He had never felt better in his life, and therein lies the dichotomy of death. He had wrestled with the phenomenon ever since, but from a different perspective. He was not sure what really happened to him in that bunker when the shaped charge blew the shit out of him, but it had changed his life forever. After that event, every time he found himself in a stressful or life-and-death situation, he was able to astrally project himself out of his body and watch the event unfold from above. He could hover painlessly, the earth and the event below him, and the bright tunnel above him. It was as if there were two of him, one good, one bad. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Jekyll floated above the earth on the fringes of heaven, while the Hyde in him killed the victims, feeding off their fear like a vampire lusting for blood. He wished there were only one of him, the one who could fly off through the tunnel to visit with his teammates just one more time, before being helped out of it.
So now you know. He was like Sisyphus pushing a giant boulder up the mountain, only to have the rock roll over him just as he reaches the crest, and finally, they both came to rest at the bottom of the hill. Like Sisyphus, he had been condemned by the gods to repeat this act over and over again, perhaps because he had been on the other side, perhaps just to appease their sense of humor. From his perspective, he was being punished, because he knew what awaited us all on the other side of the door that most of us fear to open.
He didn’t know why he killed, but he did. If it didn’t feel good, like being in the tunnel, he wouldn’t do it. If he wasn’t feeding, like a hungry shark, off the fear of his victims, he wouldn’t have any reason to do it. But in a way, he wasn’t doing it at all, because he was goodness personified and only watching from above. He felt helpless to intervene, not wanting to get too far away from the soothing light. It was his earthbound self, which also felt its warped version of good. His Hyde side felt good when he saw the fear, and when he killed. You might say that one of him killed and one of him just looked on for the same reason. We both feel good about where we are and what we are doing. Why should we be forced to feel the way we do when we push that fucking boulder up the mountain?
Jerry woke up the next morning with a terrible headache. They were getting worse, and life was bad enough without having to go to some doctor who was going to tell him he had a brain tumor. He choked down four aspirin and packed his satchel for the trip downtown. Before going to the office, he stopped at his apartment to check the mail and read the newspaper. He didn’t notice any stories about another slasher murder, so he headed back to Rampart, forgetting that he needed a shower.
It was ten thirty when he finally got to the office. Capt. Davis was there to remind him how bad he still smelled and ask him if he had any leads on the slasher case. “Two days in a row without a murder, Jerry. The killer must know you’re hot on his trail.”
“I’m a little disappointed, Cap. I didn’t see anything in the papers this morning that might give me a new lead.”
“Have you heard any details from the coroner’s office regarding the girl that got herself killed?”
“I expect to have her autopsy results on my desk. I’ll let you know if they turned up anything unusual. Has Fleming’s bunch turned up anything tailing Willy Beal?”
“No. And Jerry, I’m not sure how I feel about spending all the taxpayers’ money tailing a wino that couldn’t slap his ass with both hands, let alone surgically remove ears from people.”
“Thanks for the support, Cap. Well if you don’t have any other good news for me, I’ll go check my mail. Maybe I got a letter from Ed McMahon and won a million bucks so I can quit this chickenshit job and go live in Mexico for the rest of my life.”
The coroner’s report was sitting in the middle of Jerry’s desk, staring up at him as if it were daring him to open it. The gummed label on the outside jacket cover read “AUTOPSY REPORT: KE SON NU, FEMALE, ORIENTAL.”
Jerry opened the folder and began to read, hoping to acquire some new information. Right off, the victim was female. That was new. The cause of death was listed as “Death due to knife wound across the throat and associated blood loss.” That was not new. It was the photographs that interested Jerry, the eyes in particular. They were wide open, not just staring, but there was something about them when taken in relation to her open mouth and highly lined cheeks, that made him want to look closer. He compared one photo to the shots on his tactical wall diagram. The contorted facial expression was on all the victims. It had to mean something, but what, he wasn’t sure.
