“Hey!” he called, and they turned.
“Daddy!” cried the little girl. “Daddy, home!”
“How was work?” Katy called.
“Fine. How was your cadaver you’re slicing up?”
“Fine. His name is Wanda and Wanda says hello.”
“Male or female?”
“At this point, it’s impossible to tell.”
“You could have gone all day without telling me that.”
“You asked,” she smiled, and splashed water up at him.
Thaddeus took his place beside them in the pool and Sarai immediately grabbed around his neck and cried, “Alligator River!”
Which was a game they played, where Thaddeus would walk on hands and knees Sarai on his back, and they would navigate around the pool, shouting and screaming at the imaginary alligators that would suddenly launch at them and snap at Sarai’s feet and legs.
Ten minutes later and they were ready for a break. Thaddeus and Katy chose lounges while Sarai headed for the sand box.
“She needs a dog,” Thaddeus said.
“Uh-uh. She needs a cat. Start them with a cat.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “My cat always let me dress her up. That’s what little girls are good at, dressing up their dolls. And their cats.”
“So she would need a very patient cat.”
“We’ll look at the shelter. Shelter cats can be the very best.”
“This weekend let’s take her. She can pick one out.”
“You hungry?”
“Only for you, baby.”
She sighed and scowled. “God forbid. It’s daylight. We no longer get to sexy-sexy when the sun’s up. That’s the price of having your heir.”
“What else did you have in mind?”
“I made your favorite.”
“Deviled eggs?”
“Yep. And you can have root beer with it.”
“You got more.”
“Sure.”
“You do listen to me.”
“Course I do. You’re my guy.”
“Still? Even after you’re rubbing elbows with those wannabe surgeons all day at med school?”
“Even after. Besides, you gave me Sarai.”
“We gave us Sarai.”
“Best thing we ever did.”
“Absolutely.”
* * *
Ragman woke with a start. The pipe was clutched in his gaunt fingers and his eyes were scratchy. He stretched luxuriously and yawned.
The yellow pages were full of outcall.
He selected Feline Fur Fantasy and ordered something Asian. Japanese, he told them. He preferred the youngest Japanese girl they could send. Fourteen, if possible; no older than eighteen, max.
He ran an icy shower. Drying off, he removed the switchblade knife from his suit coat and slipped it under the pillow where he’d been sleeping. He lit up and took two hits off the pipe. Completely nude, he danced in front of the dresser mirror. He admired his circumcised penis. He pulled his testicles to the side and studied them. All the while his mind was flying supersonic and his muscles were twitching for release. Why wasn’t she here yet?
He slipped a towel around his waist and lay back on the bed.
“Come to me, my beauty,” he muttered.
Fifteen minutes later, there was a subdued knock at the door. Almost an apologetic knock. He peeped through the security lens and saw a very young girl. She was pulling at a braid and looking to the side. He devoured her through the optics.
He flung the door open and waved her inside.
“Enter,” he hissed. “And I shall enter you.”
“Three hundred first. That’s what they told me.”
“First show me your breasts. Are they small and firm?”
She sighed and looked off to the side. The shirt was mid-torso. She flipped it up and revealed her naked breasts. He inhaled deeply and came to her. He gathered her hair in his hand and inhaled. “Now your breath,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Your breath. Let me smell your breath.”
She pushed away and then leaned her head to him. She exhaled toward his face. Inhaling, a smile crossed his face. “No cigarettes. That’s worth a hundred too. I told them I wouldn’t accept a smoker, no matter how young.”
“Haven’t you heard? Smoking is bad for your health.”
“So is unprotected sex, but that’s our burden to bear.”
“What?”
“Strip.”
She stubbornly held out a hand. “Hundreds. Three. In the hand.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“How old do you want me to be?”
“Eleven.”
“Fine. I’m eleven.”
He pulled three one hundred dollar bills from his wallet. Passing the money to her, he seized her hand and studied her arm.
“No needles?” he asked, studying her forearm.
“No, I told you I’m only eleven. So no needles.”
“Perfect.”
“Drugs?”
“E and pot. Nothing else.”
“I have no ecstasy. And I have no pot. But I have meth and a pipe. Do you want a couple of hits before we begin?”
“No. I told you. E and pot.”
“But meth makes the heart pump faster. I want your heart to pump fast.”
She recoiled then, having just pulled off her shirt. “What the fuck, you want my heart fast? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re more responsive when your heart pumps fast. And when I slice open your carotid, I’ve literally seen the blood hit the wall.”
She began turning her shirt, intent on putting it right back on. “No way am I doing this. I told them I don’t like men who ask for young. Fuck this. Here’s your money back.”
Whereupon he seized her by the shoulders and flung her onto the bed like a limp rag.
Ragman. It had to mean something.
The way he left his victims when he was finished. Sublimely limp, like rag dolls. So the cops had said. And the name had stuck.
Then he was on her. She struggled, so he choked her until she was white. Then he released her and she took a huge gasp. The color returned.
“Please don’t struggle,” he said softly. “You struggle, there’s no payment.”
