There was a tide of ever-hopeful wannabes and it was depressing to witness. I was equally shocked to observe how the girls I had known had aged. I knew they were drug-takers and that would take its toll on their appearance, but it was like only five years ago. Some of the hookers I cultivated as informers and had become friends of sorts. Well, we would banter and have a joke. I remembered them as innocent and green, fresh off the bus, now they looked like withered old hags, all scrawny, with thin, emancipated bodies, their arms covered in track marks from the injections that they did not cover up and their price had gone down and down along with their fading beauty. Some were so messed up that they did not even recognize me, I was just another john in a sea of faces.
A few were pleasantly surprised to see me, but I had real trouble to keep my expression of shock from my face, their fall from grace had been rapid: in five years on the streets they had aged twenty. Most of the girls were crystal meth users, as it was cheaper than heroin and they had lost teeth as a side effect. They made no attempt to keep themselves looking clean and it was pitiful, but there was an ever-plentiful supply of johns even in this low-end market. I wondered how bad a person’s sex life was at home to cruise this low-rent end of the prostitution market, just to have sex, with these ugly, unhealthy women to be gratified. Or knowing what I know now, maybe that was the appeal, to have sex with a cheap, ugly hooker in their car, with the added danger of getting caught: was that how they got their kicks? Maaan, anything was possible.
Even the information was cheaper these days, but not much good, but when pushed they’d all alluded to a pedophile ring up in Bel Air and hinted at an all-important TV star at its center. Well, I knew who that was, but it was good to have confirmation at a street level by the girls who had attended the parties way back when they were innocent and youthful. And again, there were the unsubstantiated rumors of girls going to the mansion and not coming back. Most had a story of a pal who’d gone there never to return. Even if some girls had just gone home or had luckily hooked up with a boyfriend, the numbers were too high. To my shame I recalled the girls telling me this when I was on Vice, but who listens to drugged-up hookers? They all had rambling stories of a friend leaving without a trace and would be adamant that they would not have left without telling them. I heard that story so many times that I dismissed it, assuming that the girls could not take the life on the streets any longer and returned home, or that’s what I had always thought. A hooker’s life was fraught with danger and their death rate was high, mostly killed by their pimps for some minor misdemeanor: skimming money or drugs was always top of the list. A high percentage killed by a john, mostly a squabble over money or services rendered or lack thereof, but I had never once thought there was widespread murdering of hookers going on, none of us did. Our hooker death rates were no higher than any other major city.
I knocked on the door of an unofficial brothel – well, it had been five years ago and looking at the ramshackle appearance it still was. A Chinese woman’s face appeared at a peephole in the door and shouted back, “It’s him again,” and the door swung open.
Him again!?
I hadn’t been there in over five years! Yet ‘him’ or more like the tone it was said in, signified me and only me. Weird? I had obviously made an impression last time I was there. I spotted Tera, pronounced, ‘terror’: she didn’t take any crap from anyone, an independent who didn’t need a man to steer her career. She was always fun to talk to, had a great sense of humor, and in another life, who knew? I liked her, but she didn’t like me, or cops to be more precise which made sense given her line of business. It wouldn’t do much for her street cred. The precinct rumor mill was rife with cops falling for tarts with hearts. It was a cliché, cops wanting to save them from their life of depravity. The Hangman being a cop sprang to the front of my mind again. Could it be an avenging crusader cleaning the area of whores? I wondered who was religious in the department if it was a cop. It pretty much had to be someone in the squad or very close to it. The captain was a highly religious man, I knew for a fact, and I had since heard his Church was extremely strict especially about sex before marriage and whores in general, their sermons full of fire and brimstone. I had dismissed him earlier and it still didn’t gel.
Could it be Ferdy? He sure knew more than most about medieval torture equipment and the Inca sacrifices. Could his whole persona be camouflage? No one could be that much of a nerd. I’m sure I heard he was a Scout troop leader and I’m sure Scout troop leaders had their fair share of child molesters. I rolled it around in my head but it just didn’t fit. The religious angle was obvious. Present in many serial killer defense cases, the perpetrator heard voices, like me, messages from God, not like me, or one time a dog, definitely not like me, but mostly messages from religious folks, the Virgin Mary or Archangels, or so their defense lawyers claimed, trying to save their necks with a cushy spell in a psycho ward. The Hangman spouted off such nonsense. I’d gone over that and it sounded bogus. I was starting to feel the Hangman and his proclamations of cleansing the streets of whores sounded a bit cheesy and wondered if it was all misdirection. Have us chasing after the religiously connected suspects, of which there were plenty. I mulled it over and it sounded much more likely.
I strolled over to Tera and was horrified by her face close up: it was all lined and creased. She had been such a beauty, far too good for the streets. She’d lost some teeth and gained some home-made tattoos.
“Hey, Tera, remember me?”
“Can’t say I do?”
“It’s me, Spooky.”
“Spooky. . .Spooky. . .Oh my God! Spooky! Where have you been?”
“I joined Homicide.”
“This a business call?”
“Yah.”
