On The Edge

by Daniel Cleaver

He looked around shiftily, made sure no one was watching as he slipped an evil-looking weapon from his pocket. It was a metal sphere, the size of a tennis ball, covered in sharp, metal spikes attached by a short chain to a handle. “That, my son, is a flail. Wallop that over someone’s nut and it’s goodnight, Vienna,” he smirked as he took another swig of his pint, slipping the vicious weapon back into his pocket.

  “What do you need one of them for?”

  “Personal protection,” he said simply and returned to his pint.

  CHAPTER 31

  Sunday – July 3rd

  My duplex, Driftwood Street, Venice Beach, CA 90292 – 6:30.

  Mia had come over and stayed the night at my place. She’d dodged the Internal Affairs men on the night shift, who turned out to be as easy to bypass as Snyder and his sidekick, but the shifts would have switched back and we needed to get Mia past them without her being photographed and placed into my file. She was smart not only in the brain, but also in the way of the street. She was intuitive and had that certain gift for measuring people in an instant, not all cops could do it. She had an excellent career ahead of her and just being linked to me could tarnish her forever. She gazed out of the bedroom balcony window. “Snyder’s out there, what can we do?”

  “I guess I could go down there and shoot him.”

  “Would you, hon? I’d be immensely grateful.”

  “Sure, I’ve been meaning to do it for a while.”

  She laughed and I crawled from the bed and joined her at the picture window. “I mean it,” I said. “About shooting him. If anyone ever needed it, that numbnuts does.”

  She turned to me, wrapped in a sheet. “Why’s he taking it so personally?”

  “Long story, but in his determination to catch me out he messed up one of my really important cases. He compromised some evidence which directly led to the perp walking, who then went on to kill, not only two more children which is reprehensible in itself, but also my partner.”

  “Jesus . . .” she hissed. Her face went pale. “Who was the perp?”

  “The child killer, Calvin Cooper.”

  “No wonder you emptied your chamber into him.”

  “That was self-defense –” I went to protest, then thought, what the hell, she’d seen through me and now she knew why.

  She shook her head in dismay. “That makes Snyder equally guilty in my books. What a bastard.”

  “That’s how I feel about it.”

  “You go shoot him, I won’t tell,” she said jokingly. At least I think she was joking.

  “We need a distraction to get ya out of here without him noticing.”

  She smiled brightly. “I’m not only going to walk past him, I’ll also speak to him and he won’t register it’s me.” She held her hand for a high-five.

  I really admired this woman and couldn’t wait to stick it to Snyder.

  Corner of Driftwood and Ocean, Venice Beach, CA 90292 – 06:45.

  Mia had said to give her a couple of minutes to prepare. I slinked over to the green Impala and banged on the trunk, making them both jump out of their skin. Snyder rolled down his window and snarled. “Damn you, Spooky, I spilled Coke all down me, you crazy sonofabitch!”

  I chuckled, then said, “I thought it only sporting to give you my itinerary for the day. I know ya have such trouble keeping up.”

  “You think I’m dumb or stupid?”

  “Hey, Snyder, don’t sell yourself short,” I said with a smirk. “I think ya dumb and stupid.”

  “You won’t be laughing for long, you are going down.”

  “Yah, well, I won’t be alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll be there right alongside me.”

  “How come?”

  “Calvin Cooper told me all about the deal you two worked out between ya so he’d walk after a short time in a hospital.”

  “You’re going to take the word of a criminally insane con over mine?”

  “Yah, weird, huh?”

  Snyder went to respond when Mia came running down the street. She’d piled her hair upon her head, rolled her skirt up to make it short and similarly done the same to her top and had opened a few buttons. She was right – all they would remember were the legs and the boobs. She stood in the street and screamed her lungs out. Snyder and his sidekick jumped from the Impala and rushed to her aid.

  “What is it, ma’am?” Snyder asked.

