by M. Z. Kelly
He shrugged. “I never met him and don’t even know what he looks like. I heard a few weeks after I moved out of Jezzie’s apartment they had some kind of falling out and parted ways.”
I glanced at Charlie. His gray brows inched up, signaling me that he didn’t have much more. “What about other guys,” I asked. “Is there anyone else you can think of who might have been involved with Jezzie?”
Gibson checked his watch and sneezed. “No, not really. There was obviously someone else in Jezzie’s life but Barry and his hired goon were the only ones I remember hanging around.” He pulled a tissue, blew his nose, and looked at Bernie. “I really need you to leave. My allergies can’t handle him.” He pointed at my dog. Bernie gave a little shake, maybe taking offense.
After a couple of more run-throughs, going over what Gibson had told us only from different angles to see if his story held up, we were satisfied that he didn’t know anything more. I left a card and asked him to contact me if he thought of anything else.
Out on the sidewalk I asked Charlie what he thought about Jezzie’s so-called boyfriend.
“Just a pretty-boy who was doing Jezzie a favor until Ralston’s hired gun threatened him. Then the coward chose his modeling career over Jezzie and threw her to the wolves.”
“But Gibson said he didn’t think Ralston caused her to lose the baby.”
“Ralston had a prior domestic disturbance. Everyone knew he was a bully. You ask me he was good for it.”
The weather was still foggy. I ran a hand over my unruly damp hair. “If Gibson was trying to do Jezzie a favor by pretending to be her boyfriend to keep Ralston away it makes me wonder why her brother Bix didn’t like him.”
Charlie shrugged. “Maybe he was upset because he caved in to Ralston’s threats. Guys try to look out for their sisters. No one’s ever good enough for your sis or your daughter, for that matter.”
As we got in the car I thought about what Charlie had said. While he was younger than me, Robin had always tried to look out for me. As for my father, what would he have thought about the sorry state of my life? I slouched down in my seat, thinking that if he were alive there are some things that even a father can’t fix.
CHAPTER NINE
We were in the car headed back to the station when Pearl Kramer called. “We’ve located a house that Chucky Wilson rented near Firestone in South Gate. I’m on my way over there with the Dou…with Gooch and Glade. If you guys can meet us there in twenty we can take a run at him together.”
Pearl gave us the address. Charlie ended the call, made a U-turn, and stomped on the accelerator. It was early afternoon as we headed south. The heavy fog that had rolled inland during the night was finally lifting.
“What do you know about Wilson?” Charlie asked me as he drove to the LA suburb.
“He played pro football for a couple of seasons before a knee injury ended his career. His prison jacket shows a history of substance abuse and violence. The joint time was for battery—a head strike with a pool cue to a guy in a bar who was left brain damaged.
“After he was paroled Wilson got sober, opened up the sports agency, and was a big wheel, representing several athletes, including Jezzie. Over the past couple of years he fell on hard times. I pulled up something on the Internet about him using drugs again. He ended up declaring bankruptcy and gaining a lot of weight.”
“Familiar story,” Charlie said, turning the unmarked Crown Vic off the freeway at Firestone Boulevard. “Drugs and money, the twin devils for a lot of athletes. Reminds me of my ex.”
“She never struck me as the drug-using athletic type.”
Charlie’s shot a glance at me as we hit the surface streets. “You never saw her drunk and chasing me down the street when I filed for divorce after she cheated on me.” He sighed. “Worst of it is, she’s gonna get half my pension when I pull the plug.”
We met up with Pearl and the brothers down the block from a small house that fronted a busy street in the Los Angeles suburb. It was a poor neighborhood with a reputation for gangs and drugs. Wilson’s house was a small single story with peeling paint, a dead lawn, and detached garage. Up the street, I saw a handful of local gang bangers and some druggies milling about.
“The car in the driveway is registered to Wilson,” Pearl said, the detective’s silver hair glistening in the afternoon sunlight. “We had a black and white do a couple of drive-byes before we got here. Not sure if he’s home.”
