Slice

by Rex Miller

  It was what he did, this matter of sizing up situations and making instant assessments of the vulnerability and access quotients. He'd gone into the mall nearby and turned at the third light instead of the second light, by mistake, and seen this little cluster of stores and services.

  A fast-food chicken shack, a car-care center, a disreputable-looking motel, a busy gas station, the package store, a small ma-and-pa operation, and the assessment printout was there in that first heartbeat.

  When one looked at the chicken shack one saw food; Daniel saw a bustling interior full of witnesses and a drive-in window with one of those shatterproof, revolving Lok-Tite jobs, and looked away. The car-care center smelled like easy money but there were eight, nine bozos milling around. Again, too many people. The run-down motel was okay as far as the access, isolation factor and vulnerability quotient went, but it was TOO run-down. Paint chipped from the doors. No guests. Nickels and dimes. The busy gas station. Impossible for his current needs. He wanted no witnesses and no MO. He'd probably cold-cock the clerk as soon as he had the money, pop them into the open trunk, and be gone before the next car pulled in. He'd hit the store right after dark Saturday. Daniel figured it to be his last small job.

  The next step was the cop. He needed to summon all his powers of persuasion. He'd charted it out on paper and it could work. The policeman Eichord was a known quantity within certain boundaries. If he didn't overreact to the killing of his friend, and to Bunkowski's track record, it boiled down to a simple trade-off. Would the cop be willing to guarantee him unofficial amnesty of sorts in return for Bunkowski's guarantee that the killings were over for good? It was a shot.

  What did the detective have to lose? He didn't know, of course, that Daniel had lost his taste for murder and mutilation. That at last the normalcy of building a regular life and raising a child had pulled Chaingang's head out of the sewers. Such was the uniqueness of Chain's madness that he could have this dream, and it was so real to him he now believed it. And for this strange, bizarre killer of hundreds, to believe was to be.

  He would first try to convince the cop that the killings had come to an end. He knew this arrogant man would let him get close. The lure of a confrontation would be irresistible to him. And he would pay for his temerity with his dying screams and the thought of this filled Chaingang's head with a hot crimson wave of overwhelming need. A final kill.

  BUCKHEAD STATION

  Back inside the cop shop, Eichord stared at his messages. The first pink call-back note was from the task force, and he tried to place it but all the lines were busy. It would only be more corroboration of the obvious now. The next one was a call to the 312 area code. He dialed it and asked for the extension number specified.

  “This is Jack Eichord in Buckhead, returning a long-distance call,” he told the male voice that answered.

  “Just a second, please."

  He waited.

  “Jack Eichord?"

  “Speaking."

  “Can you hear me okay?"

  “Yeah. I can hear you fine. Who is this?"

  “Having one helluva time hearing you.” There was an earsplitting burst of static on the line.

  “In Chicago. You remember me?"

  “I'm sorry your voice cut out just then.” Jeezus. The fucking telephones. It was like living in a goddamn war zone. “I didn't hear you just when you answered me. Who is this please?"

  “Scheige in Chicago. Remember?” A little pause as Eichord tried to place the name. “We worked together when you were on loan to the Eighteenth on the Kasikoff case."

  “Oh, hell yes. I'm sorry. Sure. How ya doin'?"

  “Good. I'm outta the West Erie substation now. Listen I [STATIC] know if Lee told you about me calling him?"

  “Sorry. The phones cut out again."

  “Yeah. We have problems with the telephone system here. Anyway, I didn't know if James Lee got that message to you about me calling him. I Just heard about it, man. Very sorry. Helluva thing."

  “Thanks. No. I didn't get the message, I guess.” He glanced through the stack of notes as he spoke.

  “Well"—Jack could hear a sizzle down the line like bacon frying—"I think we had a tip on this Bunkowski. A fuckin’ HYPE came in here trying to sell it to us—how he'd seen him right after you killed him and so on. We didn't give it any credence naturally, but now, I mean, I saw the new circular and the sheets on those killings and I put two and two together. It looks like it was on the square, you know?"

  “Yeah. Hey, Scheige, I appreciate it. But I gotta get going on something here, so was that all you needed?"