“Please. Just. Let me go. I don’t want the money.”
He stretched on top of her and whispered hard into her ear. “Whoever said this was about money? Did I say that?”
“Please, oh God. Please let me up. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not. You’re my child, my little girl, and you know how to keep a secret.”
“I do, I promise. Daddy.”
“Daddy says do, Daddy says don’t. Now which is it?”
She relaxed beneath him. Struggling was futile. “Which is what?”
“Daddy do, Daddy don’t. One lives, one says goodbye. Which one are you?”
“Daddy don’t! I’m Daddy don’t.”
He extracted the knife from beneath the pillow. The flashing blade cut the air between them. Then he was astraddle her torso, and pressing the blade against her carotid. “Now how does it feel, knowing you’re about to die? Tell me, please.”
“Oh God,” she sobbed. “Please please please please.”
He sat upright and stared down at her. “How old are you really?”
“Nineteen.”
“Too bad. I told them not over eighteen. Now I won’t pay.”
“You don’t owe anything. Let me do you and leave. You’ll love what I can do.”
“Daddy,” he intoned.
“Daddy.”
With a flick of his wrist, he drew the blade across her carotid, reversed movement, and cut the other on his back swing. Her arms flailed the bed, fluttered overhead like angry branches, searching out the pumping wounds on either side of her throat and settling there, hopeless, but applying pressure. Her eyes rolled back in her head and lodged there.
&n
bsp; He sat fully upright and dismounted.
“Nineteen.”
He shut his eyes, thinking.
“Or is that twenty?”
He retreated to the shower where he turned the cold tap and washed the blood from his abdomen and chest. Pink rivulets spun into the drain.
Then he dressed, arranged her head so the eye sockets were staring at the door, and was gone.
51
Friday night they hit the family room and watched No Country for Old Men. Katy had a secret crush on Javier Bardem, and Thaddeus suspected just as much.
She was lying with her head in his lap as the antagonist walked away with his broken arm in a sling. “Dream on, dreamer,” Thaddeus said, “he’s married to Penelope Cruz, for god’s sakes.”
“Wait. Did you just hear Sarai cry?”
Thaddeus hit mute. They listened. They’d last seen their little girl upstairs in her room, door opened, banished to bed at seven. They looked at each other and finally Katy shrugged. “Guess not.”
Thaddeus pushed up from the couch and wandered into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and began assembling a snack.
“Got any popcorn?” he called to her.
“There’s bags in the cereal cupboard. Top shelf.”
“Microwave?”
She rubbed her belly. She couldn’t be pregnant again. But why this swelling?
“Is there any other kind?” she called back.
The front door bell chimed.
“Probably Bat,” Thaddeus shouted. “I got it.”
He threw open the door and there stood Bat with a much younger woman than Bat’s forty years. She was Hispanic and wearing white shorts, a pressed orange blouse, and sandals. She extended her hand. “Maria Consuelo. You must be Thad.”
“Hey, nice to finally meet you. Come on in.”
Bat followed. He was wearing the uniform of the day—shorts with cargo pockets, sandals, a black LA Clippers tee, and beret. “Who was the dude in the van?” he asked, coming inside behind Maria.
Thaddeus peered outside. “What van?”
“Tan van. It was parked in front. Did you have someone else over? Are we that late?”
Thaddeus looked back down the street toward the secondary surface street that connected their street to the freeway. “No one else was here. I don’t know what you’re talking about. But hey, come on in and let me get you a drink. Maria, what would you like? We have Mountain Dew, Coke, Diet Pepsi, and OJ. There’s also Coors.”
“Diet Pepsi for me.”
“I’ll have the same,” said Bat.
“Go on in the family room. Katy’s already in there. I’ll just be a second with your drinks.”
Bat followed Maria into the family room and Thaddeus could hear introductions again going around. He hummed while he poured the drinks over ice and reached in and cut a slice off the summer sausage. “Delicious,” he muttered. “Rattinger’s sausage.”
Taking their drinks into the family room, Thaddeus called to Katy. “Honey, have you checked on Sarai since we heard her?”
“I’m sure she’s asleep. She would be talking to herself or screaming bloody murder if she was awake.”
“Should I go look?”
“No, come on in and sit down and join us. We were just talking about how hot it was today.”
“Summer is definitely upon us,” said Bat.
Maria pointed at a small painting on the wall, above the TV. “Is that a Picasso? Is that a print?”
Katy looked at Thaddeus and shook her head. “No, that’s an original. Thanks to Mister Art Fan here.”
Thaddeus smiled sheepishly. “At one point I was going to collect original art. Until I found out how freaking expensive it is. That’s our only original.”
“What’s it called?’ asked Maria.
Katy snorted. “Thad’s Folly.”
“Ha-ha,” said Thaddeus. “That thing will only go up in value.”
“It better,” said his wife.
“So you get to choose the movie. We’ve got De Niro, we’ve got Pacino.”
“Oh, how about the new Matthew McConaughey? The Academy Award one?”