“What about the Mercedes?” Charlie asked, motioning to the car parked at the curb just up the street from the former sports agent’s house.
“We dunno,” Kyle Gooch said. “Been here the whole time. Maybe it’s Chucky’s uptown ride.”
“His babe cage,” Glade agreed.
“Can’t be his,” Charlie said. “Car like that wouldn’t last the night parked on the street in this neighborhood.”
“How do you want to play this?” Pearl asked. The elderly detective was dressed in tan slacks and a jacket, in contrast to the brothers who looked like they were dressed for patrol in Afghanistan.
“We could go to the door and pretend we’re salesmen to gain entry,” Eric Glade said. “I used to sell vacuum cleaners in college.”
“Sorry bro, but you’re idea kinda sucks,” his older brother said. “I say we pretend to be parole agents, tell Chucky he’s gotta pee in our cup or we’ll send him back to Folsom. He’s probably using again and we leverage that to get him to give up the goods on Jezzie.”
His partner said, “Or we could say that we’re from a reality TV show and…”
“Enough,” I said, cutting him off before I had to listen to another idiotic idea. “Let’s do something really inventive like go knock on his door and say we want to talk to him.”
Glade’s green eyes brightened. “Radical, dudette.”
“I want you two to hang back with your vacuum cleaner and pee bottle,” I said to the brothers. “I don’t want Chucky thinking the SWAT team is here and have him run.”
After a round of protests, I left the brothers and walked up the street with Charlie and Pearl. Bernie sniffed up the brick walkway to the ramshackle little house before I knocked on the door. There was no response. I didn’t hear any sounds from inside the residence. I knocked again with no results.
I turned to say something to Pearl when I saw that Gooch and Glade had come down the street and into the yard. They were pointing to the back of the lot and began heading up the driveway. I started to ask them what they were doing when Gooch moved a finger up to his lips.
We followed them up the driveway, past Wilson’s older model Ford, and stopped in front of the windowless single car garage at the rear of the property.
“Listen,” Glade whispered, motioning to the closed garage door. “I hear voices from inside.”
I now heard a muffled voice from the garage. It sounded like a man talking. I couldn’t make out his words but there seemed to be an angry edge to what was being said.
I motioned for the others to stay put. Charlie held a gate open as Bernie and I walked around to the side of the garage. I crouched low and now saw there was a window with a broken pane. Beyond that there was a door leading to the interior.
I heard a man’s voice again, this time much louder and clearer, but also harsh and demanding. “It’s time you learned your lesson, Catherine.”
The voice of a woman followed, softer than the man’s tone and pleading. “Please, I just wanna go home…let me go…” She broke into sobs.
My adrenaline spiked as I motioned for my companions to move through the gate and up the sidewalk. When they were at my side I whispered, “I think someone’s being held hostage.” We listened as the man’s strident voice rose up again from inside the garage.
I held onto Bernie and tried to keep him from whining while the brothers moved ahead of us trying to get a glimpse of what was happening. Gooch poked his head up toward the window first, at the same time keeping his body low. After a moment he bent down while hi
s brother took his place at the window’s ledge.
Gooch then came back over to us and whispered, “It’s Hannibal Lechter.”
It occurred to me that this was another one of the brother’s crazy statements. “What are you talking about?”
“The cannibal,” Glade confirmed in a low voice, after coming over to where Gooch was crouched. “He’s even wearing one of those crazy leather muzzles.”
I motioned for them to stay where they were, handed Bernie’s leash to Charlie, and moved up to the edge of the broken window. After a moment my eyes adjusted to the interior darkness. I saw that the brothers were telling the truth.
A giant naked man was wearing a bite restraint mask identical to the one Hannibal Lechter wore in Silence of the Lambs. He was standing over what looked like a large pit in the middle of the garage floor.
“The lotion,” I heard the behemoth say as he stared down into the pit. “You must rub the lotion on your skin, Catherine, or you will get the hose again.”