  “Sure. I just thought you might want to know.” Eichord realized how rude he was being and how abrupt he must sound. No point in being a horse's butt and telling Scheige it was too late to be telling him what he already knew.

  “Hey, I really appreciate your call. Might be a big help to us. That's good policework, Scheige—thanks."

  “No sweat,” he said, and they rang off.

  Eichord took a very deep breath and stared at the cursed telephone hoping no more bad news would come across it, searching for his ear, working its way into his head. If only the madman wouldn't kill again as he had only the day before with that fucking .22, if only hell had ice water. If only elephants could fly.

  The next phone conversation was in an elliptical sort of doublespeak between Jack and a federal marshal, confirming the brief rites that would be conducted for the immediate family early in the morning. Neither Donna nor Bev Tuny would be allowed to attend, for security purposes. Only Peg, her son, Dana Tuny, and Jack, with a couple of marshals riding shotgun. It'd be a very fast graveside service, what the funeral home guys privately call a “peekaboo,” and then back into hiding for the family. The latest word he'd had from Peggy was that there'd been a problem in getting her husband's family in China flown here in time for the service. Jack had never fully understood—either the brother had tried to board without his passport, or somebody else had used the wrong passport, but there'd been some problem. The Chinese contingent might not be on hand. As if that mattered to Jimmie...

  MEMORIAL FOREST

  If you wish to see with. the killer's eyes you must first think with the madman's brain. What you and I will see on our way to the remote, suburban cemetery are the broken boards of a deserted loading bay behind a J. C. Penney's with the legend RCVNG 8-12 & 1-2. We pass a mobile-home park and what appear to be three or four hundred mailboxes in an endless row of letter Quonsets. We see a small field of graves backed up against a pastoral, wooded setting. But what you and I see are not what he sees.

  He sees beyond the superficial. When we see the ordinary and the obvious he looks beyond to the extraordinary and the remarkable, and his mental computer files them away for planning. Instead of a loading bay, mailboxes, a burial place, he sees victims, opportunities, hiding places. And his eyes lock on to the woods, a vantage point, and a method of evasion and escape.

  It was almost as dark as night at 6:48 a.m. Heavy black clouds threatened to open at any moment. It was the gloomiest, saddest possible time for this gloomy and sad event.

  Peg's son helped his mother out of the blue Thunderbird with the privacy glass—what would have to do as their courtesy limo. Eichord patted the boy on the back, and Peg came and hugged Jack, who had breathed enough of his own alcoholic fumes so he could spot the scent easily. His mind left the images of Chink for a moment as he realized how hard this would be on Peg.

  “I wish there were words. Something I could say."

  “Me too. Jack.” She tried a brave smile. “But nothing can hurt him now. He's at rest."

  They exchanged a few more words, then Peg and the boy walked toward the closed casket. There had been heartbreakingly little to put in there for burial, and the cops dealt with it the way they always did.

  “Ain't got nothin’ in there but his fingernails and some pubic hair,” Dana whispered irreverently to Eichord as they walked slowly up the sloping hillside toward the graves
ite, a marshal in front and in back.

  “I swear to CHRIST, Chunk, you got more shit in your head than a fucking busted toilet."

  “Say what?"

  “Say what. You oughta have a fucking handle mounted on your forehead so we could flush your brain once in a while."

  “Not my fault they gotta bury a ninety-five-pound coffin with about six ounces of Chink innit. Shit!” He flecked imaginary filth from him. “He's STILL coming down."

  “I can't take you anywhere,” Eichord said as he brushed against the heavy cop's arm. “You know what—you're about as much fun as prostate trouble."

  “You know something, Blackjack? You're about as much fun as a fucking root canal."

  They put their arms around each other's shoulders as they walked. When the sky opened up with a crack of lightning and the beginnings of a heavy downpour, they both ran for umbrellas.

  “Sheeeeeeit."

  “Just great."

  “I just had my hair styled, too,” Dana puffed. “Ain't it the shits?"

  “Can't you do anything right?” Eichord said as he looked up into the soggy sky.