“Let me see if we’ve got that.”
Katy stood. “How about some chips and guacamole? Did you guys eat yet?”
“We had Mickey D’s tonight. Big night out on the town.”
“I love Big Macs. But my waistline loves them even more.”
“I hear that. We were thinking Subway, but we figured we’d lose too much weight if we went there.”
Katy laughed and went to fetch snacks.
Thaddeus had located the movie on On-Demand. “Here we go. Katy, I’m starting!”
“Stop at the end of the credits!” she called. “I’ll be two seconds. As soon as I find the guacamole in this refrigerator.”
“I ate it,” Thaddeus whispered. “I didn’t want to tell her.”
She reappeared moments later. “Did you eat it?”
He grinned guiltily. “I did.”
“All of it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“For god’s sakes. Okay, guys, French onion dip okay?”
“Sure.”
“Sure.”
“Hurry back. We’re ready to watch Matthew wow us all in this great flick. It got prodigious reviews.”
Katy called in again. “I’m just going to run up and check on Sarai. Don’t start without me!”
“We won’t.”
She screamed minutes later.
Thaddeus could hear her thumping back downstairs.
“I’ve looked everywhere! She’s not upstairs!”
“Okay,” said Thaddeus calmly, “let’s settle down. We’ll spread out. I’ll take the backyard, Katy, you hit the panic button for the BAG guys, Bat, you and Maria go back upstairs and look again in all rooms, under beds, inside closets. Sometimes she hides in the shower with the door closed too, so don’t miss that.”
“Got it,” said Bat. The twosome headed for the stairs.
Thaddeus tore through the sliding doors, across the deck, and began scouring the backyard. Nothing in the wading pool. Playhouse—empty. He looked behind shrubs, walked the fence line and saw nothing. By now three BAG agents had materialized, guns drawn, fashioning a cordon around the house. “It’s Sarai. She’s gone!” Thaddeus cried to them. His own blood pressure had skyrocketed as the adrenaline began pumping. “You guys start going door to door up and down the block. Make sure they search their houses and backyards. Look in all swimming pools, especially on the bottom.”
“We’re on our way,” shouted Maxwell, the lead agent for the shift. “I’ve got more guys on the way.”
Thaddeus ran around and opened the garage door with his key chain clicker. He searched the three cars parked inside. He looked beneath them. He even opened the trunk on the Lexus and looked inside. Same thing with the Tesla. The Escalade turned up nothing. Now he was in full panic mode. He ran back inside the house.
“Nothing up there,” said Bat, who had reappeared downstairs. “But we found a letter.”
“Where!”
“It was under the blanket in her crib. I didn’t open it and I’ve only held it by the edge. Fingerprints.”
“Smart man. Let’s get a knife.”
He slid the knife under the envelope flap and pulled out the letter and unfolded it. He scanned it along with Bat.
“Everything?” said Bat. “The guy wants everything?”
“He’s demanding all sale-of-casino proceeds. And don’t call the cops or we never see her again.”
“Better not call the cops.”
Katy came into the family room, choking back sobs. “I called 911.”
“Okay,” said Thaddeus. “Look.”
He handed her the letter, which she examined. “He wants you to wire the casino money to that bank? Then we get her back?”
“So he says.”
“You got no choice,” said Bat. “Do it now.”
“You’re right.” Thaddeus nodded fie
rcely. “I’ll get the bank manager on the phone and we’ll make it happen.”
“Where’s the money?”
“Spread all over. Mutual funds, money markets, investment firms. Let’s see, there’s Fidelity and—”
“Raymond James,” added Katy.
“Right, Raymond James. And lots more. So this guy thinks I’m sitting on the casino money in one cash account and I can just wave my magic wand? This is crazy!”
“Calm down,” said Katy. “Calm down. He says he’ll send proof of life. What’s that mean?”
“He’s going to send us proof that Sarai’s still alive.”
“How do they do that?”
“I don’t know,” Thaddeus lied. What he did know—what he dreaded to even think about—was how sometimes a finger of the victim was sent. So a print could be taken and matched. BAG had taken everyone’s prints two years earlier, so matching prints would be doable. But what he didn’t want was a finger. He shuddered at the thought and sweat broke out down his back. “We need help with this.”
“Who?” Katy cried. “Who!”
“Let me call Pauline Pepper at the FBI. She’ll know what to do.”
“Huh-un, Boss. They said no cops.”
“Bat’s right. We shouldn’t get the FBI or the cops involved.”
“But you already called 911.”
They heard sirens approaching at that moment. “Bat, get out there and make them shut those damn sirens off!”
Bat broke for the front door. Maria came downstairs. “Honestly, I even opened drawers in your furniture. She’s just not up there.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Let me make some coffee,” said Maria. “It’s going to be a long night.”
52
When he had opened the front door he froze and listened. Sound coming from the rear of the house. He moved half his body inside and listened again. Then he had waited several minutes. He guessed the little girl was upstairs, as it was after seven.
If nothing else, Ragman was bold.
Attorney at Large (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 3) Page 24
