by Sam Ripley
She walked over to the keyboard and pressed one of the keys. The sound was still clear, beautiful. Hope had the piano tuned regularly even though neither she nor her daughter played, probably for the same reason she wouldn’t allow anyone to touch her deceased husband’s things. Both mother and daughter half expected him to return. Kate sat down at the piano and took hold of one of her father’s scores. She opened it at random, amazed that her father – the descendant of poor Russian Jews who had come to America at the very end of the nineteenth century – had possessed what she saw as an extraordinary talent. Did he hear the music in his head before he wrote it down, she always wondered. Or did it form itself when he was sitting at the piano? She tried to imagine doing it herself, willing the sound of music to stir inside her head, but there was nothing, only the rustle of the breeze in the trees outside.
Just then her cell rang. She jumped with a start. She reached inside the pocket of her jeans. It was Josh.
‘Hi, Josh,’ she said.
‘Where are you? Are you okay?’ He sounded worried, anxious.
‘Sure, I’m fine. I’m still at my mom’s place. What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Cassie Veringer. You remember that -’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, images of the past beginning to flash through her mind. ‘Is she okay?’
‘She’s fine. But we’ve just had news that she’s been sent something.’
‘And?’
‘Kate – it was a package containing three human fingertips. We don’t yet know where they are from – who they are from – but as you imagine we’re treating it very seriously.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said, already knowing what Josh was going to say.
‘Gleason, yes,’ he said.
‘But he’s dead.’
He hadn’t worked on the Gleason investigation – it was before his time – but Kate had been troubled by nightmares for years afterwards. Since then he had made it his business to look into the case.
‘Josh – he’s dead. Right?’
‘Sorry, that was just Peterson saying something. Yeah, for sure he’s dead.’
‘So it’s just another fruitcake. A coincidence. That’s all it is. Motivated by that recent Times piece.’ Kate was desperate to try and convince herself.
‘Could be, yes.’
Kate stood up and walked over to the French windows. Everything seemed normal. Her mother was outside, talking to one of the gardeners, the elderly, rotund Puerto Rican with the lovely kind smile. The water glistened in the pool. The gates to the drive were locked, secure. So why did she feel so afraid, as if she were being hunted, terrorised? She looked around the room, half expecting to see an intruder standing behind her, watching her, but of course there was no-one there.
‘Kate – you’re not keeping anything from me? Anything I need to know.’
‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘Why would I do that?’
She could hear someone say something in the background.
‘Okay, Peterson,’ said Josh. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. Call me later, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Bye.’
It had to be a fluke, right? The idea that there was some connection between her discovery of that baby girl in the ocean and the package that had been sent to Cassie Veringer was just too awful to contemplate. And it was impossible. Ridiculous. Bobby Gleason had committed suicide seven years ago while on death row in San Quentin State Prison.
Gleason. The name was enough to turn her stomach. She felt the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. She needed a glass of water.
An image of him standing in the court, just after receiving his sentence, flashed into her head. She remembered him turning towards her and smiling, a look that promised unfinished business. She recalled the dreams she had had, the nightmares that haunted her months after he had been imprisoned. The thought that one day he would do to her what he had done to those six women, that he would kidnap her, take her out in that van - which the state prosecutor, Jordan Weislander, had likened to a travelling circus of torture - rape, brutalise and mutilate her until finally she pleaded to be killed. She pictured herself on her knees, naked and degraded, before him, begging him to slit her throat.
Most likely Gleason would have carried on killing had it not been for Cassie Veringer. The court heard how he had assaulted her late one night in a downtown parking lot. He had hit her over the head with a broken bottle, pushed her into his van and tied her up. He had driven out into the desert – the empty quarter Gleason had called it, a place where nobody could hear you scream, a line that he had kept repeating, a phrase from some movie that he had liked. That same night, after taking a mixture of scotch, cocaine and Viagra, Gleason had raped and sodomised her. Cassie, however, had had the foresight – and the courage – to feel his face, even during the most brutal moments of the attack. He had told her that in the morning he would kill her – he didn’t like the fact that she kept touching him, it freaked him out, he said. At some point that night Gleason, in a drug and alcohol-induced haze, must have passed out. Cassie – who miraculously had not lapsed into unconsciousness – had managed to be able to crawl out of the van and disappear into the night. The fact that it had been dark had worked in her favour, as she had used her other, heightened senses to guide her through the arid scrubland to the nearest house.
