INHUMANUM: A THRILLER (Law of Retaliation Book 1)

by Bradley Ernst

  “This one had a baggie of rock methamphetamine in a pocket, but no pipe to smoke it with. No paraphernalia on her. No spoon, no tourniquet.”

  “So not a double OD? Bad batch?”

  “Unlikely.”

  The investigator in charge of the scene had something else. “Two guns on scene: neither one has been fired. She has one, he has one. The shooter isn’t here. OK, you know the rules. I know you are itching to go roll in something important. Don’t. Go gawk at the dead people. Don’t touch.”

  Nothing seemed easy anymore.

  Terrence hadn’t slept in weeks. He was breaking down. He’d have to force himself to sleep. Maybe he would go home. Take a Benadryl. Force the rest. He was no closer to solving the other two Central Park cases and now they had a mystery poison? Delivered by whom? Someone who also, conveniently, had a gun. He couldn’t imagine how this one went down. Terrence pinched the flattened bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

  Stella seemed manic. “We’re up to eighteen that we know about. It’s our guy.” She snapped her fingers, then pointed this way and that, like she saw things. “Yeah. You know, Ham? Yeah.” She made for the sedan. She took two cold sodas out of the cooler. She sat on the seat and waved her arm out of the window for Terrence to join her. Terrence ambled begrudgingly to the car. “It’s all a little different, huh, Ham? Different guns, bug spray, poison. Blunt objects, but he’s a slasher too. Does he want us to think he’s different people? No. He doesn’t care what we think. He’s not in this for glory, Ham. He’s practicing.” Stella held her index finger up to keep him silent while she gulped at the bubbly drink. “He’s a little fledgling who’s spreading his wings, getting ready to fly. He’s trying on a few pairs of wings to see what he likes to fly with—and when his real wings sprout, Ham? We’re gonna have the Angel of Death on our hands. Eighteen’s a lot, Ham. You think he’s counting? I don’t. I think he’s just coming up to speed. I think our guy’s using Central Park as a playground. As an incubator. I think he tried out Brownsville when he felt ready and got schooled there. Sure he killed everyone who came after him, but he took some licks too, because he came back to his incubator. This is his safe place.” Terrence put his soda back in the cooler.

  It wouldn’t help.

  “So what? What’s your point? Let’s say it’s our guy and you’re right—he’s ramping up to fry the big fish next. He’s in his research and development phase, but soon he’ll jump out of his comfy little Central Park nest for good. That he’s already stuck his toe in Brownsville’s pond to test the water. It didn’t go so well because he took a bullet and he limped back here to ‘incubate’ some more. So what? Where does that leave us?” Stella was making chewing movements. She’d discovered the shiny, blue bags of nuts in the glove box.

  God, he missed the lazy old Mick.

  Stella could chomp and talk at the same time. “I’m no profiler, but we need one. I know you don’t like profilers, but that’s where we’re at. We got a real interesting guy here, Ham. He’s going to have books written about him—maybe even a TV special. I’m saying I don’t want to be the cop who skips the profiler and lets the guy spread his wings to float out over the city like Saint Michael here, Ham. I’ll tell you what—I’ll call one in. You don’t even have to listen. You keep on not catching him the way you’ve done, but I need some help and you aren’t it. Know what you need? Sleep. You’re so far gone you don’t know you need it, but you do.”

  Bonn reviewed the footage. He paused a frame and expanded the view. He’d captured what he needed to on the helmet-cam. He took still shots of each of the detective’s faces, then zoomed in to read the woman’s ID badge. “Estelle Castillo.” He ran a public record search. In a few keystrokes he had her phone number and home address. The man hadn’t worn a badge.

  It didn’t matter.

  Bonn dialed the non-emergency number for Castillo’s precinct from a secure line. “Twenty-second dispatch, how can I direct your call, please?”

  The woman who answered sounded weathered.

  “Yeah, hey—I got a money clip down here—must have eighty or so bucks in it. You got a pregnant gal in the twenty-second? Comes for a meatball sub every couple days? Gal can eat. Chatty one. Anyhow, the old guy, her partner—he left a money clip down here at Vince’s. What’s his name? Drinks sodas, but brings his own—cheapskate, you know? Won’t buy a thing.”

  “Ah …” The dispatcher perked up. “Bubbles?”

