Since all the murder victims were Vietnamese, Jerry pulled a plastic box of yellow stickpins from his desk drawer and began putting them on the map. His tour of duty had made him slightly racist when it came to Vietnamese and other Asians, a tendency he tried to conceal. When he finished, he stepped back to try and see the “Big Picture.”
“Let’s see. Six bodies, all located in the one-square mile area that encompasses Little Saigon. Similarities: Each body was found in an alley, off Main Street. Each body was missing the right ear. Mental note: check with the coroner and see if he can determine if the killer is left or right handed. Each body was a young Vietnamese male, age thirty to forty. Each body showed signs of an extreme beating and the corpses had their throats slit.
“Dissimilarities: According to the initial coroner’s reports, some of the victims were dead before their throats were slit. All those bodies, and not so much as a fingerprint of the killer at any of the crime scenes. Conclusion: the killer wore gloves,” Jerry finished, then heard the captain’s voice.
“Nice map, Jerry. From the number of pins and the area you’ve got outlined, looks like you’re working on the Little Saigon killings.”
“A nice piece of detective work, Captain. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yeah. Add another pin in Baker’s Alley. I just got a report that they found another stiff behind the Club Saigon. Poor bastard got the shit kicked out of him before his ear was cut off and his throat was slit. Check with the coroner’s office in the morning, maybe they can come up with something you can use to nail this guy.”
“Got any better news, Henry? Like maybe Ed McMahon came by to see me on my lunch hour and I’m wealthy enough now to quit this fucking job?”
“You’re getting kind of seedy. Why don’t you knock off and try again tomorrow? Maybe your outlook will be brighter after you’ve knocked back a few brews with the boys and had a good night’s sleep.”
“Thanks for the advice, Dr. Davis. See you in the morning.”
Jerry was hoping that Willy Beal would be at the 44 Magnum, but as luck would have it, he wasn’t. Jerry swept through the door and quickly looked around, but Willy B. was nowhere in sight. It made him think of what Blackjack Baker had used to say back in Nam: “You know, Jerry, if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” Truer words were never spoken, because when Jerry last saw Baker, what was left of him was filling up a body bag.
“Yo, Mondo, seen my buddy Willy Beal today?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him for the past couple of days. What can I get you to drink, amigo, the regular?”
“Yeah, and make it a double.”
Mondo put a napkin in front of me and leaned closer as he delivered the drink. “Say, Jerry, I read in the Times that another Vietnamese got wasted in Little Saigon last night?”
“Yeah, you heard right, Mondo. What of it?”
“Nothing, it just seems odd to me that, and don’t take this wrong, but Willy B. seems real interested in the killings and he’s never here when they occur, but you can bet he’ll be here in a day or so. Don’t get mad. Just an observation.”
“Look, Mondo, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m the detective and you’re the bartender.” Jerry drank the double scotch in one quick gulp, savoring the burning liquid as it made its way to his empty stomach, and abruptly pushed the glass toward Armando to emphasize his point.
“Hey, Jerry, no offense, man. I just thought it might be worth looking into.”
“I’ll bring by an application for employment on Monday, Mondo, I hear we can use some bilingual recruits in East L.A.” With his fresh drink in front of him, Jerry Andrews mulled over what the bartender had just said. His little inner voice came on. He’s right, you know. There just may be a connection. But on the other hand, I gave Willy B. a twenty. He could just coincidentally be out drinking it up right now. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t push the coincidence out of his head. He started to get a migraine, just like when he thought of Mona, only this time it was coming from thoughts of getting screwed without getting laid.
He looked at his watch. It was six p.m. “Mondo, can I use the bar phone for a minute?”
“Hey, Jerry, do I look like some fucking telephone operator or what? Remember me? I’m just the bartender.”
“Look, Mondo, I’m sorry about the remarks. Now how about giving me the phone before I rip your lungs out without anesthetizing you?”
“Hey, amigo, no need to act tough,” Mondo said, as he shoved the phone unceremoniously in front of Jerry.