It was just a hunch, but those pictures were trying to give him a clue, and he sure needed a lead, especially since the captain had removed the surveillance squad off Willy Beal. He felt in his pocket and fished out the rolls of film that he’d shot up the previous night while on his undercover stakeout at the “Hotel You Dung.” He put them in the photo lab basket with a note to get them back to him by the next day. He wasn’t looking forward to spending time with the mug books, but that’s exactly what he’d be doing to identify all the criminals, if any, that were in his pictures.
Jerry looked back up at his “death board,” then back down at the picture of the slain girl. Fear—that was the look on her face and the faces of the others. If he had to describe the look on their faces in just one word, that word would be “FEAR.” Sure, there were a lot of other words—“TERROR, HORROR, PANIC, FRIGHT”—but “FEAR” summed them all up, and wrapped that look into a neat little bundle. That was the common denominator in all the photos beside the obvious cause of death, the cut throats. Jerry got up from his desk, a feeling of elation swelling inside his gut, that feeling he always got when he reached an inescapable conclusion. He picked up a black marker from the chalk tray and wrote the word across the bottom of the board. FEAR.
He sat back down, pondering this new insight and just what it might mean. He fingered another envelope that was on his desk. The first roll of film he took had been developed, and he anxiously opened the envelope and looked at each photo, hoping to come up with another clue. The tall stranger looked familiar, but Jerry couldn’t put his finger on just what had triggered his memory. His gut was shouting at his brain, telling it to remember. He remembered he’d set up a meeting with Willy for tonight. He hoped to hell that Willy would be straight enough to identify the man in this picture. That would be the shits, Jerry thought, if Willy Beal, the lush that drank Cleveland, remembers this guy and I don’t. That would sure make him feel good; in fact, it would encourage him to continue to not bathe and take up permanent residence on the streets. Willy and Me and our jug make three. We could go on the road with that act. Go on the road? Hell, we’d already be on that road.
The word was put out on the streets of Little Saigon. Uncle Vinh was offering a reward for information about the killer. The shrewd old man knew that if anyone had any information, they would come to him for a higher reward than mere money—his undying gratitude.
Chou stoically continued to grieve for Ke Son, putting out his own word within his personal resource network in the twenty square blocks that made up the Little Saigon community. He wanted to be the instrument of the killer’s death. He wanted to be Ke Son’s avenging angel. It was not that he didn’t think that Uncle Vinh would dispense the appropriate justice; it was that he wanted to be the executioner. He wanted to kill the assassin of Ke Son as the killer begged for his life. He wanted to kill him slowly and deliberately, an inch at a time. He wanted the killer to die one minute at a time for days.
The city was teeming with people. They reminded him of the ants that he used to watch through the glass that separated him from his ant farm. They scurried from place to place, gathering food and returning to the nest to feed the queen, not unlike what he was experiencing now. It was hot in the midafternoon sun and the predominantly Oriental populace had just finished their afternoon naps and were ready to conduct business again. The fruit stands had opened and the shopkeepers were hawking their wares. It reminded him of Pleiku, but this time and place was far removed from that one.
It started like a distant buzzing in the back of his head. That’s how it always started, then the buzzing began to become more distinct and become language, words that he understood. The words were unintelligible at first, random ravings that made little sense, but soon they began to form distinct sentences. The words became orders from a higher power. The orders gave him direction and told him what he must do. The voices extinguished his headaches. The voices delivered his marching orders.
Like an automaton, he moved through the crowded streets, oblivious to the chaotic noise of the merchants, until he finally spotted his victim. He had seen him before, a tall thin Oriental wearing black pajamas and sandals made from old tires. How many times had they crossed trails? Too many times to count, but that was in another life and this was now. Now it was time for the victim to die. Now it was time for the killer to kill. His inner voice kept hammering on him: “He’s the one. Follow him until the time is right, then do him.”
