by Ty Patterson
He laughed, a high pitched laugh that set the hairs on Sandoval’s arms standing. ‘The net. That’s where I find my victims.’
‘I then called Attica. I told them I was your brother, cooked up a story of dying father. No luck. I went back to all the articles about you, read something about you volunteering at a church. I called up all the churches. I’ve been up all night and all day. Was a bitch, finding you.’
He thumped the bat against his leg.
‘Hear that sound? Imagine how it feels when it smashes a face. But you know all about that feeling, don’t you Carl?’
Sandoval sprang at him, went underneath the bat swing, hit him in the shoulder and the two went down. Sandoval rained blows on him, but the killer jacked a knee up, swung the bat and hit Sandoval on the side of his head.
‘Your time has gone, old man.’ The killer gloated as Sandoval fell to the side. His sneer vanished as a shiv entered his right, just beneath his ribs. He roared in pain and rage, slapped Sandoval’s arm away and the bat came down, hard.
Blood poured from Sandoval’s face, pooled around his head.
He kicked out feebly.
The bat broke his leg. The scream choked in his throat as the bat’s rounded head rammed into his neck.
The killer bent over him, his dark eyes glittering. ‘What was the plan, Carl? Was it to trap me? Who was behind it?’
The killer’s eyes burnt with a light Sandoval recognized. They were his eyes when he was a killer. His mind swam, he knew he didn’t have much time. He knew the killer would make him talk.
He summoned all his energy and lashed out with his good leg, caught the killer’s groin, crawled to the door.
The killer howled and staggered back, gasping. He doubled over in pain, squeezed his eyes shut. They flew open when he heard scrabbling.
Sandoval trying to open the door.
The killer grabbed Sandoval by the leg, dragged him to the center of the room and flipped him over onto his back.
‘Not so fast, Carl.’ He gasped.
‘You owe me a story.’
He rose from the dying man forty-five minutes later, looked down at the dimming light in his eyes and grimaced as he held his left side. The shiv had just penetrated his flesh, hadn’t gone in deep, but it still hurt like a bitch.
Lucky, you’re wearing several layers and a body suit on top.
That’s not luck. That’s preparation.
Good thinking on clasping the shiv and not letting it fall to the floor.
Why I’ve stayed ahead of the cops.
He said something about twins. Twins with green eyes.
His eyes narrowed as Sandoval’s body twitched, causing his hand to move away.
‘What’s that you’re hiding, Carl?’
He bent down and moved the hand.
He twisted his head to read and whistled slowly. ‘Trying to warn them, Carl? You’re being naughty aren’t you?’
His head rose sharply as sirens pierced the silence and drowned the dying man’s sounds.
He walked to the window and swore when he couldn’t see anything.
He came back to Sandoval and raised his bat.
‘Bye, Carl’
Thwack.
He dipped a gloved finger in Sandoval’s blood and wrote over the letters the dead man had scrawled. One last look in the apartment to check he’d left nothing behind and he shut the door quietly and hustled to the stairs.
Stairs not elevator. It wasn’t working when I came up. In any case, fewer people take the stairs. Less risk.
Midway down the steps, his foot slipped and he lurched and slammed the sidewall. He swore softly and hurried down, the sirens growing louder in the distance.
He was down a second flight when a thought struck him and he turned around and ran up.
There. That smudge in the wall.
Sweat broke out on his forehead as he examined the blood smear on the wall, blood from his side. He ripped open his backpack, searched inside for the cleaning tools he carried, when another thought struck him.
He dug deeper and withdrew a claw-hammer.
Five minutes later, a chunk of concrete dropped in his backpack. He flashed a light on the hole, grinned silently and headed out.
Cop cruisers flashed past just as he hit the street, their occupants staring ahead.
That’s the NYPD for you.
Always late.
Looking in the wrong place.
He looked up at the sky and felt like howling in joy.
Killing a killer feels so good.
Now for some fresh meat.
