“How many times have you tried to kill yourself?” she asked, checking her notes on her clipboard.
“I ain’t.”
“Come now, we both know that’s not true.”
I rubbed around my neck again subconsciously. I tried to catch a glimpse of her tattoo, finding myself transfixed by it. I could just see the start of it at the top. It looked like an inverted ‘v’.
“And who would know better than a cop how to commit a homicide and get away with it?”
“So we could all be serial killers?”
“Indeed.”
“So ya say.”
“You could know the Hangman. You could see him every day and you wouldn’t have a clue.”
I turned in my seat and faced her. “It’s someone I know?”
She realized she’d gone too far. “Forget it, Detective.”
“Jesus! Ya know who it is.”
“Change the subject.”
“Maaan, ya know who the Hangman is?”
She kept quiet, acting embarrassed that she had let it slip.
“Is it one of your patients?”
“I won’t discuss this any further.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Won’t. I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Jesus, you’d let that murdering scumbag walk free?”
“I swore a Hippocratic oath,” the doctor said.
“Screw your oath. Do you know what that scumbag does?”
“I’m well aware of it, but that does not alter –”
“Don’t give me that doctor-patient bullshit.”
“I’d lose my job.”
I faced her square on. “You’d lose your job? Are you serious?” I took a deep breath. “He tortures them, ya know? He took a scalpel to the last girl. Cut around the victim’s hairline, while she was still conscious and peeled her face right off.”
“Stop it.”
I demonstrated the action as I spoke. “Cut down by her ears, under her chin. Can you even begin to imagine the pain?”
“Stop it. Don’t do this to me.”
“To you! To you? Ya could have stopped that from happening to her. Yet, ya sat back and did nothing.”
She looked ashamed.
I shouted, “Her torture and her murder should be on your conscience!”
“Stop it.”
“They should put ya in the dock alongside the Hangman as his accomplice.”
“It would mean my job. I can’t help.”
“Ya could have called in the information anonymously,” I said. She shook her head in the negative. “Or why don’t ya leave the file on your desk for me to ‘accidentally’ find?”
“I can’t.”
“You know in all probability that he’ll do it again before we catch him. Can ya envisage what the victim is going to suffer? The torture and torment, wishing to be dead. To be released from the cruelty. Can ya imagine it?”
She did not speak. She checked her watch, no doubt hoping that the time was up and I saw the tattoo, a pentagram.
“Are ya gonna sit there and do nothing?” I asked, staring at her in disbelief. “And they call me crazy?” I glared at her for the longest time, then stood up, knocked over my chair and stomped out. “I don’t know which is worse: him for committing the heinous crimes, or you for doing nothing.”
CHAPTER 4
The Dog & Duck Bar & Restaurant, 555 Pico Boulevard, CA 90410 – 20:30.
My best friend – correction, my only friend – is Perry, an Englishman. Think of a typical Englishman, polite, well-mannered, foppish, etc., etc., and then turn it on its head because he’s none of these things. He’s quite loud, can be coarse and is involved in all sorts of illegal activities, what he himself describes as ‘dodgy’. I know little of his past, how long he’s lived in the States, or if he even has a residency permit. From what he’s let slip over time, I’d gathered that he left England under a cloud and isn’t wanted back there. If Perry were to attempt a trip home it would mean immediate arrest and certainly some jail time. I don’t know how he makes a living, but I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like it. So, I don’t ask, it’s the only way I can square it with my occupation. If I don’t know, then I don’t have to act upon it. What I do know is that he’s a solid character and I know at the end of the day that he would do the right thing and you can’t say fairer than that. He loves all things American, but still revels in his Britishness, although he’s more specific, saying he’s English not wanting to be thought of as Irish, Scottish or Welsh – the other races that make a person British. In fact he’s keen to point out he’s from London, not caring much for anywhere else in England except for the capital city. He even narrows it down to an extremely specific area of East London where you have to be born to be called a genuine ‘cockney’ and speak in their own exclusive language of rhyming slang, in which he excels. Cockney speak is entertaining and confusing in equal measures as he might say, ‘apples and pears’ meaning stairs, usually abbreviated to ‘apples’. It was a language that evolved for the criminal underclass to converse without letting the police know what they were saying. Through TV cop shows, most British people understand the main phrases and I can’t get enough of it, although I think Perry makes it up some of the time, but that’s part of his charm; he loves to entertain and he is everything I’m not. For some reason he likes me and we help each other out: he watches my back and I keep him out of jail.
He loves the States but prefers to do his drinking in the various ‘British’ pubs dotted around LA, claiming that ‘bars’ just don’t do it right. It has to be a pub for the atmosphere. In my experience, by the end of the evening, the atmosphere he craved had changed to a feeling of simmering violence as the excessive drinking amongst his countrymen has them collectively looking for a fight. Tonight I met him at a pub that’s not like that, more of a family restaurant, The Dog & Duck in Santa Monica. It’s been established for twenty years or more and a favorite with famous Brits. The interior replicated a Tudor-style tavern. One wood-paneled wall displayed photographs of the acting clientele who frequent the pub when in town to make a movie: Colin Firth, Ewan McGregor, Hugh Grant, going back to Roger Moore and Sean Connery; most of the ‘Bonds’ have popped in for a brew over the years.