The little man went to a food vendor and bought some rice, which he put in the shopping bag he was carrying. He walked a little farther and bought some ribs, bright red, the way Orientals liked them. They were the color of dried blood, probably dog’s ribs, as was preferred in some parts of Asia. When I was a kid I used to have a German Shepherd, “Ol’ Shep” I called him, and I’m sure he wouldn’t take too kindly to the way his species was being treated by these people. It would be really fun to watch Ol’ Shep rip this guy’s throat out. I’d definitely stand in line to watch that show.
The sun was beginning to go behind the buildings, and the lengthening shadows provided him with shade and cover as he tracked his quarry. The little voice was unrelenting and kept hammering at him, telling him to “strike.” As he worked his way closer to his prey, the thrill of the hunt began to well up inside him. It felt like the good person locked inside him was pushing hard, trying to get out of his body and hover in the ebullient beam while watching the carnage from above.
The little man turned down Thai Alley, probably taking a shortcut home. His pursuer slid in, several paces behind him, moving with stealth and catlike precision. He felt the cold blade of his knife in the waistband of his trousers. The cool steel felt good in the late afternoon heat. He was so close now he could reach out and touch his victim, but he held back, checking the alley for other people. He casually walked past him, touching his pajama sleeve, counting coup as if he was a warrior from the past. The Oriental jumped, startled by the sudden, catlike intrusion into his space. The pursuer walked swiftly into the darker recesses of the narrowing alley, stopped abruptly, and turned to face his now-nervous target. He checked again. The alley was clear of intruders.
His inner soul rose out of his body and hovered, offering him a view through its eyes of the alley’s landscape. His inner voice came to life. “Tet 1968. He is one of the VC that overran your camp. He is a rapist of women, a defiler of children. Your government demands that he be put to death.”
The killers hand went to his waistband as his victim approached. His eyes said it all—FEAR. The killer’s inner voice chided him on, as his outer voice was silent, preferring to look the other way and be bathed in the luxuriant light.
The Oriental dropped his bag, so scared of what he saw in those piercing eyes that his bowels let go as he slumped to the pavement. He pushed himself up on his elbows and began to propel himself backward until his back touched the brick building at the other side of the alley. The alley was totally shrouded in shadow as he held his hand up to ward off the blow he knew was coming.
The other man had seen this so many times, fear so intense that the victim couldn’t speak, couldn’t cry out for help. Sweat flowing from every pore, making the victim reek with body odor. Fear this intense always made his sense of smell become so heightened that his nostrils flared as he got closer, taking in the strongly scented air like it was ambrosia. He moved closer and could actually see his victim’s heart pounding under his pajama top. He could have that heart, but all he wanted was the Oriental’s ear—and his life.
As his good side soared toward heaven, the voices told him to strike. He stepped forward, quickly sliced off the right ear, and stuffed it into his pocket. As the victim sobbed, finally finding his voice, he drew his blade from the victim’s left ear to where his right ear had previously been. It never ceased to amaze the hovering part of him how his victims would cling to life. If they only knew how painless it was outside the body. If they only knew how warm and good the light made you feel. They wouldn’t fight so hard to cling to life, but would just let it go.
The Oriental grasped the slit in his throat, trying to stem the flow of blood, but it was no use. He must have had some high blood pressure, because the blood pumped and squirted out of him, shooting into the air and finally coming to rest on the lower part of his pajama leg. Blood on black pajamas never gave the killer much of a thrill; it just looked like his victim had wet his pants. The victim’s staring expression, his lips drawn up in a fearful, soundless shriek, and his hands benignly clutching at his slashed throat—now that was a thrill!
The killer wiped his blade off on a dry portion of his shirt sleeve and put it back in his waistband. His inner voice began to retreat into his psyche, quickly followed by his outer spirit, which streamed back in like a ping pong ball sucked in by a vacuum. His headache began to return, and he longed for some sleep. He made his way back from the light and collapsed into fitful dreams.