  This was likely the most fun she’d had all night.

  “Terry Grimaldi. Terry won’t even eat a sub down there?” By her tone, Bonn realized the dispatcher planned to tease Grimaldi a bit when he rolled in.

  “You kiddin’? Can’t make a dime on ’em.”

  Terry Grimaldi? Could be Terrence.

  Bonn tapped at the keyboard.

  There you are.

  Divorced. Old-school boxer. Bonn leaned back in his chair and studied the man’s flattened nose and scarred forehead. “He’s damn lucky I’m Catholic. Guilt wouldn’t let me sleep if I took his money. Have him swing by?”

  ~Conviction

  Henna did her own police work. All she needed was one and here he was—he’d lead her to the others. One man stood out in the footage from the cabaret. He’d laughed when he crushed Stephan’s hands with the hammer. When he was done—when the men who’d held Stephan down left to bludgeon other victims, he stayed. He sat beside Stephan. He leaned in and appeared to talk to him—almost as if he knew Stephan. She took still shots of the man’s face and printed them on her computer at the university. Stephan was slowly getting better. He called her by her own name now. That morning he’d gone in for his third surgery—hand specialists needed to move two pins in his hands that migrated, and since he’d be under anesthesia anyway, other surgeons would work to reconstruct his sinuses and jaws. Teeth would come later. Still—Stephan would never be the same—although his brain was healing, a lot of anesthesia accumulated from the many surgeries. It was hard to tell what he’d be like in a year, or even two.

  His door was open. Stephan was awake. Henna sat on the bed and stroked her friend’s hair. After a while he noticed the pictures in her other hand. He reached for them. He couldn’t focus. The neurologist was hopeful the traumatic lesions causing nystagmus would shrink when more swelling went down and his trochlear nerves healed. Stephan moved the picture on top of the stack back and forth for a long while.

  “I know him—I’m remembering more now.” It took Stephan some time, but he accurately described the man in the picture. “I know him from school. He took a class from me. I thought he liked me.” The parts of Stephan’s face that still moved looked sorrowful. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was a rabbi—I grew up Hassidic. Like all fundamentalist upbringings. It created shame and resentment. There weren’t options or choices of any sort in our house. It was hateful—my father starved me when I couldn’t recite teachings verbatim. I didn’t want you to know me like that. An instant victim? No. I learned long ago that you can feel sorry for yourself and limp through life, or you can choose to be what you want others to see. I want you to know me as strong, capable, independent, fearless. It’s who I want to be for myself too. That’s why I dressed up for drag shows. I—I suspect you might think I’m gay, but Henna, I’m not—I spent time at the cabaret because I was surrounded by friends who were facing their fears head-on. It wasn’t what they were doing that was important. What they chose to do despite their fears mattered. It was a festive atmosphere—lighthearted and ridiculous, but exhilarating. No judgments were made. Nothing was too serious. That acceptance allowed people of all sorts to be kind, patient, understanding with each other. It was the farthest I could venture from the pain of my upbringing. It’s a wonder I still want to be Jewish.” Henna smoothed at a bit of hair that hadn’t been shaved from Stephan’s head.

  “What else don’t I know about you?”

  Stephan teared up. Secretly, Stephan had loved her for years. He had almost told her thousands of time
s, but it was better she didn’t know. He loved her unconditionally. There was no one on Earth like her. He’d always felt lucky just to be near her and if she knew, if things became uncomfortable between them, he’d cheat himself out of the only relationship he’d ever cherished. If there had ever been an appropriate time to confess his feelings, it had passed long ago. It was especially true now—with him in little pieces.

  “You’re a great friend, Henna.” Henna teared up but had to stay on task.

  “I actually knew that—OK, not-gay rabbi. Tell me about him—let me go get him.”

  “He seemed to have romantic intentions, but I’m celibate—let’s add that on for fun. I’m a celibate not-gay cross-dressing rabbi.” Stephan was trying to joke.

  That was a good sign.

  Henna forced a smile. “Don’t forget ninja.”

  “Yeah—I was a ninja too.”

  “You still are—”

  She couldn’t lose it right now. She had to stay on track, or she’d just crawl in with Stephan and never leave. The men who hurt him would get away with it.

  “—so he was mad you didn’t want to date him?”