“God…no…please,” a woman pleaded and began sobbing. “Please let me go.”
I moved away from the window and motioned for the others to follow me. We then went back outside the gate where we huddled on the driveway.
“It looks like he’s holding a woman hostage in a pit, just like in the movie,” I said.
“He must be some kind of whack job copycat killer,” Gooch proffered. “He’s probably gonna skin her, make himself a dress.”
“I say we bust in there and go all commando on the dude,” Glade said. “Maybe he’s got a bunch of women in the pit. We’ll be heroes.”
“Or dead,” Charlie said.
Pearl, always the cooler head, prevailed. “Why don’t I call it in and get some backup?”
I nodded at the same time we heard the muffled sound of the woman screaming. “Make the call Pearl—code 3. But I don’t think we can wait around for help.”
“You think Wilson’s the guy wearing the mask?” Charlie asked me as Pearl left to call it in.
“Could be. He looks like about three hundred pounds of bad attitude. This could get very ugly.”
“I’ll bet the ALF is gonna eat her liver,” Gooch said.
“What?”
“Abnormal Life Form,” he explained. “He’s probably planning to dine on it with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
The woman’s screaming rose up again, this time louder.
While Pearl went to make the call I said to the brothers, “On my signal, count to ten—slowly—then make entry from the garage door. Charlie, Bernie, and I are going in through the side door. Don’t shoot unless it’s within policy, but if you do make sure we aren’t in the crossfire. No mistakes.”
The brothers nodded in unison. They moved over to the garage where they crouched down. When Charlie was ready I wrapped the leather strap on Bernie’s leash tighter in my hand and unholstered my service weapon. I then nodded my head, signaling Gooch and Glade to begin the countdown.
I silently counted as we moved through the gate and down the sidewalk to the garage’s side door. When I reached the ten count, I held my breath and pulled the door open. Charlie followed behind Bernie and me with his gun also drawn.
“Police,” I yelled, nearly blinded by the sudden darkness inside the garage. The air smelled foul and damp. The monster in the mask pivoted toward me. “Get on the ground, NOW,” I shouted. Bernie was pulling against his leash, barking. Charlie came up to my side, crouched in a shooting stance.
“Who the hell is that?” I heard the woman say from the pit.
A moment later, the garage door swung open. The brothers, like a couple of bad ass cops from a Will Smith movie, stood in front of our huge suspect with their guns drawn.
“Don’t move, you psycho freak,” Gooch called out.
“Grab some dirt, Hannibal,” Glade yelled. “There’s no lady buffet on the menu for you today.”
“What the fuck’s going on?” the masked man snarled.
Somewhere beneath the bite grill I thought I saw a smirk. The giant’s brow furrowed and his nostrils flared. His dark eyes bounced back and forth, above a massive rigid jaw. Our adversary was perspiring profusely, his naked, bloated body shimmering in the light spilling in from the open garage door.
Then my gaze moved down and I noticed something else. Our Hannibal wannabe was in a state of intense sexual arousal. I was looking at what my friend Natalie would have probably said was, a wanger as big as a bloody anaconda. The drug crazed cannibal looked like he was ready to eat us all for dinner and then take out his sexual frustration on the woman in the pit.
“Get me out of here,” the woman yelled from down below.
I glanced over to the large opening in the middle of the garage floor and saw a naked white woman. She was frantically clawing at the sides of the pit.
“He’s running,” Charlie yelled.
I turned and saw the giant naked masked man bolt from the garage, toppling the brothers like they were a couple of ragdolls in a carnival booth. He then pushed past Pearl who was coming up the driveway.
After commands by Charlie and me to stop were ignored, I bent over, unhooked Bernie’s leash, and gave my big dog the German command, Fass, for attack.
Behind us, the woman in the pit continued to shriek and call out for help as we scrambled after Bernie and the giant naked suspect. By the time we all turned the corner and got to the front lawn, Bernie had things in hand. Well, not really in hand. He had things, or rather a thing, in his mouth. My big dog had Hannibal the cannibal by the most convenient appendage that was available to him.