By the time the police had arrived at the scene her assailant, of course, had disappeared. The cops followed up a number of leads, but they were unable to trace him. It had been at this point that Kate had been called in to work with Cassie on a facial reconstruction of her attacker. The resulting image – taken from a three-dimensional clay sculpture – was released to the media. Three days later, Bobby Gleason was pulled over by a cop, who spotted him driving erratically on the Pasadena freeway. The officer, Dale Hoban, recognised him immediately and, after radioing for help, cuffed and arrested him. Bobby Gleason’s killing spree was over.
Or was it?
Kate swallowed another glassful of water, her mouth suddenly dry and parched.
She had been wanting to get pregnant for the last couple of years. She couldn’t imagine anything more precious to her than a baby.
Then she discovers a dead child in the sea.
For Cassie – a blind woman – her sense of touch was probably her most valuable asset, the sense she prized above all.
Then she gets sent a package containing three human fingertips.
The message was clear, thought Kate, clear and deadly. Each woman was being sent a sign, an omen almost. A warning that said: be prepared to lose what you love.
She needed to talk to Josh. She would have to tell him the truth. Now she had no choice.
8
He leant forward through the cloud of smoke and reached out to take the joint.
‘It’s good, yeah?’ said the man opposite, running his hand through his long, black hair.
‘Yeah, real good,’ he said, pretending to inhale. Drugs were for the weak of will, the inadequates of this world.
‘But what’s with the gloves, man?’
‘What a drag,’ he said. ‘Doctor says I’ve got eczema. Got to keep these goddamn things on. It’s been getting me down. The gloves, creams, medication, you know. Another reason why tonight I really want to go for it, if you know what I mean. Try something a bit more far out.’
‘I’m sure that can be arranged,’ said the man, smiling. ‘If you got the dough, I can get you whatever you want. They don’t call me Friendly Phil for nothing, man.’
He had been watching Phil for the best part of four months, tracking his every move, his every drop-off. He’d got his number from one of the punks on the street. He’d made contact by ringing his cell. He’d paid him for some grass, a few lines of coke, buying more and more over the course of the last few weeks. He’d always been careful to do business often at night and in out of the way locations like under the freeway interchanges or in the dark shadows of Elysian Park. Finally, after gaining his trust, Ph
il had invited him to his house in the hills on the wrong side of Silver Lake. Earlier that night he had followed Phil in his car, off Riverside Drive, by the dry Los Angeles River, on to Allesandro Street, and sharp left onto Sunflower. The road snaked up the hill until it finally turned into a dirt track, at the end of which lay Phil’s old, wooden house. As he had got out of his car he could hear the constant thrum of the Golden State Freeway below. He didn’t expect Phil to cry out, but if he did the noise of the traffic would probably drown out the sounds.
‘You’re turning into one of my best customers, do you know that, Jim?’
He had quite enjoyed pretending to be Jim, but he realised it couldn’t go on forever. He would have to finish him off just as he was going to kill Phil.
‘Yeah, and I’m pleased to do business with you too, man,’ he said. ‘Times must be booming for you, right?’
‘I can’t complain,’ said Phil. ‘But I can’t keep in this line of work forever. Got to move on. Find something else.’
‘Getting bored?’
‘No, far from it, man,’ said Phil. ‘Just that sooner or later the cops get onto you. That or the gangs. I give it another six months, a year, and I’m out of it. By that time I should have enough dough to go straight. Set up my own business selling reconditioned guitars down in Santa Monica. Got it all planned.’
Should he give him a chance to get out? Clean himself up so he could go straight?
No way. How many times had he heard that before? Dealers were always promising themselves that they were going to go legit. But, in reality, they were just as addicted to making money as their clients were to the drugs.
But he would give him the opportunity anyway. One question. How he answered it would determine his fate. It was only right, after all.
‘Does it ever get to you?’ he asked. ‘What you do?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, dealing to kids, like.’
‘What, do you mean do I ever feel guilty?’
‘Yeah.’
‘No way, man. As I see it I’m just a provider. There’s a demand out there that needs to be met, whatever. If I didn’t do it, sure as hell somebody would.’
‘So you don’t look back and think – I don’t know – if only –‘
‘Fuck that, man. Never look back, that’s my philosophy. Got to live in the present. The here and now.’
‘So there’s nobody that you wish you –‘
‘That I’d not dealt to?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuck off, man. Haven’t got time to think of that shit.’
So now he had his answer.
‘What’s with the questions, man? Sounds like you need – hey, I got just the thing.’