Jerry reached into his coat pocket and retrieved my address book and quickly located the home phone number of Captain Davis. He dialed, and after three rings it was picked up. The gruff “Hello” on the other end of the line told Jerry that he was speaking to Henry Davis. “Henry, it’s me, Jerry Andrews.”
“What the fuck are you calling me at home for, Jerry? Isn’t anything sacred anymore? Isn’t a man’s home supposed to be his castle? Is it after working hours or am I having a nightmare?”
“Whoa, Cap. In answer to your last four questions—no, yes, yes, no. What I really need from you is your approval for me to put on twenty-four-hour surveillance for a suspect in the multiple killings case.”
“You mean you actually have a suspect, Detective?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t have any hard evidence yet, but I’ve got a hunch about this one guy that may help us solve this case.”
“Let me get this straight, Andrews. You want me to commit our overworked and undermanned unit to overtime because you have a hunch?”
“Yeah, Cap, that about sums it up.”
“You’ve got to give me more than that to justify O.T., Jerry. I’ll ask you again: do you have any hard evidence to support your position?”
“No.”
“Then your answer is the same as mine.”
“Please, Cap, you’ve got to give me at least a few days of surveillance.”
“Read my lips, Jerry. I don’t GOT to give you anything, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get—NOTHING. Now if you’re done with this subject, how about letting me get back to bed.”
Jerry found himself starting to talk into a telephone that had suddenly, if the buzzing was any indication, gone dead in his hand. “That son of a bitch,” he shouted as he slammed the receiver back into the cradle and shoved the phone across the bar and into the waiting hands of Mondo.
“Care for another drink, amigo? From the look on your face, you just got fed a raft of shit. Always good to wash down shit with a scotch or a cold beer.”
“Very astute of you, Mondo. I’ll take your suggestion with a bourbon chaser.”
“A boilermaker. A man after my own heart. That’s the old Jerry that I know and admire.”
Jerry sat back with his drink, trying to piece together what little information he had on this case. Gunner McConnell had liked boilermakers. The two of them had been sitting in the team house just having a 3.2 brew, and of course, Gunner had taken out his bottle of Jack Daniels and poured them each a two-finger shot. Jerry was new in-country then and Gunner used to call him “Cherry.”
“Hey, Cherry, ever try a boilermaker?”
“Of course I have, and don’t call me Cherry anymore unless you...” Jerry’s words hung in the air like a fart in the wind. He’d known he’d made a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth.
Old Gunner smiled at him and rose from his stool, grinning down with a maniacal look that would make Mr. Hyde bolt and run. Jerry held his ground—his seat, that is—trying not to make direct eye contact with Sgt. Gunner McConnell.
“What say we have another boilermaker and play a game, Cherry?”
By now some of the other guys in the team house had noticed a confrontation brewing and were getting real interested in the conversation. As much as Jerry didn’t want to, he had to face up to the bastard now, or forever be his whipping boy. “What’ve you got in mind, Sgt. McConnell?” It w
as easier on Jerry’s psyche to call the sergeant by his surname than to call him GUNNER, which was intimidating to say the least.
“You ever play Vietnamese mumblety-peg, Cherry?”
Jerry had used to play regular mumblety-peg, in the school yard with some of his friends. Two guys faced each other and alternately threw pocket knives into the ground outside of each other’s feet. Each time the knife stuck, you had to move your foot out to where the knife had stuck, until you were stretched out so far you were sure that the only thing holding your legs on was your scrotum. Whoever stretched last, won—although usually both players hurt so bad that nobody really won. That was the mumblety-peg that Jerry knew.
“No, Sgt. McConnell, I can’t say that I have!”
Gunner passed Jerry his third boilermaker, then explained Vietnamese mumblety-peg. “The rules are the same as regular mumblety-peg, Cherry, except each time you throw your knife, you drink another boilermaker.”
“Sounds easy to me, Gunn—I mean, Sergeant. If I win—no, when I win—you don’t call me Cherry anymore,” Jerry slurred.