“The Hangman?”
“Why’d ya ask?”
“Those bodies in the canyon, hookers, right?” she asked.
“Yah, right.”
Tera looked angry. “I told ’em that.”
“Who?”
“Those other cops, they made the connection, and came around asking their stupid questions, but didn’t seem so interested soon as they realized that it was hookers.”
True but what could I say? So I shrugged instead.
“If you’re in Homicide why ain’t you on the case?”
“I have a vested interest,” I said.
“What’s that mean?”
“He’s got my girl.”
“Hot damn, Spooky, I’m so sorry,” I could see her imagining the horror that we both knew Mia would face and couldn’t think of what to say to console me. Then the other part of my statement sank in. “He’s got another one?”
“Keep that to yourself,” I said pointlessly, knowing that she’d tell everyone the moment I left. Unless the drugs had rotted her short-term memory, I could only hope.
“You know, she had made the connection to the hookers.”
“Who?”
“The female cop.”
There wasn’t a female in Dekes’s team. “What did she look like?”
“Supermodel thin.”
Mia? It couldn’t be. I kept my voice from shaking. “What did she ask ya?”
“How many girls were missing, who was new in town, you know, like who was going to be the next victim?”
I nodded. They were sensible questions but why would she be operating alone? Tera asked, “Spooky, is there anything I should, or shouldn’t be doing?”
“Don’t pierce ya genitals.”
“My what?”
“No piercings down there, it starts the Hangman off.”
“Whatever.”
I paused for a moment, then asked, “Why did that Chinese girl say, ‘it’s him again’?”
“You don’t remember the last time you were here?” Tera roared with laughter. “I think you’d forgotten your meds!”
Damnit. That reminded me. I’d forgotten to pick them up. I made a mental note to get them later. I asked her to explain but couldn’t get a
ny more sense out of her. What the hell had I done? I slipped her a twenty and left feeling even more disenchanted.
It was a pretty fruitless expedition and I felt worse at the end of my investigations. I was no closer to the Hangman, but I had a ton more rumors involving Bruce Matherson, bad as he was shaping up to be; it was a side issue and belonged to Vice. As I drove away, I wondered about the bodies we’d found up in the canyon. It made sense that they were hookers. No one would investigate a missing hooker with much more than a cursory glance over the evidence, which pretty much consisted of hearing that someone had upped and gone, but again, this was standard. Girls did go home, or so I’d always thought. Mia had made the connection and followed it up in her spare time. Jesus, why had she done that alone? Why not tell me? Was she on the right track? Had the Hangman spotted her? Had it made him nervous, is that why he took her, breaking his pattern of victims with pierced genitalia. If she’d got a lead why hadn’t she told me? Had he set her up? Going with the theory it’s someone we knew, she may have even turned to them for help and walked right into a trap. Oh Mia.
I went home, popped into the corner store for some milk, for me, meat rolls and ready-to-eat pies, for Clarence and Jabba-The-Mutt. The owner berated me, telling me I wasn’t welcome after the trouble I’d caused him for thwarting the robbery. I left the store and handed Clarence the pies and meat rolls, although initially grateful he yelled after me concerned about the fat content and the high amount of E numbers. There’s no pleasing some people. I made a mental note to check the labels before I bought them anything again. At least Jabba-The-Mutt seemed pleased.
The surfer dudes clambered down the rope ladder and we high-fived. I noticed that a couple of them had copied me and were wearing dog collars. It looked like I had started a new fashion: who would have thought it? Spooky Jackson a trendsetter? Will wonders never cease? But it did nothing to lift my spirits. I turned to look at the vomit-green Impala. The Internal Affairs guys had the ragtop down enjoying the rays and forgetting all pretense of being an undercover operation. Snyder chomped from a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken; he waved a chicken wing at me to acknowledge that he was watching. Then slung the box onto the sidewalk. What a jackass. He started on a second box. I went back into the Mr. Yoon’s, slipped the Korean a twenty to let me out his back door, then I stealthily crept up behind the Impala; Snyder didn’t once use his rear-view mirror, so intent on watching the front entrance of the convenience store. He really was useless, which was good for me, but bad for catching criminals. I crouched low by the back wheel, thinking about letting down the tires. When he threw his second box of KFC and a practically full twenty-ounce of Coke onto the sidewalk, I was presented with an opportunity too good to miss.
Snyder stretched, burped, and thumped his chest, making his sidekick titter when I scooped up all his litter and dropped it on his lap. “What the f –?” He jumped from the car and brushed himself down, but it was too late: his light gray suit was covered in Coke and grease. “Look at my suit.”
“Yah, about time ya buy a new one and get out of the 1980s.”
“That’s not what I meant, you jerk, and you know it.”
“You really are one crazy loon,” said his sidekick.
“Ya dropped ya KFC, man.”
“I didn’t drop it. I threw it out.”
“Well, then, that’s litter.”
“So?” He was getting annoyed.
“I’m arresting ya.”
“For what?”
The sidekick laughed. “Spooky, you’re one crazy loon. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”
Snyder hadn’t given up yet. “Oh, so now you’re the litter police?”