Chapter 12
‘I asked him to wait. Not to make contact with the killer. He went ahead.’
Only Broker and the twins could detect the anger and bitterness in Zeb’s voice.
Zeb walked further inside Sandoval’s apartment and looked around.
He had left several messages for Sandoval and when no reply came, his inner radar had pinged. He had called Pizaka and Chang the moment he saw the broken door, waited for the cops to come and had then stepped inside to the apartment’s gruesome scene.
The place was crawling with the NYPD’s forensic team, Pizaka and Chang hovered outside.
Blood. Blood coated the floor, along with chunks of flesh. Sandoval lay sprawled in the room, with what was left of his head, lolling at the top of his body.
Zeb half turned behind him, shrugged when the sisters, their faces white, shook their heads vehemently.
We’re not leaving.
‘They fought.’ Chang commented as he took in the upended desk, the fallen computer. The floor was scuffed in places.
‘Sandoval wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.’ Zeb stepped back to allow a forensic criminologist to pass through.
His eyes lingered on Sandoval’s phone on the bed. It blinked silently, signaling missed calls and messages from Zeb.
His eyes moved to the three letters written in blood, mockingly.
BBK.
He looked at Sandoval one last time.
He tried to help me. I failed him.
The beast raged in him for a moment, before he quelled it. Now was not the time to let it loose.
He walked out hours later when Sandoval’s body was bagged and taken away and joined Pizaka and Chang. ‘Let the forensic guys do their job.’
Chang’s face was grim. ‘Let’s hope we get lucky. The neighbors said they didn’t hear anything or spot any stranger, but there was a rush of cop cruisers going past. Roughly at the same time as Sandoval’s death. And that must have covered any sounds from the apartment. But the maybe the killer left in a rush and didn’t clean up thoroughly.’
Beth faced him. ‘How did the killer find Sandoval?’
Chang raked his fingers through his short hair. ‘For a resourceful scumbag like him, it wouldn’t be difficult. Sandoval attracted a lot of media attention when he turned to religion and when he was released; he was in the spotlight for some time. The killer must have used those articles as a starting point. If I was a guessing man, the killer probably called all the churches around and got his details from where he was janitor.’
‘He’s dead. How does it matter how the killer found him.’ Pizaka growled.
He glared at Zeb, a look that burnt the air. You’re responsible.
‘You alright, buddy?’
The killer wiped the sweat off his face, nodded, and brushed the hand off his shoulder. He walked a few steps away and stood hunched over, breathing deeply to control the trembling.
He had made his escape as soon as he had heard the sirens, but had returned soon after changing to keep watch outside Sandoval’s apartment block.
Sandoval had held out for a long time, but when the killer started to gouge his eyes out, he’d given in and told everything.
Twins!
Could they be the same?
He jostled through the crowd when he returned, making sure he wasn’t in direct line of sight from the apartment.
He waited
.
Cops came, left, Forensics units came, left.
And then his trembling began. His sweat poured down his face.
A SUV screeched to a halt and before it had even stopped, a man came out, moving as if his feet didn’t touch the ground. Carter. The driver came out, his shaggy hair swaying in the light breeze. Broker.
Broker opened the rear door, and brown hair appeared
Another head appeared. More brown hair that gleamed and shone.
A head turned, a smile flashed.
Green eyes.
The killer bent as if struck, and the man clasped his shoulder.
‘You alright, buddy?’
Broker left Zeb and the twins at Sandoval’s apartment and headed back to his office. He had a date to keep with Yuri.
‘You’re getting fat and lazy on Western capitalism,’ he harangued Yuri.
‘I’ve done all I can, bro. I’ve given the lists to you. I can’t conjure the killer for you, can I’? He grumbled.
Broker hung up the phone after a few more threats, all empty. Yuri had done everything he could in extracting names from the retailers.
He sighed and moved to the window. Ten dead now. Something had to give. The killer’s luck couldn’t hold out forever.