  He shivered from the cold of the chill rain, or something else. It was a sense of foreboding, the kind of thing that's often written off as a lucky guess or pure coincidence, but Eichord had long ago learned that hunches were as good as anything else. There was something right there in front of him, asking to be noticed, and yet he couldn't see it.

  The harder he tried to focus on it, the blurrier it became, and he shrugged it off the way someone will an elusive phrase or word that's right on the tip of the tongue but refuses to hop out. He sensed that he was trying too hard and he relaxed.

  Despite Dana's crudity there was a blackly laughable aspect to the formality of burying their dear friend's skimpy remains. The family had wanted a service of this type, which had surprised everybody, but Jimmie had made his fear of cremation well-known and they all understood the desire to pay tribute to a loved one, bizarre as the circumstances were.

  The brief service began but Jack heard not a word of it. He was standing facing the woods trying to keep his mind in neutral, trying not to think of anything, and it came to him in that relaxed state: a dark shape sensed more than seen, a flash of light off something metallic perhaps, a discarded can, or just a trick of the weather. He'd spotted it as he and Dana had run for the umbrellas.

  It came back to him the way a lost object can be found by retracing one's steps. He'd relaxed, taken his brain out of gear, and allowed the current of information and thought to pour over him. It was in the killer's frighteningly brilliant MO. He had studied it the way a kid studies his catechism—religiously, doggedly, committing it to memory, taking it to heart and soul. In that flash of light he saw the deeper reality. He KNEW that the man he wanted was out there in the woods somewhere watching and the knowledge of it fell across the back of his neck like that cold, itchy feeling he got when somebody was pointing a gun at him. He sensed the cross hairs, the foul breath, the pig eyes squinting through a high-power scope. It matched everything in Bunkowski's package: the precognate's unique vision, the killer's genius IQ, his coldly logical ability to analyze. It was absurd of them to think he would have fallen for a lame ruse like the airport theatrical. He would have found it child's play to stay a jump ahead of them as he always had.

  Someone had mumbled to him.

  He turned and said to Dana, “Huh?"

  “What?"

  “I asked you what you said."

  Chunk looked at him as he turned and replied, “I didn't say anything.” They were whispering back and forth as a man who hadn't known Jimmie spoke profound but profoundly meaningless words. Eichord realized that he was afraid, and he shivered again, chilled to the bone.

  This would be the perfect place for Chaingang to nail the cop he hated, to scope him down with a rifle from those dense woods, beyond the protecting umbrellas and the federal marshals. The knowledge of this filled Eichord with a fiery hatred that suffused his face, leaving his cheeks flushed scarlet, and he could no longer contain the rage. A scream of defiant pain escaped. A howl of anger and sadness and loathing for the madman who had snuffed his treasured friend. A marshal started after him as he ran from the graveside into the nearby woods, dropping his umbrella, but Dana stopped the man, tears mixing with the rain on his face. “Let him be alone with his grief,” he told the officer, thinking Jack had screamed from anguish at the loss of Jimmie, and the marshal allowed himself to be turned away and led back to the service.

  Eichord plunged headlong through the woods, the crazy amputation of a shotgun clutched in a death grip as he tore his best suit on things that reached out to snag him, and sunk his best shoes into the mud, and as he reached the center of the dense woods, he stopped and held his face up to the rain and shook himself like a black Labrador who had just jumped out of a lake.

  “What a maniac. Dumb piece of shit,” he cursed himself aloud as he slogged on through the woods. That was really brilliant. Ruin the services for everybody else so he could play Hairbreadth Harry. Dumb fuck. He was freezing in this rain, but he didn't turn around. He had to satisfy his curiosity now that he'd made a total moron out of himself and he kept on going, drenched to the skin as the heavy downpour intensified.

  Then he saw the car backed into the little opening between some trees on the other side of the wooded area and he started running for it, but he was too wary to get trapped and he stopped. Waited. Listened. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up just the way they had earlier. He knew somebody had a weapon on him. He stood motionless. He couldn't hear anything for the fucking rain and there was no movement. Only the empty car.