“It’s a deal, Cherry. You bring a few brews and I’ll bring out the J.D.,” he said as he grabbed the half empty bottle from the bar top and headed through the door. “We’ll discuss what I win if—and when—the time comes, Cherry.”
“Deal,” Jerry said as Jerry confidently grabbed a six-pack from the refrigerator and followed him out into the afternoon sun.
They faced each other, feet together, at attention. “You can have the first toss, Cherry,” said Gunner with his usual arrogance and sinister smile.
Jerry looked him dead in the eye, took out his Buck folding hunter and deftly tossed it three feet to his left, where it stuck in the soft earth. Gunner moved his boot over to where the knife stuck in the ground, then handed Jerry a boilermaker which he had poured out himself. Gunner eyed Jerry as Jerry drank, making sure he finished the foul-tasting mixture.
Gunner then took out his Ka-Bar and ran the blade over his thumb, purposely drawing blood. He sucked the blood from his thumb, trying to further intimidate Jerry—and succeeding. Gunner leaned over and tossed the Ka-Bar about four feet, where to Jerry’s chagrin, it stuck.
Between the booze and the sun, Jerry’s head was reeling. Sweat poured from his body as he stretched his leg out and pushed it up against his knife. His groin was beginning to feel like it did when he was a kid on the playground. He reached down, both legs spread far apart, teetered on the brink of losing his balance, poured some whiskey into the open beer can, and offered it to Sgt. McConnell. Jerry must have looked pretty silly, his legs spread so far apart that the crack in his ass felt like it would tear open, offering a drink to a smiling misfit. Smiling. He has to be hurting almost as much as I am. What’s he smiling for? Jerry thought.
That was when Jerry’s lights went out. Gunner kicked out and caught him square in the nuts with his right foot.
Jerry woke up feeling angry and stupid. The searing pain between his legs made me feel like discretion was the better part of valor, and he wasn’t all that sure that he didn’t have a permanent disability. The thought entered his mind that maybe, just maybe, he should “thank” Gunner for this—but no, that thought left as quickly as it arrived. As his eyes slowly cleared, he saw that deranged grin staring down at him. Jerry wanted to cover his eyes, but that would mean taking his hands away from his crotch and possibly exposing himself to more suffering.
“Welcome to the team, Jerry. Care for another boilermaker?”
“No thanks, Gunner,” Jerry said weakly,” but if you’ve got a cold one, how about pouring it down my pants?”
The cool feeling running down the front of Jerry’s pants felt so good, until he snapped out of his reverie and realized he had spilled his drink and it was running off the end of the 44 Magnum’s bar, cascading onto his crotch, then dripping onto his shoes. Mondo’s clucking laughter finished waking him up. “Hey, amigo, can I get you another boilermaker?”
“Yeah, and a dry towel would be appreciated.”
“Hey Jerry, you okay? It’s not like you to spill a drink on your crotch. Is this some new scam to get B.J. Maggie over here to dry off your tool? I hear she can suck an orange through a straw.”
Jerry drank up in one swallow and leaned across the bar. “Mondo, you got my beeper number, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Jerry, why?”
“Because I’ve got to go now. If Willy Beal comes in, give me a call.”
“Sure thing, Jerry. I’ll see you around.”
TWELVE
Simon Cohen had given Jerry a lot to think about, and his brain was cranking out information like a sausage grinder turning raw meat into Jimmy Dean’s. As he entered the L.A. coroner’s office and headed for the refrigeration room, he couldn’t get over the fact that this case had plenty of information, but damn few clues. He walked past the directory sign that pointed him to the office of the deputy coroner, Dr. Sam Yamamoto.
Sam was a third-generation Japanese-American with a medical degree from UCLA and a penchant for politics. Jerry had met him two years ago, just after he had been assigned to the coroner’s office. Jerry had been working another homicide, which he had theorized was some sicko hacking up pedophiles with a meat ax. Dr. Sam pointed out to him, at the autopsy, that the killer tried to make the murders look like a butchering, but underlying the gross condition of some of the wounds was some extraordinarily fine surgery.
