The Dirty Book Murder

by Thomas Shawver

  A large Flex Cam rested on a tripod behind the unwilling archer. A second string, as taut as the other, ran from the camera to the tongue ring in order to capture on film the exact moment of impalement.

  “Once I was informed of your presence,” Quist continued in his whispery voice, “it took some time for my assistants to set the stage properly. I must say that your daughter gave us more of a fight than Long Bob. We had to resort to a calming drug to get her trussed in the appropriate attire. Whereas a gun aimed at his testicles was quite enough to get him to cooperate.”

  Quist sauntered over to Langston, bending down to speak in his ear.

  “We could have been such good friends. I provided money for your film when no one else would even think of backing you. But you forgot your obligations when I asked for small favors. I don’t take to such treatment kindly.”

  He kissed Langston’s forehead. “Isn’t that right, Bob?”

  The eyes behind the mask stared emptily back at him.

  Quist turned to me.

  “This has-been wasn’t content to ignore my generosity. For the past week, his insults have been the order of the day. I shared my most personal confidences with him and how does he respond? Not only does he refuse to host my party, he threatens to report my transgressions to the police!”

  Quist stared at me with the shining eyes of a man who could sever a man’s head with a kitchen knife and butter his bread with it a moment later.

  “From the beginning, he refused to take me seriously,” he prattled. “My ideas meant nothing. I intended to merely humiliate him tonight by secretly capturing him on film in the throes of passion with your daughter. The room was prepared, the camera set up, but he refused to make love to her in my house. This aging pig even cursed me for suggesting it. Can you imagine?”

  I took three steps forward. Quist aimed the gun at my chest.

  “Steady there, Bevan.”

  Langston groaned.

  “Ho, ho!” Quist shouted gleefully. “The would-be director finds himself humbled before my camera. He weakens. He shakes. He loses control of his sphincter. Are you ready for action, Long Bob? Then, let the arrow find its way home!”

  A veteran trial lawyer gave me advice when I was fresh out of law school that seemed appropriate under these circumstances. He said if I ever found myself in a courtroom with a judge whose oars were no longer in the water the best strategy was to get crazy with him.

  There was nothing to lose. My plan of action started with telling the truth.

  “Kramm is dead.”

  Quist looked at me doubtfully.

  “It’s true, Martin. I shot him in the head. He was torturing Weston Preston and I put a stop to it, but not before asking a very important question.”

  His smooth face suddenly became less smooth.

  “Just where might this have occurred?”

  “Preston’s apartment,” I said. “The police know everything. They’re upstairs at this moment looking for you.”

  “They never know everything,” he scoffed. “And I don’t believe you notified the police.”

  But he knew I wasn’t lying about Kramm. There was no way for me to have known that the South African would be in Weston’s apartment if I hadn’t been there. And there’s no way I’d be where I was now if Kramm had survived.

  “You certainly are one for surprises,” Quist said. “I had been meaning to chastise the big fellow for his absence here tonight. So, tell me what you said to him.”

  “I asked him what signals they used for lineouts.”

  “Come again, Bevan?” Quist stepped closer. “I don’t seem to gather what you’re babbling.”

  “I wanted to know how the Springboks put the rugby ball in play. Surely, Kramm must have told you something about the game. It’s the national sport of white South Africa.”

  “I’m afraid football isn’t my cup of tea. Bloody boring exercise.”

  “Mother wouldn’t let you play?”

  “Something like that,” Quist said very softly. “And please don’t waste what little time remains for you trying to upset me.”

  He turned to Langston with mock concern.

  “You’re hanging on rather longer than I expected. Ah, there now, the old tongue is throbbing again. What a delicious look in those eyes. Fear, anticipation, hatred—so many emotions gleaming in those two little orbs. And just look at Miss Anne with her mouth quivering around that cruel piece of rubber. Delicious!”

  I swallowed hard as he walked up to her and caressed her cheek with the front sight of the gun.