  “Hey,” he said loudly, just to hear his own voice, and it sounded wet and hollow, the word swallowed by the rain and the trees.

  “I know you're here,” he said, feeling like a fool. Nothing. No answer. No gunshot. He took a deep, shuddering breath, letting it pour out of him like a chain-smoker, trembling not just from the cold damp day, and he took a few slow and cautious steps as he moved around the car.

  “COME ON YOU FAT YELLOW SHIT,” he shouted into the rain. Not caring how ridiculous he looked or who heard him. He felt a momentary pain in the vicinity of his heart. Gas. A little morning heartburn from all the anxiety and the aggravation. No response. He allowed himself to cast his eyes downward, looking for the huge, fifteen quintuple-E footprints of the monster's feet in the muddy earth. Nothing. No sign of anything but Eichord, and the empty car.

  He moved closer to the side of the vehicle. The water-soaked cardboard box that held his sawed-off shotgun was collapsing in his hand. The outline of the gun felt hard and dangerous in his grip. There was no movement. No noise. No sunlight to flash on metal this time. And he just stood there by the car, wondering for a second or two if he'd given in to professional paranoia. This could be somebody who had car trouble and left their...

  And in midthought the thing was on him, roaring, crashing out of the woods on its tree-trunk legs, huge and powerful and blindingly terrifying as it charged out at him with something in its hand. Eichord saw it just as he had leaned over toward the car and spotted the little newborn baby in the seat. The thing in his hand flashing again suddenly, as the lightning cracked down around them close by in the dark woods, and he saw metal, and the enormous thing was coming at him, but he jerked the car door open with one hand pulling the baby out roughly holding the sawed-off Master Disaster Blaster to the baby's infant head on instinct, screaming, “ONE MORE FOOT YOU UGLY SHIT!” Not even knowing why he did it. Why not just shoot the sonofabitch? Shoot the man charging toward you this beast that will not stay dead. But his brain was at some level analyzing that thought and telling him. Hey, no way. Too far. A shotgun, especially a hacksawed shorty, has no carrying power. This guy is like an elephant. You've got to let him get close and make sure this time.

  “PUT IT DOWN,” that bass voice growled.

  “ONE MORE FOOT THIS BABY IS DEAD!"

 
; “I'll RIP YOUR HEART OUT,” he bellowed back at Eichord, but the thing stopped in his tracks.

  “JUST ANOTHER FOOT YOU SHIT! I'll BLOW THE HEAD OFF THIS BABY!” What if he didn't care? Then he'd shoot the son of a bitch. He didn't see a gun. No telescoped hunting rifle after all. Just that THING he carried. He jammed the twin death hurricanes against the infant's head. “I MEAN IT."

  “YOU CHICKENSHIT FILTH!"

  “You want this baby splattered all over these woods? Listen to me goddammit I MEAN IT YOU COCKSUCKER STOP MOVING I WILL BLOW THE BABY TO BITS. YOU THINK I'M BLUFFING?” He screamed it with a cracking voice, scared out of his wits at this second, as much as anything because at that very instant he meant it. He would pull those triggers all right, but not with the gun aimed at the newborn. He'd blast Daniel Edward fucking Flowers Bunkowski out of his looney misery once and for all. Oh the sweet feel of those triggers and the power of the poisoned loads at his fingertips. He wanted to kill the son of a bitch. HE WANTED TO SHOOT HIM AND SEE THE MONSTROUS HEAD COME OFF AND ROLL INTO THE WOODS. HE WANTED...

  “I'll KILL A THOUSAND OF YOU WORTHLESS SHITS IF YOU TOUCH A HAIR ON THAT BABY'S—"

  “FUCK YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH, COME ON IF YOU THINK I'M BLUFFING I'll KILL THIS BRAT,” he said, spitting out the word, “and then I'll blow your crazy ass all over crea—"

  “Listen to me, listen you arrogant garbage. Listen to what I'm—DON'T HURT THE—don't,” forcing himself to speak normally. “Would you trade your desire for revenge against me, the desire to see me suffer retribution which you think I have coming, if it would spare the lives of many?” Moving slightly as he spoke, trying to get close enough to make a move.