Cutter

by Laird, Thomas

  ‘You stupid bastard!’ the Second World War-vintage geezer shouted at me.

  There were clouds of black smoke rising in front of me as I made toward my house. This was my street now. Karrios had invaded my home.

  Now I was just a couple of blocks from home. The tires screamed in agony. I was going so fast I almost flipped the car as I swerved. But I got back on all four wheels, and I could see my house down the block. The violet-colored ‘Katie Ann Kosmetics’ car was parked right next to my driveway, on the street. I was coming on so hurriedly that I couldn’t stop the car fast enough, and I crashed the front end of the Corvette into the ass end of Karrios’s vehicle.

  I charged on out of the Vette with my nine-millimeter in hand. I got to the door and I could hear loud music from inside the house. I started looking for my keys, but I remembered I’d left the goddamned things in the ignition of the Ford. They were on a ring with my car keys.Son of a bitch—I couldn’t get intomyown house!

  I raised my foot to crash in the door. The music was blaring so loud that I could feel the vibrations out here on the stoop. Just as I was about to kick my way into my own home I heard the explosion of a single round of gunfire.

  I shattered the door handle with one kick from my right heel. The door flew open and I saw a tall, golden-haired woman standing in the middle of my living room. She had a scarlet hole in the dead center of her back. Somehow she was able to turn to me. It was then that I saw the nine-inch blade in her right hand. Natalie had clipped her just above the waistline. The blonde was gut-shot. A lethal hit.

  But I saw also that the tall woman still had the strength to lift that knife and lurch toward me. As soon as she raised the blade, I aimed the nine-millimeter and let loose with two rounds. The shots were audible above the noise of the Rolling Stones CD that my wife had blaring on the stereo — the song was ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. The impact of my two shots jerked the blonde backwards violently onto our couch. There were two holes in the tall woman’s throat, and then the blood began to cascade out of the wounds. Again, she tried to rise. I heard the same kind of explosion I’d heard just before I burst in. I looked over and saw the smoke coming out of the barrel of the Bulldog that my red-headed wife still had in her hand, aimed at the chest of Marco Karrios in drag. The slug had torn through him and our new couch. The guts of the pillows were floating in the air behind the couch right now.

  Karrios made no further attempt to rise. His eyes went dead. His blood began to ooze lazily down onto his summer dress.

  *

  The army of cops I’d called out was inside the house just a few minutes after Marco stopped breathing. The first thing I had done was to remove the knife from his grip. It was not really a knife. More like a scalpel for epic-scale surgery. I dropped it on the coffee table, and then I carefully approached Karrios and took his pulse. There was none. The ME would make it official, but I was glad anyway when my backups arrived and watched Marco so he wouldn’t somehow rise up off that couch.

  I went over to my wife. She still had the .44 Bulldog firmly clamped in her grip. The hand, however, dangled at her right side.

  I took her into the kitchen after one of the uniforms removed the wig from Karrios. When he took the golden hair away, we all saw the face that’d been plastered on the new renditions of the Marco Karrios posters. Here was the face that Dr Richmond — the late doctor — had created.

  I sat Natalie down at the table and I was finally able to extricate the pistol from her grip.

  ‘You ... you forgot it this morning, Jimmy.’

  ‘I know ... Are you all right, baby?’

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘How ... how did you know it was him?’ I asked.

  She looked up at me slowly.

  ‘He ... she ... Karrios must have rung the bell. The dog started barking like crazy, loud enough for me to hear it over the stereo, so I knew there was someone out there ... I looked through the peephole in the front door, and I saw this very tall, muscular blonde woman outside. I was just about to open the door when I saw something else.’

  ‘What, Natalie?’

  ‘I saw an Adam’s apple.’

  ‘An Adam’s apple?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. A pronounced goddamned Adam’s apple. It was jiggling in his throat when he said “Katie Ann Kosmetics”. Then I knew who it was. His arms were a little too well defined, too.’

  ‘Why the hell’d you let him in?’

  ‘It’s what we prepared for, wasn’t it, Jimmy? I’m a cop, aren’t I?’

  Now her tears began. She started to shake.

  ‘He was dead, Jimmy. I couldn’t let him come back to life, could I?’

  I came around to her side of the table. It was then that Doc entered our kitchen.

  ‘Well, it’s the Fighting Parisis,’ he smiled. ‘I’ll come back later.’

  I stopped him.

  ‘You can stay. We need the good company.’

  ‘I apologize,’ Doc said. ‘I should’ve listened to your intuition, guinea.’

  He patted my shoulder and then sat in the chair I had just got up from.

  ‘So Officer Natalie Parisi got her man.’

  ‘She knew who he was when she let him in,’ I explained.

  ‘Christ, Natalie. The hell you do that for?’ Doc grinned.

  My wife started weeping again.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry,’ Gibron apologized.

  ‘It’s okay, Doc. It’s okay. It’s my first shoot and I’m just a little unnerved.’

  ‘She recognized his Adam’s apple,’ I told my partner.

  ‘No shit. Really? Oh ... oh yeah. The Adam’s apple. That was very astute, Officer Parisi, ma’am.’

  My wife smiled weakly.

  ‘Listen, I better get out with the crew ... You know, he didn’t make a bad version of his mommy. Maybe a little too much dark hair on his forearms ... You gonna be okay, Natalie?’

  Doc’s face turned serious.

  ‘I think so. Give me a minute,’ she sniffled.

  Doc walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked again.

  ‘I’ll be all right. I’ll have to talk to our people, won’t I?’

  ‘Yeah. And me, too.’

