’d become fascinated with the idea of the watchers. The mushrooms made it easier to imagine he was being watched—by his victims, by Tess.
He saw her face in his mind’s eye, watching in revulsion as he touched his filthy parts with his dirty, dirty hands, horrified as his mother had been at the foulness of his deed.
* * *
The Asians soundlessly pushed the apartment door open, having easily overcome the barrier the cheap lock presented, and registered the incense in the air and the stereo playing in the front room. They cautiously entered the living room, and seeing no one, approached the bedroom, where they could hear an odd keening noise.
This was weird. They could sense something off-balance in the environment, something not quite right. But they had a job to do.
And they were professionals.
Both donned plastic bags over their shoes; they’d seen it done on American TV while at their hotel. They’d never bothered with it before, but it never hurt to learn from other cultures and influences.
That was part of the benefit of t
ravel, right?
* * *
The killer heard a sound behind him and opened his eyes to see two Asian men staring at him in the mirror. He wondered absently if they were real or ghosts, then the smaller of the two kicked him in the kidney, confirming they were part of the here and now. A starburst of pain shot up his spine and he went down, clutching the sink in futile support. As he fell, the two men stepped back, and the smaller man grabbed his leg and dragged him into the living room. They wanted space to work.
The killer was in tremendous agony, but the drugs made the pain seem almost separate from his physical body. He allowed them to slide him along—he too needed room for what he intended to do.
The taller man secured the killer’s hands behind his back using the duct tape he'd brought, holding him face down on the Persian carpet that covered the floor. He grabbed the killer by the hair, bringing him to his knees, as the smaller man picked up a wooden dining room chair and approached him.
The killer launched from his supplicant position in a flash, hurling himself at the smaller man’s neck, missing the carotid artery by a few scant inches and biting down hard on the muscle of his shoulder. The smaller man screamed, dropping the chair in surprise as the two went down together, the killer attached to his shoulder like a moray eel, blood running down his face from the Asian’s wound. A blinding flash of agony caused the killer to loosen his jaw’s grip, and the world spun, and turned multi-colored, and then slowly receded into black.
The last thing the killer registered was the satisfyingly salty taste of blood in his mouth accompanied by the sounds of the stereo emanating an off-key baritone singing, “Don’t you want me, baby…”
* * *
The smaller man was in pain, but it was manageable. They improvised stitches using the duct tape to hold the two crescents of the bite wound together. He'd have been better protected if he’d been wearing a jacket, but it was hot out and a shirt had seemed like enough. The bite was tender, but the bleeding had stopped; it was more of a nuisance than anything.
They’d bound the killer to the chair, circling his body multiple times with tape and securing his legs the same way. They wanted to take no chances with him—he’d done enough damage in just a few seconds for them to assume he was extremely dangerous. Maybe another pro? But how would a pro have factored into the mix? And where was the money?
The smaller man brought the killer back to consciousness by shattering his kneecap with a pipe wrench he’d found under the sink. He’d also found a soldering gun and some Raid; he could improvise something with that. Beggars couldn’t be choosers; you had to make do with whatever was available.
The killer came to with a shriek, muffled by the tape across his mouth. He regarded the two men with wide and unfocused eyes; he looked more insane than afraid. The smaller man exchanged glances with the taller. This was very odd indeed.
“Where is bag?” The smaller man asked. “Tape off, you answer.”
Just the crazed stare and some struggling by way of response. The smaller man was uneasy, just a little, and had a tingling of fear in his stomach, entirely unwarranted, but there nonetheless. What the hell was wrong with this man? This was not the way his victims typically responded to his questions. He tried again.
“Where is bag? You answer or other leg break.” He didn’t know the English word for knee.
He nodded and the taller man ripped the duct tape off the killer’s face.
A high-pitched laugh, otherworldly, emanated from the killer’s mouth. The tape had removed some, but not all, of the drying blood from around his lips, and he had the look of a demented clown as he let loose his banshee wail.
“I’m not here, and neither are you.” More shrieking laughter. “If you are, you have no idea what you’ve done. I’ll eat your fucking heart, you motherfuck—” He was interrupted by his other kneecap being shattered by the pipe, which brought that portion of the discussion to a close. He slipped into unconsciousness again.
The men ransacked the apartment and found no trace of the satchel or the money. They were proficient, and methodical, and there was no bag. They were now really perplexed, and the smaller man’s shoulder had begun to ache. He’d make the bound man pay for that.