Phil got up from his chair and walked across the room. He stopped by the top of the range sound system and put on another CD, something that sounded like an electronic reworking of dolphins singing.
‘Just make yourself comfortable,’ he said, shouting through the music and going into the kitchen.
The guy, he thought, was a walking cliché. A tall, skinny, ageing hippy with a pony tail and a penchant for ambient music. One individual the world would not miss. As he waited for Phil to return, he got himself ready. He was sure he was doing the right thing, so he didn’t have to worry about battling with his conscience. That had all been settled. And, after all, he had even given him one last chance. All he had to do now was check he had everything he needed to do the job smoothly, cleanly, with the minimum amount of fuss.
He bent down and took hold of his rucksack, slowly unzipping it, feeling around for the syringe. The needle was still protected by its cover – he didn’t want to go and accidentally inject himself with this kind of stuff, he thought – but with the flick of his finger he would remove the sheath and it would be ready. He heard Phil’s footsteps as he walked across the wooden floor and then the sound of a drawer opening.
‘You won’t believe this stuff,’ shouted Phil. ‘It doesn’t get any better than this.’
‘Yeah, can’t wait,’ he replied, smiling to himself.
‘It’s weird shit, though,’ said Phil, as he came out of the kitchen. ‘Too much and you’ve had it. So you’ve got to watch it, man. I’m serious. Don’t laugh, man.’
Phil sat down and started to open the pill box. He unscrewed the lid slowly, carefully, and took out one of the blue tablets, cradling the drug in the palm of his hand.
‘Can I see?’ he said, getting up from his chair.
‘Sure.’
‘So what is it?’
‘You don’t want to know, man,’ said Phil. ‘But I can guarantee that it’s the closest thing to paradise I’ve found. Really far out trip.’
‘But not too much? What no more than two tabs, right?’
‘Fuck off, man. Two tabs and you’d be fucking freakin’. One is the max. I told you, stop laughing. What’s so funny Jim? Shut the f-‘
At that moment he took out the needle he had been hiding up his sleeve and plunged it into the back of Phil’s neck. He stepped back, out of the way. As Phil whipped around, his arms flailing, the pill box fell to the floor, the tablets moving along the floor like strange, alien insects.
‘Fuck –‘ he said, as he tried to stand up. But in that instant his body was consumed by paralysis. He slid back down in his chair like an overgrown rag doll.
‘It’s not pleasant, is it Phil,’ he said, as he bent down and started to pick up the blue tablets, dropping them back into the small plastic container. ‘Drugs are strangely unpredictable things, aren’t they? Dangerous. Fatal even.’
He propped him back in his chair, rearranging his disordered limbs just like a funeral director would tidy up the body of a messy corpse.
‘Don’t worry, this won’t kill you, well not in the dose I’ve given you,’ he said. ‘Just a very effective paralyser. Damn sight safer than some of the shit you peddle, Phil.’
He looked at the blue pills in the box and then passed them in front of Phil’s face.
‘Now, what were you saying about these little things? A one way ticket to paradise, was it? Well, we’ll soon see, I suppose. But before then I just wanted to remind you of a couple of your customers, or should I say former customers? I suppose I should since neither of them are still with us, unfortunately.
‘Yelena Graham? Recognise the name? No, guess you wouldn’t. A young girl who came to you – oh, six months ago now – who wanted some coke. She was a student at UCLA, had her whole future ahead of her. Sure you supplied her, why not? There’s a demand, right? But Yelena kept coming back and back and soon, after the cocaine, she started to ask you for crack and then heroin. Again, you didn’t have a problem. She had the money – gee, her parents were rich – and so you gave her as much as she wanted. But one night, Yelena – already loaded on booze, pills and god knows what else – took just too much. Found by her room-mate when she came back after the weekend.
‘You didn’t know? Well, how about that. And what about Duane Rogers? Don’t remember him either? That’s too bad. Young black guy from Inglewood way. Heard about your so-called miracle pills, thought he’d try them out. But the trip to paradise you promised him turned into his last journey. On a night out with his friends – in one of those joints on Melrose – he started to hyperventilate. His buddies thought it was hilarious – they had all taken something or other, but poor Duane took one pill too many. He started to vomit, then he lost consciousness. One of his friends got him outside, where he called 911. But by the time paramedics arrived he had slipped into a coma. He lived – if you can call it that – in a vegetative state for a few weeks before his parents finally made the decision to switch off the life support.’