“Jerry, these murders were meant to look like senseless butchery, but the incisions over the heart and down the lateral obliques indicate that a surgical scalpel was used on those areas. I found it interesting that the heart and liver had been removed, and removed with great care and precision.”
The more Dr. Sam had talked, the more Jerry had seen his original theory, like some pie in the sky, flying out the window. He might as well have been reading a Dr. Seuss fairy tale.
“See here,” Sam had said as he made Jerry look into the child’s body cavity. “Each organ is gone but the cuts on the veins and arteries have been done with a scalpel.”
“So, what do you think, Sam, a ritual killing?”
“Possibly, Jerry, but try this one on for size—a pediatric organ donor scam. There are big bucks in it if it’s done right, and there’s a lot of affluent folks out there with sick kids and no inclination to be part of some waiting list.”
“Shit, Dr. Sam, why didn’t I think of that?”
“That’s why the city pays me the big bucks, Jerry.”
The frosted glass pane in the top half of the old wooden door read, “DR. SAM YAMAMOTO, M.D., M.E. DEPUTY CORONER.” Jerry opened the door without knocking and pushed it closed behind him. Sam’s office smelled of formaldehyde, just like the lifeless bodies he worked on, day in, day out. Even though it was only nine a.m., he was seated behind his desk eating store-bought sushi with a pair of chopsticks. He looked like the Japanese version of Edward Scissorhands. “A little early for lunch, isn’t it, Sam?”
“Just a snack, Jerry. You here to talk about the stiff from Baker’s Alley? Capt. Davis said you’d be by to talk about his results and view the remains.”
“How can you eat that shit with the smell of embalming fluid stinking up this joint?”
“You get used to it. Care for some sushi, Jerry?” he said as he deftly captured a seaweed-encrusted rice ball and pushed it toward Jerry on his plate.
“No thanks, Sam. Can we get down to business before I puke?”
Yamamoto scooped up the rice ball, popped it into his own mouth, then put the empty plate into his top desk drawer. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then looked up at Jerry, tossing the autopsy report file down on the desk in front of him. “The victim has been tentatively identified as John Hong. Preliminary identification was made using a driver’s license and photo ID that we found in his wallet. It wasn’t possible to match his dental records, since he had all his teeth kicked out.”
“Did you find any money in the wallet, Sam?”
“Yeah, fifty-three dollars and some change. More than I’d expect a dishwasher to be carrying, but it might rule out robbery as a motive.”
“I thought I was the detective, Sam. I get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield around here. You said he was a dishwasher. How’d you know that?”
“Soap residue for a commercial dish soap was found under his nails and on both his arms up to his elbows. I figure the kid is either a dishwasher or a detergent tester. They found the body out behind the Club Saigon, which is a restaurant and bar—deduction: dishwasher.”
Jerry put his anger behind him and wrote down the facts Sam was giving him, on a pad of paper that he kept in his inner coat pocket just for such occasions. He noticed that some of the rookies coming out of the academy were using small tape recorders, but that wasn’t Jerry’s style. Old fashioned and proud of it: that was his style. “Find anything that ties the body to the other murders in this case?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Besides the right ear being sliced off, his throat was cut from under the right ear, all the way to the left cheek. Your killer is left-handed. I checked the other six bodies assigned to this investigation and found the neck cuts to all be done in similar fashion.”
“No shit, Sam! A southpaw. That’s the first real clue I’ve had in this case. What else can you tell me?”
“You see this photo?” Sam said, sliding a glossy black and white across the cluttered desktop.
“Yeah, what of it? It looks like a shot of an arm and a hand. Has this got something to do with the victim or our killer?”
“Both. First off I noticed what looked like a smudge or a bruise on the back of the right hand, in the vicinity of the thumb and first finger. I looked closer with a magnifying lens and at first, it looked like a small tattoo. I couldn’t make out the details, so I got out a scanning microscope with greater magnification. The details became real apparent after that. Check out this photo.”
Club Saigon Page 6