  “Officer! Officer! Quickly, a tiger has escaped from the zoo and is running amok down on the beach!” She pointed toward the ocean.

  Snyder drew his gun and dashed full-speed down to the beach. I shook my head at their stupidity and tossed my itinerary into their car to be a good sport.

  We jumped into my Camaro. “I can’t believe that numbnuts fell for a tiger escaping,” I said.

  “You’re right, he’s a pathetic cop.”

  “You were terrific,” I said, truly impressed.

  “I told you, I was an actress. I was famous for my screaming.”

  “I’ve gotta learn that. Waaaah!” I screeched.

  “Stop it,” she said, covering her ears.

  “Waaaah!”

  “Stop it, please!” she begged.

  “Man, that really hurts your throat after a while.”

  Interrogation room 2, H.S.S., 100 W 1st St 5th, Los Angeles, CA 90012 – 9:15.

  As my career was circling the toilet, I thought there was one good deed I could do before I left. I scheduled an interrogation room as I arrived at HQ, then grabbed two cups of what passed as coffee from the vending machine and scooted on down to where Mary Thompson waited patiently. She brightened up when she saw me. I handed her one of the cups, which she took gratefully.

  “I’ve heard the Hangman’s got another one,” she said conversationally.

  “Yah,” I said with a resigned shrug.

  Mary seemed to sense it and patted my hand. “If anyone can find her, you can. I’d want you out there looking for me, I’d feel safe.”

  Safe? I wish. I felt a pang in my heart for Candy.

  I said to Mary, “Good news, by the way.”

  She smiled at me brightly. “What’s that, dear?”

  “You’re free to go.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s been decided that there ain’t enough evidence.”

  “Who decided that?” she asked, giving me a look.

  “It don’t matter – the point is you’re free to go.”

  “Not enough evidence?” she queried. “I killed him and admitted it?”

  “Well, we’ve lost some of the paperwork, so . . .” I shrugged.

  She saw right through me and patted my hand.

  “You’re a good boy, Spooky.”

  Boy?!

  “But I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “It’s too late for that,” I mumbled.

  “What have you done?”

  “It’s better that ya don’t know. Come with me and I’ll get ya outta here.”

  “Where will I go? I don’t know what to do without my Stanley.”

  “Ya can start by sorting out the arrangements for his funeral.”

  “Oh yes, I’d like that.” Tears rolled down her face. “Thank you, I never thought I’d be able to attend his funeral and now I can, God bless you.”

  I led her from the interrogation room to process her out. She didn’t belong in jail. I was satisfied that it was a mercy killing and that was good enough for me.

  “How am I going to pay for his funeral? I haven’t any money?” she suddenly said, stopping dead in her tracks.

  “Don’t ya worry about that, we’ll go and see a friend of mine.”

  I nodded to the desk sergeant who would do the necessary paperwork to make it official. Mary was no longer of interest to us. I made a mental note to get Ferdy to do the same as far as the computer records were concerned: what with everything else going on in the precinct I didn’t think anyone would miss Mary.

  The d
esk sergeant said, “What happened? Have you lost the paperwork?” His tone made it sound as if it was a regular occurrence.

  “Not yet,” said Sheldon, “but he will.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “This is a nice car, dear,” Mary said as I placed her in the passenger seat of my Camaro. “What’s the most you’ve gotten out of her?”

  “Seventy,” I said. “That’s California’s maximum speed limit.”

  She giggled at that. “No, really. What’s the most?”

  “Over one hundred and twenty.”

  She was suitably impressed. “What did that feel like?”

  “The best,” I said, remembering the time alone early in the morning out at Death Valley. I thought that would be the best time, because if a cop was around, I thought they probably couldn’t be bothered to give chase. I timed it towards the end of a shift thinking that would also help evade capture. Hoping that they’d be more interested in finishing the night shift and getting home, rather than taking a speeder in and the several extra hours that the paperwork would take to follow through. The thrill of the speed was out of this world and I thought the engine still had some more poke in it, but when I tried to push it over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, I lost the steering . . . “But at the end I lost control and flipped it and rolled over and over.”