“Get him off,” Hannibal screamed through his mask, writhing on the ground and trying to kick Bernie. “He’s got me by the dick.”
A scrum followed, as I tried to get Bernie to release the giant’s partially severed organ and the brother’s piled on, while Charlie and Pearl tried to cuff the flailing monster. It took several minutes, more than a few body blows to the giant’s sweating, bloody body, and several uniformed officers who had arrived at the scene to get our enraged suspect in custody.
“I’m fucking bleeding to death,” the handcuffed giant yelled through his bite mask. “Somebody help me.”
Luckily for him, it looked to me like his penis was still partially intact but he was bleeding heavily.
I was covered with blood, sweat, and dirt as I looked over at Kyle Gooch who was bent over, trying to catch his breath. He glanced at his brother and shook his head.
“No way I’m doing first aide on that,” Gooch said. He motioned to the man’s bleeding member. “That’s way above my pay grade, bro.”
“The more blood he loses the smaller it gets,” Glade said, panting heavily. “Let’s wait it out. Maybe it’ll just fall off.”
Glade high fived his brother as an ambulance pulled up. As they began walking away, he said to Hannibal, “Adios, Alice. You dickless moron.”
While the attendants worked on the wailing masked suspect I asked them to wait before transporting him to the hospital. I then walked back to the garage where I saw that Pearl and Charlie were helping the naked woman out of the pit. Other than a few streaks of dirt, our victim looked to be in pretty fair condition.
“Where’s my robe?” she demanded as she came up a ladder and Pearl gave her a hand.
Charlie looked from her to me and shrugged. “Maybe we should call the maid, see if she can also bring her some toast and orange juice.”
“Is this what you’re looking for?” Pearl asked, holding up a black garment.
The woman snatched it from his hand, pulled it on over her head, and said, “I’m leaving.”
I stepped in front of her. “No, you’re staying right here until we find out what’s been going on.”
“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” the woman snarled.
“Someone who a few moments ago was stark naked, trapped in a dirt pit, and begging for her life.”
She bent closer to me, her eyes filling with tears. He
r tone became contrite as she whispered, “I’m Loretta Johnson.”
My brow furrowed. She said her name again but it took me a moment before it all registered: the name, the face, the robe. “Judge Johnson?”
“Yes,” the presiding judge of the superior court said. More tears flowed as she quietly added, “I need this kept confidential. My reputation and career is at stake.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She sucked in a breath, grabbed her sides, and motioned for me to follow her to a corner of the garage. “I met Mr. Wilson in court when I heard his bankruptcy case. We later ran into one another in a local restaurant and…well, let’s just say that we decided we had some movies and…other things in common.”
I looked into her pleading watery brown eyes. “You mean this was a sex game?”
She nodded. “It was just play. I don’t know why you had to interfere.” Her tears came harder.
After turning the judge over to a female officer so that a formal statement could be taken, I met up with an unmasked Chucky Wilson who was now handcuffed to a stretcher. The ambulance attendants appeared to have stemmed the loss of blood with lots of bandages. Wilson looked nothing like the photographs on his website. The once handsome former athlete had aged dramatically and must have gained at least a hundred pounds since his playing days.
“I’m gonna sue,” Wilson fumed, his naked body coming halfway out of the gurney when he saw me. “You were trespassing and…”
“We heard screams and found you threatening a woman in an earthen pit in your garage. I’m sure the jury will be very sympathetic.” My clothes were ruined, I was covered with dirt and blood, and I was in no mood for Wilson’s attempts at intimidation.
“We were just having fun,” he bellowed. “You had no right…”
“We have every right to intervene when we think someone’s life is in danger.”
“Am I gonna lose it?” Wilson said to the ambulance attendant as he came over. “My pecker—is it gonna be alright?”
The attendant nodded. “You’re going to need surgery but you should be okay—eventually.”