Ten minutes later the killer came to again, this time to excruciating pain from his groin. The smaller man was humming with the stereo, sitting in a chair in front of the killer as he seared a design into his penis with the soldering iron. The smell of burning flesh filled the room, and the killer screamed again and again into the duct tape. Vomit blew out his nostrils, and the smaller man slid his chair back, having anticipated it.
He’d been down this road before.
Both men waited until the killer started to turn blue from asphyxiation, unable to breathe through clogged nasal passages, and then the tall man ripped the tape off again, enabling the killer to gulp air.
“Where is bag?”
Nothing but gurgling.
“Where is bag?”
The killer was unfocused, partially from the pain but also from the drugs now hitting full force.
“Mommy? I’m…sorry…I…”
This was going nowhere fast. They needed information, and instead they had a hallucinating freak calling them Mom.
The taller man walked around to the front and sprayed Raid into the killer’s eyes. He shrieked again, and the smaller man clamped another piece of tape across his mouth. The shrieking continued. It was looking doubtful their guest was going to provide any information—he seemed out of it, departed for another world.
The little man figured he could make this last for a while; they might as well make it as lengthy and painful as possible, on the off-chance he became talkative somewhere in the process. That, and he was more than a little annoyed about the bite. He took the Raid from his partner, sprayed some more onto the killer’s face and then lit it with a whoosh. The killer’s face bubbled before the tape did, and his hair and eyebrows and lashes went before the subcutaneous layer melted.
* * *
Half an hour later, they still hadn’t gotten anywhere and the man in the chair was incoherent—they’d taken the hot iron to his tongue once his lips had burned away, and systematically ruined all his different pain points.
They were out of tricks.
Reluctantly, the smaller man put tape back across the man’s mouth, and then across the socket where his nose had been—which was trickier than it sounded given the lack of flesh for the tape to adhere to. He watched impassively as the man’s body turned red, then purple, and then blue, writhing and straining until it eventually shuddered and remained still.
The bag was nowhere to be found, the smaller man’s shoulder hurt like hell, and they’d gotten zip from whoever it was they’d just interrogated. They were no closer to the cash than before. Nothing but unanswered questions remained. Who was this man? What had been in the bag, and where was it? What was their next move?
The shoulder had to be attended to, and they needed to find the girl.
Everything came back to the girl. She was the key, and they’d have to get to her to find the cash, that was clear.
After doing one more search of the place lest they’d overlooked any hidden compartments or false floors, they left as quietly as they’d come and slipped into the dusk, an echo of music following them down the street as they made their way towards their hotel.
They would get to have their chitchat with their young lady friend sooner rather than later.
That was certain.
* * *
Ron got a call in the late morning on Sunday from Barry. He’d been sucked in on the weekend, par for the course in the murder game.
“Hey, Ron. Remember being all up in arms over one of the other Red Cap crew being the real serial?” Ron had explained his theory to Barry yesterday, and they’d both agreed there was no way the administration was going to let him follow up on his hunch.
“Yeah, I seem to recall that. What have you got?” Ron asked.
“I think it’s safe to say you can stop worrying,” Barry responded.
“What are you talking about?” Ron wasn’t following.
“You might want to come down to the perp’s apartment—I’m here right now, and it’s ugly as hell. Amy’s going over the place and thinks she may have found something in the freezer. She’s like a bulldog on this one.” Barry gave him the address.
“What happened?” Ron didn’t understand. Why was Barry dealing with his serial suspect?
“The torture squad seems to have put in an appearance. They were especially thorough. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Makes you believe there might be a God.”
“But…that makes no sense. Why would they hit him? What’s the connection?”
“Dunno, Ron. All I can say is your buddy Stu here has definitely seen better days. He looks like a bad art project.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Oh, and Ron? It looks like he was planning on taking out your girlfriend next. His hard disk is an architect’s dream for loft plans in her neighborhood.”
* * *
Ron returned from the crime scene that evening, having spent the better part of the afternoon going over Stu’s place. He’d never seen a more gruesome killing, and that was saying a lot. And he’d never felt less remorse over a human life having been extinguished.
Amy had found suspicious trace material in the freezer, and had collected some evidence from his closet that looked promising. But for Ron, the damning evidence had been the computer. Not of the crimes Stu had already committed, but what was to come.
Fatal Exchange Page 31