  “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to do that. It looks like a lot of fun.”

  “It was,” I agreed and smiled at the memory.

  “You do live an exciting life,” she said. “I’ve never done anything like that.”

  “Well, don’t start now.”

  “You’ve given me a second chance, maybe I should experience new things, set myself a challenge, maybe a parachute jump. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Stanley always said –” She stopped herself and started to cry.

  I had no words of comfort and I left her to it. The significance of what she had done, even for the right reasons, had to catch up with her eventually. All the time she was in the cell she had kept it together, but now reality hit her hard.

  The Dog & Duck Bar & Restaurant, 555 Pico Boulevard, CA 90410 – 20:30.

  I took Mary into the Dog and Duck and introduced her to Perry. The piggy-eyed bartender spotted me and said, “No fighting today, okay?”

  “I think he’s talking to you,” I said to Mary, which made her smile.

  “What’s going on?” asked Perry after we’d ordered drinks, referring to Mary who was out of earshot over by the jukebox.

  “I want ya to take her out.”

  He made a gun shape with his fingers and held it to his temple. “Yer mean?”

  “No!” I couldn’t believe my ears. “No, take her out, on the town, show her a good time.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking relieved. “I was going to say . . .” He tried to sound like he was shocked, although he didn’t cover it too well. “I’ll be on me double-best behavior.”

  I glared at him for the longest time.

  “What?” he finally asked with his hands wide in total innocence. He sipped his beer and changed the subject. “Any leads on the Hangman?”

  “Nope, all dead ends.”

  “Did yer go back to the beginning like yer usually do?”

  “Yah,” I shrugged.

  “Nothin’ at all? Nothin’ from the early murders?”

  “No point.”

  “How come?”

  “It ain’t the same guy,” I told him as I glugged down my beer.

  “Hang on a minute, I thought six were attributed to the same guy. That’s what the papers are sayin’. He’s back from the dead and all that.”

  “Yah, well I know for a fact that it ain’t the same person.”

  “How can yer be so confident that it ain’t the original?”

  “’Coz I killed him,” I said simply.

  Perry spat in his pint in shock. When he fully recovered, he asked, “How come?”

  “Well, I watched while he killed himself, same difference.”

  “Leave it out.”

  “I’d caught him red-handed. I caught him in the act. Instead of hanging his next victim, he put his own head in the noose. I did nothing to stop him. I guess I should’ve, but I thought it was kinda karma-like that the Hangman got hanged.”

  Perry nodded his agreement. “How come the new killings are the same?”

  “They’re not that similar, other than the hanging element. These are far more elaborate. Far more planning involved.”

  “No connections at all?”

  “The last one was delusional, taking his orders from some ancient Inca god. Whereas this guy’s far more in control, as if the murders are just a front: he’s using the murder to draw something out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Me, I think.”

  “I don’t ‘Adam and Eve it,’” Perry said.

  “What don’t you believe, dear?” Mary asked.

  I was totally astonished. “You can speak Cockney rhyming slang?”

  “Sure, Adam and Eve it – believe it. It’s really quite simple. I had a small part in a Michael Caine movie years ago and he took the time to teach me.” She smiled and added in her best London accent, “He’s a diamond. A straight-up geezer.”

  Perry stared at her in awe, then turned to me and asked, “Why weren’t it on the news if the Hangman had killed himself?”

  “I dunno. I always wondered about that myself. I figured a friend of his had found him, cut him down and buried him somewhere.”

  Perry pointed at me and smiled. “There yer go, he has an accomplice.”

  Delhi Belly Restaurant, 9165, Sunset Blvd, W. Hollywood, CA 90069 – 21:45.