  ‘You forgot your .44. I’d just picked it up and was going to lock it up back in the hall closet when ... when that son of a bitch rang our doorbell. I put the piece in the front pocket of my robe. You know, the gray robe that I wear when I clean?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then I looked out that peephole and I saw him, and I almost didn’t notice anything until that thing moved in his throat. It bobbed up and down. And then I remembered what you said about his mother. The blonde hair. I wasn’t going to let him in, but I had to, Jimmy. I turned off the security system by the door, and I swatted Merlin the dog out toward the kitchen. He’s such a coward that he scooted away and hid behind the refrigerator.’

  I looked and saw that the mutt was still cowering there, next to the fridge, having made a watery mistake that I’d have to clean up.

  ‘He’ll never make a hunting dog,’ I told Natalie.

  Merlin wagged his tail and continued to shudder.

  ‘I had to let him in. It wasn’t courage, Jimmy. It was fear. I was afraid he’d go off and start it all over again.’

  She sobbed and I took hold of her again. But she calmed down, slowly but surely, and by the time a detail of onscene investigators arrived she was able to go back into the living room with me so we could get on with the usual questioning.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I look into the red-headed woman’s eyes,and we connect.But there is something else going on.She reaches into the robe’s pocket and pulls out an enormous handgun.It is squat and ugly,and I know now that this is as far as I go.I’ve shown her my knife,and now she shows me the pistol.

  Marina,I think.

  This is as far as we travel.I won’t let her arrest me.Parisi’s wife is a cop,but I won’t let he
r take me.So I hoist up the blade and as I reach arm’s length above me,I hear the bullet’s boom.The impact shoves me back about three feet,but somehow I’m still standing.

  Marina,this is where it ends.

  The door behind me crashes open,I turn around and see him,her husband,and I try to lift my weapon again.But he aims at me and shoots twice.The bullets strike me below my chin and this time I’m flung backward and down,onto the couch.

  Again I try to rise,but I hear the boom of the squat handgun,and I see feathers flying about my head.

  Marina,this is all there is.I’m looking for you,expecting to see you,but there is nothing.No sound,except for the closer and closer buzzing of an insect.It sounds like a fly is wafting about my head.

  Marina,where are you?

  The insect circles closer and closer,but it is getting too dark to see.It is a summer morning.It has to be fully light outside,but my eyes begin to fail.

  There are two figures in front of me,but all I can hear is the approach of a common housefly.

  Circling.Coming nearer to me.Closing in.

  Epilogue

  The man in the fire was identified by one bone from his leg and one bone from his forearm. From those two items our people were able to establish his size and weight. I didn’t understand how, but they were able to approximate the height of Karrios’s victim. Then DNA came into play and we had a match with a man who was reported missing about a week ago. According to our investigators, he was a homosexual who liked to consort with dangerous men. He apparently ran into more than he bargained for.

  Karrios was cremated at his father’s request. There was no burial, so Niko took the remains home with him.

  The newspapers were full of the story about Marco’s metamorphosis into his mother/sister. They were constantly bothering Natalie and me at home and at work. Natalie was not used to media attention, but now she appreciated what most of us in Homicide had to go through from time to time. She needed the experience for her future as a plainclothes officer.

  The Captain said my wife might step up to Burglary as a detective within two years. It could happen that fast because of her newfound celebrity. She was the cop who shot Liberty Valance, the boys and girls in Homicide teased her. She put The Farmer down — with a little help from the old man.

  The kid who owned the red Corvette was suing the city and me, but our attorneys said the young man was now talking deal, so it’d cost Chicago and the Department something in five figures. The car was totaled in the run back to my house. The engine still ran, just about, but the body was wiped out.

  Doc was still threatening to write the Great American Opus, as usual, and Jack Wendkos was living in transit, back and forth to that university. The lovely professor was trying to convince him to move out there and commute, and he was trying to get her to take a teaching job in the city.

  My wife, Natalie, continued to walk a beat in Hyde Park. She also continued to take that at-home test for pregnancy. It was a morning ritual, regardless of what shift she was working. We were currently on days, so we rode into work together.

  My blood pressure had subsided once The Farmer was deep-fried and turned to ash. The family doctor was hopeful that this was a trend toward better things. But I was compelled to exercise more and to eat the right things. My wife was part of the conspiracy to change my life. I lost eight pounds in three weeks, and I needed to buy new pants.

  Natalie had gone to her gynee and asked about her peak periods of ovulation. When we arrived at one of those window-of-opportunity moments, we had to excuse ourselves from anything we were involved in and retire to the bedroom to take advantage of one of her peaks.

  So far we hadn’t produced the proper color on my wife’s test kit. This morning I wanted to sleep in because I was taking another of the eighty-three days vacation time I had coming. Natalie’s romantic hold over me had worn me out.

  My caseload was somewhat under control — we had three outstandings, still in red ink. But it was better than it had been. Karrios was enough for a career, all by himself. I was almost looking forward to no-brainers. To a series of slam dunks.

  I was hiding beneath the sheets when I heard Natalie’s voice. Faint, at first. But then she became louder and clearer. The voice came from the bathroom, where she did her daily test. My heart started to beat a bit more emphatically when I heard her.

  ‘Jimmy!Jimmy!Get in here,Jimmy!Get in here right now!’

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  Acknowledgments

  For Katherine Leigh, Anne Karoline, Andrew Robert and Janet Marie. And for Krystyna Green, who delivered the stuff that dreams are made of. A tip of The Farmer’s fedora to Nick Austen, who shared his wonderful suggestions.

  Finally to Robert Raymond and Vivian Mildred ...

  To all the above, many thanks and much love.