I asked the bartender for a tab, shook Perry’s hand, and told him I was meeting my new partner there later.
Perry said, “Yer look like you’ve gotta problem.”
“Yah, I’ve got the rat squad on my back.”
“Internal Affairs, again?”
“Yah.”
“Snyder?”
“Yah, he’s like a dog with a bone.”
“You’re gonna have to deal with him.”
“Yah, I’m working on it.” We sank our pints in thought and I offered him another one.
“Cheers.” He nodded to the bartender for two more pints. “But I can’t stay long,” he said, “I’m meant to be meetin’ a new shipmate for me Nanny –”
“Nanny?”
“Nanny goat – boat?” he explained.
See what I mean? Perry lives on a luxury yacht moored down in the Marina del Rey; the yacht belonged to a ‘friend of a friend’, he’d usually claim, although one time he told me he ‘found’ it. He shared the yacht with a succession of Europeans, keen to rent the other berth, but no one stays long as they tend to squabble over which flag to fly from the stern. It should be American, in my opinion, as it’s moored in American waters. Perry’s always keen to fly the Union Jack, being British – sorry, English – and his guest wanted the flag from their home country, although I’d noticed that lately he’s compromised on the Jolly Roger, the infamous skull and crossbones favored by pirates and I’d gotta admit it looked pretty cool.
“What’s this Mia bird like?” Bird!
“She wouldn’t like being called a bird, for a start, or chick, or babe, or honey. She’s liable to throw ya on the floor.”
“I like the sound of her already,” he grinned.
&n
bsp; “She’s feisty and strong and I kinda like her.”
I turned to look as the doors opened, but it’s only a crowd of young Brits looking like soccer hooligans.
He finished his pint in one gulp and waved the empty glass to the bartender, who was over in a flash with another one. “Blimey, yer actually fancy a bird.”
“Does that mean ‘like her’?”
“Yep. I’m glad to hear it. I was startin’ to wonder if you weren’t a poof.”
“What does poof mean? Hold on, that means homosexual, doesn’t it?”
“I ain’t never seen yer with a bird. I thought yer might be a shirt-lifter.”
That’s Perry for you, always joking. At least I hoped he was. He took a sip of his beer, I say sip, he swallowed half, but this is normal and he can easily drink four pints in an hour and show no outward signs of being drunk, that’s anything up to a gallon if we go for a quick drink and will run into double figures on an average night out. The door opened and I turn to see if Mia had arrived, but it was only a bunch of tourists gawping in wonder at their first visit to a genuine British pub.
“What’s up? Yer look agitated?” he asked.
“Yah, like I was saying I’ve got Internal Affairs on my back about the Calvin Cooper case.”
“The answer’s simple,” he said into his glass as he took another glug. “Next time, don’t leave any witnesses. Problem solved. That’s what I’d do.” That Perry, what a kidder. I must have looked surprised because he followed it up with, “Yer should have killed him somewhere remote, it’s what yer normally do, anyway.”
“Hey, they were in self-defense.”
“All of ’em? Self-defense?” he asked over the rim of his beer glass. I nodded and he said, “Looks funny is all I’m saying. Even if yer offed the serial killers in cold blood, most people would pat yer on the back for riddin’ the streets of scum.”
“You’d think,” I said with a sigh.
He sank the rest of his pint in one swallow, wiped the froth from his lip on the sleeve of his jacket and threw some dollars down on the bar. “I’m off.”
“Where ya going?”
“To see a man about a dog.” That was his expression for ‘don’t ask.’
The door opened and I turned to check, this time it was Mia, she’d let her hair down, wearing a black silk blouse and jeans: she looked utterly gorgeous.
“Wait and meet Mia,” but when I turn back, Perry had gone. He does that a lot; he thinks it adds to his mystique. However, his uncanny reappearances are most welcome; and he had saved my life more times than I can remember. Once taking on six armed gangbangers, he then swiftly left, leaving me to take the credit for the multiple arrests of armed criminals. It was hard to explain how I had managed, but excellent for my street cred.
My definition of a true friend is to arrive at their house and say, ‘I’ve just killed someone. Can I hide out here?’ and for them to throw the door open wide with no questions asked. I sure as hell knew Perry would do this for me, as I knew I would do it for him and had done, on more than one occasion.
* * *
Mia sat on Perry’s vacated stool next to me and ordered a white wine. On the TV on the wall behind the bar, the local station was leading with the Hangman’s return. It is nigh on impossible to stop a leak these days.
The reporter said, “The city of Los Angeles is on high alert with the apparent return of the serial killer known as the Hangman. The Hangman first terrorized the city three years ago when he killed three women. He gained his name by leaving the police clues carved into the torsos of the victims, copying the popular word game. During this period, he taunted the police by posting video clips online. Despite having numerous suspects the police are no closer to arresting anyone.”
We looked at each other, shrugged and then wandered through to the restaurant feeling downhearted about the news. A waiter showed us to our table and we both ordered ‘fish ’n’ chips’. What else?