  “Don’t fret, my dear,” he cooed. “It’s all for the best. With your burgeoning addiction, you’d have died a withered, toothless hag within the year. Best to die in the full bloom of youth and have it captured on film for all eternity.”

  He sauntered back to Langston.

  “You’d best release the dart now, Bob. My guests will begin wondering where I’ve been and I’ve scheduled a photo session for no less a personage than Edward Worth.”

  “The thing about lineouts,” I declared as if conducting a clinic in the locker room at Twickenham Stadium, “is that it takes teamwork between the hooker and the second-row jumper. If the hooker doesn’t throw the ball just when his man has begun to leap, odds are strong that the opposing jumper will gain possession.”

  Quist regarded me over his shoulder. He seemed peeved by the interruption.

  “Please, Bevan, you’re beginning to—”

  “Alabama was the code my team used,” I cut in. “The Chicago Lions used the same one, as I recall.”

  “Alabama?” Quist asked. “What on earth?”

  “It goes like this: Ready … set … California … Texas … Allabaama!”

  On the last shouted syllable, I leaped forward, coming between Anne and the crossbow an instant before Langston released the dart.

  Crashing against the stage support, I felt a searing pain in my rib cage that was quickly followed by the stuttering rasp of the Glock. I looked back to see Langston, his mouth bloodied from the ring that had torn loose from his tongue, slam Quist to the ground with a vicious body check.

  The old rugger had acted on my lineout cue perfectly. But while his tackle momentarily stunned Quist, one of the rounds from the machine pistol struck Langston high in the chest. He briefly thrashed on the floor before going very still. Tiny bubbles seeped from the wound, painting a glistening pink flower on the black leather.

  Quist scrambled to his feet, still holding the Glock.

  “So much for that nonsense,” he wheezed, taking a mincing step forward. Very calmly, he fired a single shot into my groin that sent me spiraling to the floor.

  I’ve always wondered why I didn’t pass out. Obviously, something to do with endorphins and adrenaline. At any rate, I was way past caring.

  “You should know better than to struggle, Bevan. I was prepared to deliver a quick death for all of you, had you cooperated. Now look at the mess you’ve made.”

  Kneeling beside the inert actor, Quist calmly produced a pair of pliers from a leather satchel. He clamped the claws onto Langston’s left ear and, with a sudden snap of the wrist, tore it off.

  Quist tossed the ear to the floor. He approached my daughter. In a stage whisper, he said, “I thought Robert was playing possum. But you’re wide awake, aren’t you, sweetie?”

  Anne’s eyes seemed to tumble out of their sockets when Quist softly tapped her lips with the open pliers.

  The curtain rippled behind him as a breeze somehow found its way into the underground chamber.

  He shifted his gaze toward me. “It’s best to start with the tongue, don’t you think?”

  I responded by shaking as if touched by Saint Vitus, letting out a series of howls that would have made a West Virginia snake handler proud.

  Quist found my actions amusing.

  The edge of the curtain fluttered again, opened for an instant, closed, then opened again. I concentrated on the monster’s face, willing him t
o look at me, continuing to shout and shake because buying time was the only weapon I had left. The hysterics didn’t require much acting on my part.

  “This has been most entertaining,” Quist remarked as he fastened the pliers to Anne’s lower lip. “But I really must get back to my guests soon.”

  Because of the commotion I’d been making, he failed to notice Josie Majansik until she emerged from behind the curtain, butcher knife in one hand and hammer in the other, flying at him like an avenging angel.

  She underestimated Quist’s quickness, however. He dropped the pliers, rolled to his left and, wrenching the knife from her, slashed the lower part of her calf muscle. She fell to her knees in agony, but not before slamming the hammer against the back of his skull. It made a thwacking sound like a baseball encountering the business end of Melky Cabrera’s bat. Quist crumpled semiconscious next to her.