  An accomplice: why hadn’t I thought of that? Why hadn’t anyone thought of that? Because we had no evidence to suggest it, but mainly because nearly all serial killers work alone. With this new idea in my head, I thought the case may have just turned a corner. I knew where the original Hangman lived, I could pull his jacket, look through his past record and known associates. I’d get Ferdy to work his magic on the computer, tracking where they are now. He could check it out surreptitiously: family friends, wives, children, a whole brand-new list of suspects or accomplices.

  Mia’s voice brought me back to the present as we sat and made ourselves comfortable in the plush Indian restaurant – my second visit that week. “What happened?” she asked, pointing at the lumps and bumps on my head.

  “I had a fight with Perry,” I told her.

  “Perry, why?”

  “To see if he was real.”

  “And was he?”

  “Looks like it,” I said, pointing at my bumps.

  “You could’ve just asked him.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  She smiled and sipped her wine. I wondered if she would be interested in Indian cuisine and I’d practically dared her into it and I drove her up to Hollywood to the Delhi Belly on Sunset. She looked suitably impressed with the decorations and ambiance and admitted she’d never tried dishes from the subcontinent, but she liked her Mexican hot and spicy and was up for a challenge and asked me to order for her, as long as it wasn’t the widow-maker.

  “Tell me about Snyder, the Internal Affairs guy,” Mia asked.

  “Not much to tell. He’s made it his life’s work to nail me. I thought he’d moved north. Now he’s back and bears a grudge. I got demoted for slugging him over the Calvin Cooper incident.”

  “Why does he have it in for you? It should be the other way around.”

  “He also accused me of sleeping with his wife.”

  “And were you?”

  “Nah,” I said with a shrug. “Not when he accused me, I wasn’t.”

  She smiled as the very young waitress wearing a multicolored sari brought over two Cobra beers, poppadums, flat pita bread and a selection of dips as an appetizer. I explained to her that we might be able to trace the medieval tools.

  Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “The Hangman is doing
everything by the book. I figured the tools he used would be genuine medieval implements and ya can’t pick them up down at your local Home Depot.” She made a face as if she wasn’t so sure. I continued. “I think it could be a solid lead, I mean, where would ya buy that stuff? On the internet? Is it even legal to import? Are they antiquities, would they need a special license? And that’d leave a paperwork trail.”

  “It’s possible,” she said. “Or he may have fashioned the tools himself, or used the nearest present-day equivalent. They looked to me like gardening tools, at best something that farmers may use and if he’s as clever as we think, he’d have paid cash at some John Deere-type dealership and we’re no better off.”

  I waved my hand in defeat. It was just an idea that had popped into my head. I snapped off a piece of poppadum and dipped it into a green-colored dip that turned out to be cucumber-based. “It was brought to my attention today that the Hangman may have an accomplice,” I said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Understandably, I couldn’t explain how I knew the original Hangman was dead. “It was just an idea.”

  Mia shook her head, dismissing the notion. She said, “I think the key to this case is sexual.”

  “He’s a pervert, for sure, but I thought he was carving up women because he was impotent.”

  “How did you make that leap?”

  “There’s never any sign of sperm –”

  Mia’s eyes darted behind me and I just knew the young waitress was behind me, hearing me say the word ‘sperm’.

  She waited for a suitable period and then asked, “Is everything okay with your meal so far?”

  Mia said, “It’s lovely.”

  I was too embarrassed to speak. The waitress left and Mia laughed at my discomfort. She had a great smile and a great laugh. I was falling for this girl.

  “It doesn’t necessarily follow he’s impotent. He’s been careful so far.”

  “So, ya think he’s wearing a condom?” I asked and once again Mia signaled with her eyes. The waitress’s already dark skin darkened a deep red on catching the end of our conversation. She took my empty poppadum plate and left without comment, making Mia laugh out loud.

  “Do ya think ya could warn me when she’s coming, or switch seats maybe?”