  “Maybe—I think he looks for boyfriends, but it’s a secret he compensates for with the hate group. He seemed mad when I told him I was busy. He knew I sang at the cabaret because he went there. He must have assumed I was gay. When he saw me at school he recognized me—maybe he was angry and embarrassed? Marcus? Marcus. That’s his name.”

  The earth stopped rotating under Henna. She focused on the tick and hum of Stephan’s IV pump, on the smell of astringent, on her friend buried beneath the macramé of cords and wires. Her heart pounded her anger awake with whale coughs and Tibetan mountain horns. Each whunk of electrified meat sent hornets to the tips of her fingers, to her scalp, to the arteries below her tongue.

  Marcus—she had a toehold.

  The planet groaned for relief under her. It waited permission to spin. Somewhere mountains buckled, stones splintered into the air like popcorn boulders from the pressure.

  Marcus.

  Henna took a breath and allowed the globe’s skin to judder forth. Each relief valve in its skin, each volcanic boil, each geyser and crack that spewed heat and magma seemed to line up beneath her feet like the tumblers on a lock. She was the epicenter—white-hot vexation escaped her in sulfur-scalded bursts. “What semester was that?”

  “Last fall—the three o’clock in 216. Wait…” Stephan tried to sit up “…what do you mean by ‘go get him?’”

  This was the crossroads. Stephan was unaware no arrests had been made.

  Even the media had moved on to other stories. Henna chewed her lip and brushed at the bit of hair left on Stephan’s misshapen head.

  He must feel her hunger for destruction.

  “Remember something for me, Stephan: I know things are hard right now, but they will get better.” Henna found his cellphone in a plastic bag in a thin closet. She plugged it in to charge and sat it on his bedside table. “In about a week I’ll call you from New York. It won’t be from a number you recognize, but please answer. I won’t leave a message if you don’t answer, but I’ll try again. If you see a call from area code 917, it’s me.” Stephan looked confused, but nodded. “What’s the area code I’ll call you from in a week Rabbi Ninja?”

  “Nine-one-seven. So you’re leaving me?”

  “No.” Henna cupped Stephan’s face in her hands. “I’m paving the road for us.”

  Henna made a call from the lobby. The university’s registrar found Marcus in moments.

  She had an address.

  She went to an internet cafe and dug. Marcus Blackshaw lived with his parents. His father was a powerful lobbyist, cozy with the Scottish parliament. He was a rainmaker. A damned tycoon. Now Henna understood: Marcus believed himself untouchable.

  Well, prepare to be touched, you evil bastard.

  ~Metal Crowd

  Henna rented a car to stake out the Blackshaw estate. She ignored a large Bentley that rolled from the tall iron gates, but when a small sports car pulled out shortly after, she followed it.

  Marcus.

  She spent the whole afternoon watching her quarry. He ate at an Indian restaurant near the Royal Mile then went to a bar that catered to the metal crowd. She followed him in. Although it was risky, she sat just a table away. Finally she got a good look at him. Bleached hair. Healing black eye. Expensive wool jacket. A large man with a shaved head joined the evil asshole for a couple of minutes. They spoke in hushed tones. Shortly, the skinhead nodded. He walked behind the bar and made several phone calls. The skinhead looked dirty. Marcus, however, looked fastidious—as though he bathed twice a day.

  Henna stayed at the bar when Blackshaw left. She flirted aggressively with the dirty skinhead. When she invited him to the toilet for some fun, he jumped at the chance. Henna followed the monster down a filthy hallway. She slipped a thin aluminum tube from her pocket and unscrewed a cap from one end. A black rubber cone sat beneath the cap. It housed a thick spring-loaded needle.

  They were alone.

  She drove the device deep into the giant’s elbow. She watched him drop then locked the door.

  It was as if lightning struck him.

  He curled involuntarily around his arm and groaned in anguish through clenched teeth.

  “Stonefish venom,” Henna said calmly, though she didn’t feel calm. Henna held the aluminum tube up. She screwed the cap back on so the writhing dirt bag could see the device. “I ask the questions. If you answer believably, I’ll give you a shot of antivenin. You don’t know what that is, do you? I’ll tell you—the first shot hurts like nothing I can comprehend. The pain will kill you if I don’t intercede. The next one helps. You need the next shot … you want the next shot. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Henna rotated the tube as if she revealed an exclusive magic trick. She raised her eyebrows and squatted near the grimy beast. She tapped the second cap then unscrewed it as he watched. A second black rubber cone lay underneath. The criminal nodded eagerly at the tube.