  I lurched forward, my knees sliding on the widening pool of blood, and repeatedly head-butted Quist’s face until his nose and cheekbones looked as though they’d greeted a truck. I kicked the gun away from his inert body and turned my attention to the others.

  Josie, her face drained of color, had moved from where Quist lay sprawled on his side. Sitting against an iron post, she clutched her severed Achilles tendon. I crawled over to her. Turning so that my back was to her, I presented my bound wrists.

  It must have been excruciating to release the grip on her leg, but without a sound she picked up her knife and sawed through the plastic cuffs. Only after she had finished that task did she quietly begin to moan.

  Her ripped tendon flopped like a living eel beneath her fingers until I was able to bind it as best I could with pieces torn from my shirt.

  “It’s all right now,” she said. “Take care of yourself and Anne. I’ll see to Bob.”

  I limped over to my daughter, threw off the cowling, and pulled the horrible plug from her mouth. She tried to speak, but her voice was just a croak.

  “There, there,” I stuttered inanely as I untied her.

  I held her in my arms until she responded with a healthy round of sobs. Then I led her to Langston.

  Josie had stanched the blood oozing from his chest, but he couldn’t talk. There was a little gleam in his eye, however, and he held up his hand for a light high-five. I gave him a thumbs-up instead.

  Our celebrations proved far too premature, however.

  Blame it on loss of the blood, the overwhelming relief of having escaped mutilation and death, or simply the dim lighting in that dungeon.

  Whatever.

  I didn’t realize the consequences of not finishing the job until Anne nudged me and silently pointed to where Quist had been and now wasn’t. The bastard had somehow staggered away while we dressed our wounds and congratulated one another.

  No doubt he was heading to the elevator and would come back with his thugs to finish us. So much for turning the tables.

  I retrieved the gun I should have secured the first time and desperately fired a burst of five or six semiautomatic rounds into the darkness of the tunnel before it ran empty.

  As indicated by its name, the Glock 17 holds seventeen rounds. I didn’t think Quist had used more than half a dozen on us.

  Click. Click again.

  The bullets must have been used on other poor souls.

  From somewhere in the dark corridor, Quist shouted something at us. It wasn’t the voice of a man in physical distress. I think he was laughing.

  With our wounds, we were out of options.

  Or so I thought.

  Josie, Langston, and I may have had nothing left to give, but Anne Bevan did. Apparently, she wasn’t a Royal Marine commando’s granddaughter for nothing.

  “I’ll handle this, Dad,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  I don’t know what astounded me the most: my daughter’s sudden transformation from catatonic victim to determined warrior, or the fact that she referred to me as “Dad.” It was the first time in years she had called me that.

  “No, babe,” I protested. “Save yourself. Go up the stairs. Maybe you can bring help …”

  “Not enough time.”

  She put one hand on my shoulder and extracted the dart from between my ribs with the other. She then wrenched the crossbow from its base, drew back the cable, and inserted the dart in the grooved chamber.

  “Go for it, girl,” Josie whispered as Anne rushed into the darkness.

  Moments later we heard thrashing sounds ricochet between the walls of the corridor, followed by the groaning motion of the elevator’s wire cables and Quist’s maniacal laughter.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I breathed, reaching for Josie’s blood-slicked hand.

  We listened helplessly to the tortured metallic sound; the prelude to the end of everything. The elevator descended.

  Bright lights flooded the chamber, followed by a dreadful yowling.

  Anne suddenly appeared at the edge of the darkness, the crossbow cradled in her arms. She stood with her back to us, facing the elevator shaft. Her head tilted downward, looking at something.

  Wuummppp.

  The elevator cage landed like it didn’t have brakes.

  We heard a truncated howl and lights in the corridor flashed on.

  The elevator door opened about a foot above the floor. Lieutenant Higgins and two burly men wearing star badges and Durango mustaches stepped from it. There was a lot of cursing.