EIGHTEEN
The 44 Magnum was unusually quiet tonight. Mondo noticed Jerry as soon as he hit the door, and handed him a rocks glass with two fingers of scotch in the bottom. “You’re pretty quick tonight, amigo.”
Jerry looked at his watch: it was five fifteen. “Have you seen my pal Willy B. yet?”
“Yeah, he’s here. I assumed you wanted me to let him drink on your tab.”
“Yeah, that’s okay, but where is he? I don’t see him at the back table.”
“He looked really bad when he came in here. His hands were shaking like he had the DTs, and his face was puffy and cut up really bad, like he’d been fighting. He’s been in and out of the restroom. That’s where he is now.”
“Thanks, Mondo,” Jerry said as he made his way to the dimly lit rear of the bar. I hope Willy’s all right, he thought, as he pondered what Mondo had said. Jerry waited for five more minutes, then, when he didn’t return, decided to go into the restroom and see what was keeping Willy.
The men’s room at the 44 Mag smelled like piss. Sure, it had those little deodorizing screens in the bottom of the urinals, the ones that say “FOR BEST DISINFECTION, CHANGE EVERY 30 DAYS. CALL 1-800-747-7464 (pissing) RON’S FIXTURE DISINFECTION COMPANY.” It occurred to him, based on the way the men’s room stank, that the building manager probably had never changed out the deodorizer in the urinals. He wondered how RON felt about getting pissed on every day by the clientele of the 44 Magnum. Probably never gave it a second thought. It also occurred to him that Willy wasn’t taking a piss. He looked at the stall and saw that the door was closed. He peeked under the door and saw a pair of legs covered by tattered, threadbare pants, with dissimilar tennis shoes on the feet. It didn’t take a degree in brain surgery to tell him that Willy was in the stall.
“Willy, you in there?” he said, talking through the closed door.
“Is that you, Jerry?” came the weak reply.
Jerry wondered how Willy could stand the smell for so long. “It’s me, good buddy,” he said, pinching his nose. “Mondo decided to send in the cavalry, so here I am. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a few minutes. Can’t a guy take a decent shit anymore without being interrupted all the time?”
It sounded like a rhetorical question to Jerry, so he headed for the door. “See you at our regular table, Willy, and don’t stay in here too much longer, or I’ll have to send the coroner in to get you out. The last guy that stayed as long as you have ended up at Forest Lawn—you know, Disneyland for the dead.”
; In a few minutes, Willy came out of the restroom, looking different from what Mondo had told Jerry to expect. He wasn’t sure what it was about him, but Willy’s vacant stare drew Jerry’s attention to his eyes. Those pupils were as dilated as an old corpse’s. “Shit, Willy, you look and smell worse than I do. What’ve you been doing with yourself since yesterday?”
Willy looked up at Jerry, but couldn’t hold eye contact. He looked down at the table again before speaking. “A little of this and a little of that, Jerry.” Willy’s hands were shaking so bad, he looked like a guy in his skivvies parachuted into the North Pole in the dead of winter.
“By the looks of you, it appears that you’ve stayed off the sauce since we last met?”
“Yeah, how about that. It’s tough, Jerry. I’m trying, but I just don’t know if I can stay off the juice. I’ve tried before, lasted as much as five days once, but—hell, I can try again.”
“I know, Willy, it’s a tough addiction to break.” Jerry was holding onto his scotch glass so hard he thought he’d break it, but left it on the table in deference to Willy’s condition. Jerry was never very good at beating around the bush, and had a hunch that Willy had also taken some hard drugs to help ease his pain. It wouldn’t be the first time that an alcoholic kicked the habit by substituting narcotics. Addiction of any kind is the pits, and the walls of the pits were high and straight-up vertical. He reached across the table and grabbed Willy’s hands, pulling them toward him. The bruises on his exposed forearm told the whole story. If Willy B. wasn’t already exposed to HIV, he soon could be, and then he would get to see Preacher sooner than he thought.
Club Saigon Page 12