The restaurant was busy and noisy. Both the fish and the chips appeared to have been deep-fried in engine oil but were delicious all the same. God knows what it did to my cholesterol levels and I swear I could feel my arteries hardening as we ate. After some getting-to-know-you small talk, the conversation inevitably changed to work. I said, “By the way, the Medical Examiner said there here new dimensions to the Hangman’s killings.”
“Oh?”
“She’d been raped and sodomized by a blunt object, then stuffed with garbage.”
“Stuffed where?” Then the penny dropped. “Oh.”
“Cigarette packs, candy bars, wrappers, apple cores,” I listed. Mia pulled a face, went to speak, then stopped. I filled the gap by changing the subject. “What made ya wanna partner me?” I asked.
“Your success rate, plus you seemed like you’re on a mission.”
“I am, but there’s only so much one man can do, so I concentrate on the purest, most evil scum. The serial killers and the pedophiles.”
“How do you find them in the first place?”
“Pedos? Well, since Megan’s Law, convicted child molesters have to register. I did a search and there are four registered sex offenders within one mile of where I live. Go two miles out and the number goes up to an astonishing twenty-five –”
She held up her hand. “I’ve done the same around my house up in the canyon, it’s depressing. They’re the ones that register and don’t abscond.”
“Yah, they’re the ones we caught. How many don’t ever get caught: would you double it?”
“At least. It’s sickening,” she said.
I glanced around the restaurant. “Ya know, statistically, there would be a child molester in here, which one do ya think?”
She looked around for a while. “I don’t know.”
“That’s the point, what do they look like?”
“I keep an eye on the pedos that live near me,” she said.
“I’ve been thinking about Bruce Matherson, there was something very wrong about that guy. He’d be hard to take down. Too many lawyers, we’d be tangled up for years. He’d have time to close down the operation and move his act abroad, go to Cambodia, or Thailand, or somewhere like that where they don’t care.”
Mia said, “Did you know tour operators cater for those sickos. They do special tours to the Far East to countries known to overlook the child sex trade, where the passengers are entirely made up of single men. They know what goes on there, they’re complicit in it, but once again, they turn a blind eye. Not their problem what happens once the perverts are in a foreign country.”
“It’s screwed up for sure.” I speared a few more chips on my fork.
“It’s more than that, this is my point; we make out that child molestation is a crime, but it’s whitewashed over. It’s so widespread that you can’t do anything about it. I studied this as my thesis, a conservative estimate is that one in ten girls and don’t forget, some boys, is molested.”
“I knew it was high, but maaan.”
“And there are hardly any prosecutions.”
“Don’t I know it,” I agreed.
“Most cases don’t make it to court. Pressure from the mother not wanting to break up the family unit and in many cases the mother knew, overlooking their husband’s attention to their daughter, for the sake of not breaking up the home and no doubt to be glad of the demands being taken off them for a while.”
“And probably a victim themselves,” I said.
“Sure,” she agreed. “The trauma and depravities of childhood manifest themselves in adulthood, often repeating the same behavior. It just keeps on happening generation after generation, nothing changes.”
I shook my head lost for words and wondered if she was speaking from experience. I looked at her and could see the hurt in her eyes, but she caught me and grinned and the moment was gone. “What are we going to do about it?” she asked.
“How’d ya mean?”
“Like I said, ‘what are we going to do about it?’”
<
br /> “We?”
“Affirmative. Are we going to do something constructive, or just sit around letting it happen?”
I looked over my shoulder before lowering my voice and asking quietly, “Are ya talking vigilante?”
“That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
I was taken aback. “Not you as well? What are ya talking about?”
“Oh come on, I know all about it.”
“Come again?”
“You. You’re a vigilante and I want to join you.”
“I don’t know what ya talking about.”
“Oh come on, Spooky, how many serial killers have you caught?”
“Five or six.”
“It was six. How many made it to court?”
“I dunno.”
“None of them.”
“So?”
“So, you caught them and you executed them.”
“Their deaths were a coincidence.”
“Six is the official number. As I said, I’ve studied you and found another two mysterious deaths of perverts that I can link to you. Eight deaths, each one an act of self-defense?”
“So what?” I managed to say eventually as my mouth dried up.
“It’s never happened in the history of policing, not anywhere in the world.”
“That’s what Internal Affairs reckoned,” I said, then it suddenly dawned on me. I smirked as I patted her down. She swiped my hand away, misreading the gesture.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Is that it? Are ya working for them? Are ya, I.A.? Are ya part of the rat squad? Is this some sorta honeytrap? Are ya wearing a wire?”
“Wow! You’re paranoid. Why would I be wearing a wire?”
“Trying to get me to confess, get it on tape.”
“No. I’m not wearing a wire,” she said matter-of-factly. She undid her blouse and held it wide open to prove it, revealing a black, lacy push-up bra barely covering her breasts. “Satisfied?”
“Yah, they’re very nice.” Oops. I realized my faux pas and tried to cover it. “Er, I meant –”
“I know what you meant.” She looked cross but as she fastened her top, I thought I caught a smile. What is this? Surely she’s not attracted to me, too?
On The Edge Page 5