  Higgins got down on his knees and peered under the cage, looking for what had stopped it inches from the bottom. He got up after a few seconds and said something to Anne. She answered by pointing to where Josie, Langston, and I huddled in our evergrowing pond of mingled gore. Higgins nodded, pulled out a cell phone, and talked into it while following my daughter down the corridor.

  As they approached, I noticed that Anne carried the primitive weapon behind her neck, nestled across her shoulders. She looked like a hunter who had bagged her first deer.

  “Quist?” Josie asked.

  “Not to worry.” Buford Higgins nodded in the direction of the elevator. “He’s a pile of mashed potatoes and there ain’t enough for leftovers on Monday.”

  The hillbilly humor was lost on me because whatever adrenaline remained in my system packed its bags and went home. I passed out.

  The next thing I knew, white-coated EMTs were loading me onto a stretcher cart. When they rolled me past the body of Martin Quist I saw that Higgins hadn’t exaggerated. The flattened corpse lay on a rubber tarp, painted in the pulped colors of mutilation. An iron dart protruded from his right eye.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Monday, July 5

  Unlike many urban hospitals, St. Luke’s in Kansas City hasn’t swallowed the surrounding neighborhood. Its broad face of brick and glass stands regally on a hill overlooking Mill Creek Park and the J. C. Nichols Fountain. Norman Rockwell captured both in a painting produced for the July 1955 cover of the Saturday Evening Post and every family doctor in town has a framed picture of it in the waiting room.

  Quist’s bullet had missed my femoral artery by an inch and my privates by less than three. The exit wound left a two-inch hole of devitalized tissue on the back of my upper thigh. Dr. Fotopoulos scheduled surgery to clean the wound, suture the torn muscle, and apply a plaster cast for the next day.

  Unless infection or lead poisoning set in I’d be eligible for tango lessons by Christmas. The dart had broken a rib and separated some cartilage, but I was used to such “owie’s” in rugby. No big thing.

  Josie’s Achilles tendon was treated in another area of the hospital. A few days after her surgery, she was wheeled up to my floor to see me, but I told the nurse I wasn’t ready for visitors.

  It was partially true. I hurt like hell and the painkillers had me babbling about Martians and marshmallows some of the time. The real reason, however, was that during my more lucid moments I had tried to come to terms with Josie’s appearance in that porn video and wasn’t succeeding.

  I felt better and more forgiving
the following morning, but when I tried to reach her, an FBI agent informed me she had been airlifted to a Columbus hospital for debriefing by her supervisor. He curtly added that I shouldn’t attempt to reach her there. Her orders.

  Long Bob Langston, having spent five hours on the operating table, was recovering in the intensive care unit two floors down. I wanted to thank him, but neither of us would be ready to relive our adventure with Mr. Quist for some time.

  Nurse’s aides were rolling dinner carts in the halls when Anne entered my room. Her eyes fluttered and blinked too much and there was a pale line around her mouth.

  She said hello and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Hello, yourself. How do you feel?”

  “Not great. I’m pretty itchy. Martin pumped me with something I’ve never experienced before. And, believe me, I’ve had plenty to experience.”

  She poked at a box of Kleenex and for a long minute made eye contact with the television set.

  “Listen,” I began.

  “Don’t,” she said, fiddling with a plastic cup. “Don’t say anything until I’m finished.”

  I nodded, pretending to study the electric gizmo that adjusts the hospital bed in all kinds of ways except the way you want it.

  “I’m checking into the Allen Rehab Center in Lawrence this afternoon.”

  “That’s very wise.”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to say anything?” She looked toward the hallway as if ready to bolt.

  “Sorry,” I said, willing her eyes back to me. “I thought you were finished.”

  “Well, maybe I am. I’m not sure about it. ARC costs a lot of money, but I can probably handle this thing myself.”

  I just looked at her.

  “Well, why don’t you say something?”

  “You told me not to.”