  “Of course, you want it—I’ve told you as much. Questions first. Who is Marcus Blackshaw to you?”

  The man hissed a stale-breathed answer past clenched teeth. “He leads the Runes.”

  God, that stuff must hurt.

  “Good. Are you a Rune?”

  “Yeah. I’m a Rune. Now give me the shot!”

  His breaths had become labored. She had to hurry.

  “I know you need it. Look whose hand it’s in, dumbass. I’m the only one who can save you. Focus. When do they meet next? The Runes, that is, and where?”

  The miscreant wasn’t thriving. He’d fouled his pants and exhibited both nuchal and diaphragmatic dyskinesia. He tried to breathe past the vomit the involuntary movements had caused, but he’d already aspirated. Beer, rye, and smoked meats mixed with the smell of blood and smoke, feculence and scum. Henna recalled the morning she and Alvar came across a hunter squatting over a moose on a crisp fall morning. When the hunter had opened the massive animals body with the tip of his knife, the intestines steamed. They roiled, still alive, while the man sliced the connecting tissues from the animal’s huge liver. It was an earthy smell—a deep metallic, clean smell.

  Humans smelled so much worse, even live humans who were mostly intact.

  This man smelled of rot, of disease—his eyes rolled wildly inside their sockets like loose old clams. The putrescence of hate clung to every surface of the small room.

  From the looks of him, she might not get her answer.

  “You’ll be dead in thirty seconds if I don’t give you this shot—no time for nonsense.”

  “Tonight—the Hall. Ingliston. Gray one-story. North of the track.”

  “Will Marcus be there?”

  “Yeah—” The animal had become more helpful as his hypoxia worsened. “We all will.” Henna screwed the cap back on the aluminum tube. She’d planned to give the second injection of stonefish venom as a painful sendoff, but
he only had seconds left. She might need it later.

  “I will,” Henna promised. “You won’t.“

  ~Ingliston

  Henna raced to Ingliston. A building that matched the skinhead’s description was where he’d said. Henna approached warily.

  One-story. Flat roof. North of the racing track.

  Otherwise nondescript, it reminded her of the blue cinderblock building in Malé. There were two doors: the back door swung in, the front door swung out.

  Reinforced metal.

  They’d put a heavy stone planter a few feet from the front door. The planter contained sand and cigarette butts. She imagined they’d put it there to block a vehicle from ramming the door, or maybe for cover if the building were attacked. Henna removed her belt and measured the distance from the planter to the door. The wind kicked up and a thin metal sign buzzed against the block walls.

  The Hall.

  Bars covered a small window to one side. They were welded to a steel frame set into the heavy block wall. Sun-yellowed paper was pasted to the inside of the window, but someone had scratched a small hole in the paper to see out. Inside, Henna made out some plank benches, a podium, some folding tables and chairs. She imagined the room full of racist skinheads, each giving off a different chemical stink.

  This is where they met to plan the attack on Stephan and the others.

  One of them yelled “hammers” and the rest had cheered. These were no Vikings. These were not even men. These were demons—loathsome rummagers who consecrated atrocities while clinging to the underbelly of the world. The room seemed light inside, as if there was a skylight. On her second trip around the building she found a stepladder behind some scraps of plywood. She unfolded the ladder and looked up at the roof. Henna had a moment of doubt as she climbed. Her legs felt weak and her mouth dry. In a moment, her anger returned. She willed her legs to move. The tar roof was covered in gravel. There was a skylight at one end, near a metal pipe shaped like a candy cane, but the glass was too grimy to make anything out. The cane shaped pipe must be an air intake. It was eight inches or so in diameter. She guessed the shape kept rain out. Henna reached into the pipe and pulled out a rusty mesh screen—a gob of papery filth dropped out with the screen, put there by either insects or birds. She tossed some gravel around the bend in the pipe. She heard it land inside the building. Henna stood. She brushed the filth from her hands and surveyed her surroundings. Activity at the track was light and it was quite far off. There was no reason for track patrons to look toward this nondescript building. Other industrial buildings were scattered around, but it was Friday. Unless someone worked late and came out for a cigarette, odds were no one would see her.