He patted his pocket absently as his phone rang.
It was on the desk. He turned to get it, but it stopped ringing.
The ping of voicemail sounded.
He dialed the number, listened, and frowned.
Odd.
He called Zeb. ‘How long will you guys be?
‘A couple of hours. You tapped your informants?’
Broker smacked his forehead. ‘I’ve spoken to most of them. Nada. Haven’t spoken to Slick. Will call him now.’
Over the years Zeb and Broker had cultivated a network of informants throughout the city who were their eyes and ears. They provided an additional layer of intel that went into Werner. The informants ranged from pickpockets to reformed criminals, to drunks who lived on the sidewalk.
Slick was a small-time drug runner who operated in Brooklyn. He was freelance, didn’t belong to any gang, and sold marijuana to all takers. The dealer had approached Zeb one night as he waited at a light little realizing the nature of his prospective buyer.
Zeb had trapped his arm in his window and had wreaked pain of a kind Slick had never experienced before. Slick’s smarts impressed Zeb during the subsequent interrogation and a deal was struck.
Informer in return for freedom.
Slick built a network of informants, an intel pipe that had helped Zeb and Broker on many of their missions in the city.
‘Slick, you’ve forgotten us, my man,’ Broker shouted when he got the dealer on his phone. He held his phone away and grinned silently as a liquid stream of assurances issued from Slick.
‘Yeah, all that is fine, but you haven’t come up with gold dust in a long time.’
He cut short the man’s protestations. ‘Listen, you know there’s this killer on the street, this BBK guy. I want him. Spread the word. Tell all your guys, drunks, pickpockets, pimps, hoods, all those stellar citizens you work with. We’re hunting this guy. Anything you can get on him, sightings, description, who he is, anything, I want to know.’
He hung up and patted his workstation. Werner didn’t respond, it was chewing away silently in the background.
TLC. Tender Loving Care. Broker swore by it. Even computers needed it.
It was ten p.m. by the time Broker headed out of his office. Zeb and the Petersens were still with the cops. He didn’t need them. This was a thread he could pursue on his own.
He nodded at the concierge and stepped out briskly, breathing in deeply the sounds and smells of the city. Broker had been to many lands, and had many friends all over, but New York was his home. The city was his pulse.
He walked down Columbus Avenue, thought for a moment about taking the subway at Columbus Circle. It’s warm and pleasant. The boys know I’m coming. They stay open till late in any case. He decided to walk further, to the subway stop on Seventh Avenue. He hummed along, eyed the women who passed him by. Admirer. Strictly, an admirer of the female form.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A message from Zeb. Zeb lived on text messages. He rarely used voice calls. Broker shook his head. That man.
He thumbed open the message and didn’t hear the light step behind him.
Behind! Air movement.
He was swinging to the left just before the blow struck him on the right temple, most of its power lost because of his movement and his thick hair.
It still had enough to bring him down on his left. He twisted as he fell, the phone flying from his hand, his left hand snaking under his jacket.
The black figure in front of him moved. It’s him. The bat swung. Move! Forget the gun.
Broker left the ground, came inside the arc of the blow and blocked the killer’s forearm with his left. His right hand sought the man’s upper arm to swing him around and bring him down.
The killer came inside and head butted Broker, a vicious crack that broke Broker’s forehead and filled his eyes with sheets of blood. The killer struck again, a vicious hand strike on Broker’s shoulder.
Broker fell. He’s close, he thought dimly. His right hand reached out and grabbed the man’s ankle, yanked it and his left hand found the man’s groin.
The killer groaned, but instead of stepping back, fell on top of Broker, one knee pinning the prone man down.
Can’t see.
Broker shook his head to dislodge the blood, saw the masked man reach for the fallen baseball bat, and summoning all his strength, he roared and rabbit punched the man’s throat.