“Littering the streets is against the law, so here’s the deal. You pay the fine and I won’t bust ya.”
“Get out of here,” said the sidekick, fed up with the game.
“One hundred bucks fine. Come on, cough up.” I made a hand-it-over gesture with my fingers.
“I ain’t giving you no money,” Snyder snarled. “You should be giving me money for a new suit.”
“I’ll give ya fifty cents for that one.”
“I can’t wait to arrest you.”
“Yah, you’re doing such a great job of catching me so far.”
“I’ll catch you. You’ll screw up. People like you always do.”
“People like me?”
“You. Bent cop. Planting evidence.”
“I’ll let ya off this time.”
“Why thank you.” Sarcastic. I got it.
As I strolled away, I heard them throw the litter out of the car again. Some people just never learn. I went back into Mr. Yoon’s and the owner threw his hands in the air exasperated. I went through the back again and as I approached the car I saw Clarence pick up the KFC boxes and he couldn’t believe his luck.
I slinked into a doorway just in case Snyder acted like a detective and decided to check his rear-view mirror and said, “Pst!” as Clarence passed, making him jump. He took a moment to focus then recognized me.
“Hey, Clarence, I need a favor.”
He offered to share his spoils.
“No, man, not that sorta favor.”
“I do a favor – you do me a favor,” he said in his best Brando. Goddamnit. This could take all day. I didn’t have time for him to go through his Godfather repertoire.
“I’ll give ya ten bucks for the empty box.”
He looked at me curiously. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yah, well, no, but I need that box. You can take the chicken first.”
I handed over the ten, but he was reluctant to take it, thinking I was manifesting some sort of mental illness. “It’s evidence,” I explained.
This satisfied him. “It’s your money.”
“Your fingerprints ain’t on file, are they?”
“Uhuh, but if they were I could make it go away,” he said, falling back into Brando. He rubbed his palms together as if performing magic.
He sauntered off, tossing the best piece of chicken into the air and Jabba-The-Mutt caught it before it hit the ground.
I carefully held the box so as not to get fingerprints on it and glared at Snyder in the Impala. “I’ll give ya ‘planting evidence’.”
CHAPTER 34
My duplex, Driftwood Street, Venice Beach, CA 90292 – 11:15.
I entered my apartment and could only remember the times when Mia had been there with me. I went over in my head all I knew about the Hangman, his habits and methodology of the executions, and came up with a big, fat zero. I thought his capture would be down to dumb luck, or it would be in the details. Something Ferdy would unearth: policing these days was down to science, criminals were caught in test tubes and Petri dishes. The old knock ’em down and drag ’em out cops like me, our days were numbered: it would be computers and technology that would catch criminals, with the minutiae and the undisputable DNA. I lay on the couch staring at the ceiling and wondered what Mia had found out that would send her off on her own to track down the Hangman. She had a reckless streak, maybe she was a glory hound and wanted the praise for his capture single-handedly. If she wanted an instant career boost that would do it, no doubt about it, but somehow it didn’t sound like her. She was level-headed and too smart to fall for a trick. I couldn’t stand the inactivity. I’m an action guy, not a thinker. Thinking only had me worried about Mia, the terror she was going through. I never thought for one moment that she could be harmed on my watch and I would never forgive myself. I needed to be doing something, tracing someone, be on the move. Yet I had nothing but dead ends. Maybe if I worked backward through the case, I must’ve missed something. Maybe I should be more like Ferdy, look at the details, the things the Hangman may have overlooked. Then it came to me, it’s in the details. The Hangman was using original weaponry; someone made it or imported it. I remember that the medieval fayre was on today and that would be a good place to start.
Camelot Medieval Fayre, middle of nowhere, Bakersfield, CA 9
3301 – 13:00.
I easily slipped past Snyder: his incompetence was starting to annoy me. I jumped into my car and headed to Bakersfield. I didn’t have the exact address but guessed that I would see all the weirdos that dressed up for these things. Sure enough, as I got nearer, I saw advertising signs and several people dressed as jesters and maidens. I found the field in the middle of nowhere and saw the medieval fayre was in progress. I parked up and was stunned by the size of the operation. The grounds covered several acres and included distinct regions such as the cathedral stage, wishing well stage, a village tavern, and forest area. I headed for the tavern. A no-brainer really. I passed the mock-up of the cathedral and was impressed with the detail of the stonework and the accuracy of the doorway. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. I entered the tavern, where not only were the bar staff dressed as wenches, it appeared that the patrons had gone to the trouble of wearing costumes, too, in fact; I was the only one not in keeping. “Good morrow, Sire, what thou needest?” asked the landlord.
Huh? “Your finest ale, fetch me,” I said, trying to play along, but sounding more like Yoda.
“Nay, methinks not,” he said and I groaned inwardly. This was going to take an eon. “Methinks yee would partake in some mead.”
I nodded. Fine. Whatever. He poured a drink from a bottle that had an unhealthy hue of dull yellow.
On The Edge Page 31