His hand met air as the killer dodged the strike easily, trapped Broker’s arm, reached inside his clothing and steel flashed. The blade went inside Broker’s left, seeking his lungs, his heart. Shock speared Broker, white pain followed and flooded his body.
Not like this. Wake up.
Broker yelled loudly. He twisted his body in the small space and jackknifed his feet, striking the killer in the back with his knees. The attacker lost his grip, fell away from Broker and bent down for his bat.
A shout in the distance. The killer looked up, looked down at Broker.
The bat swung.
Keysi.
Broker brought his arms up in a Keysi self-defense move, covered his head and took the blow on his forearms.
His vision dimmed.
One last time.
He levered up and grabbed the killer’s jacket just as the bat swung again.
Darkness.
The first drops of rain fell on his neck. Broker didn’t feel them.
Zeb drove the twins back from Sandoval’s apartment, the thick silence in the SUV not hiding their collective frustration. The forensics team hadn’t found anything in the apartment. They still were at it, but their body language and the look in their eyes told its own story.
‘There must be something! Sandoval fought with the killer. Surely there would be some trace evidence.’ Beth blew a breath in frustrated anger.
Meghan's lips curved in a smile as she regarded her sister. Everyone took Meghan to be the feisty one, but Beth, she had steel. And determination.
‘How many are left on your list now?’ Zeb asked from ahead.
‘About a hundred still. We’d pared the numbers down, but Yuri came up with some more names that matched our criteria. The cops are still running those names to see if any of them have criminal records. Beth and I are digging into their profiles more.’
It’s slow going. We aren’t hopeful. She didn’t say it. They knew.
Zeb cut ahead of a limousine which was stuffed with women going to a party, they yelled and waved at him as he passed. ‘This is a long shot. The cab that had the security camera? Call that driver again and get footage from him for the previous three or four weeks.’
Beth snapped her fingers. ‘The killer must have checked out the site and maybe, just maybe, the camera caught
him.’
Meghan bowed from behind. ‘Wise One, you walk on water. Now why don’t you make this thing fly and get us to the office.’
The office was empty when they arrived. Meghan checked if Broker had left any messages, any notes. Nothing. Beth ran down to his apartment. Empty.
They looked at Zeb, baffled. Broker seldom left the office when he was on a mission. He usually accompanied Zeb when he did. He rarely flew solo.
‘Check out the GPS trackers on him.’
Meghan darted to her computer and banged the keys. Her shoulders slumped. ‘They’re inactive.’
Zeb walked to the window and looked at the skyline, in the distance Chrysler building stood proudly, beaconing. He tamped down the unease deep within him. No need to alarm the twins. He’ll be back from wherever he’s gone.
Two a.m. The twins were asleep on a couch, Zeb was awake. The unease had blossomed and filled him. Broker and he were never out of contact for so long, when they were on a mission. Or on a case.
He dug out his phone, fired off a text to a number.
The reply came back immediately. The sender always answered her phone, no matter the time, especially when it was Zeb asking.
Nope, not heard from him. The reply from Clare blinked on Zeb’s phone.
He texted the others, Bwana, Roger, Bear, and Chloe and got prompt replies. Nothing.
The sun broke through the night and painted Chrysler Building gold. It had rained overnight and a slight mist hung over the freshly-washed city.
Zeb didn’t see any of it. He was half asleep, his feet up on his desk.
Meghan woke up an hour later, stretched, looked around and memory came flooding back. She nudged Beth, who woke instantly, comprehension in her eyes.
They looked at Zeb. Let him sleep, she mouthed at Beth.
They tiptoed outside, headed to Broker’s apartment where they freshened up.
It was there, that Meghan got the call.
Zeb was awake when they rushed back.
He saw their faces.
‘Broker –’
Time stumbled and didn’t straighten.
He was moving, by the door and past the sisters before Meghan completed her sentence. Behind him something fell. A computer. He didn’t look back. It didn’t matter. Very little did. Meghan’s words passed around him, through him, without registering.
