by Lee Perry
“Well, Mitch Ryan was a complete asshole, just insulting to everyone… we all avoided him but it was hard because his cubicle was on our floor.”
“You think he had enemies?”
Jerry hesitated, “Honestly? From what I’ve seen I think his behavior, along with every other trader, is par for the course.”
While Jordan was on the phone, Catherine opened and reread Lesous’s company emails. There’s just nothing suspicious here… She sighed heavily and closing the window, reopened Mitch Ryan’s company account and scanned his datastream from the weeks prior to his disappearance. The tampering in this code… Her lips pursed together in annoyance, Too bad I can’t do the psychometry thing on it…
Jordan hung up, “So that was a bust.”
“Nothing, huh?”
“Nope, just the usual; traders are aggressive assholes and all they think about is business and money.”
“It’s interesting Lesous and Ryan were both careful not to write anything at all in their emails about the flash crash that day…”
“Nothing?”
“Nope, and there was nothing in the deleted files I recovered either. The only reference to the crash I could find for either one of them was from Lesous to the corporate bigwigs. That Jerry Han you spoke was promoted to head writer that afternoon.”
“And the previous head writer?”
“Fired. He got a nice severance package and Lesous said to instruct HR to give him a neutral reference when he needed it.” Her voice trailed away as she stared at the email.
“What?”
“I was very good, when Mister Han looks to see what I did and reports to the powers that be he’ll report I only copied Ryan and Lesous’s files…”
Jordan’s lips twitched in a smile, “But?”
“I did manage to get a sneak peak at the error code from their flash crash.” Jordan’s brows arched high and she hurried on, “It was brief, I swear,” she held up a hand, “I was scanning data and it just flew by…”
“At supersonic speed…” Jordan teased, “but you still saw it.”
“Well…” Catherine folded her arms across her chest, “yes. And I did slow it down so I could get a good look at it as it went by.” She briefly held up a hand again, “I swear there’s no way their tech guys will ever know I did.”
Jordan grinned, snorting, “Okay, and?”
“Their code is simple, straightforward, and absolutely built for speed…. and when it went rogue, I think they were lucky they were able to stop it when they did. When you write an algorithm to function that fast, the smallest error can make the whole go crazy in the blink of an eye .”
“And?”
“I think Mister Kimura is right, with stock exchanges writing code to function ever faster these flash crashes will keep happening.”
Howell Township, NJ
Easiest catch yet… he thought, effortlessly lifting the still unconscious slightly built man and dropped him on the oil tray. During his research, he learned the average one hundred and fifty pound human housed approximately five and a half quarts of blood and he had taken care to order an automotive drip pan that would hold as much. Made of a tough black rubber material, it had funneled corners for neat and easy pouring over the drain although he siphoned off most of it using a short section of garden hose from the pan to the drain. I cannot have leaking bags.
He had backed his car into the garage to empty the trunk of his catch and he drove it back out again, closing the garage door and locking it before reentering through the side. He regarded his fifth catch impassively; Robert “Bobby” Kanther was a vice president at Straight Edge Exchange and Jonas had tasered him in the company parking lot, confidently taking his catch there once he had jammed the wifi-controlled security cameras. This is the first one to wet his pants. He thought, noting the large wet stain darkening the slacks.
Jonas repositioned the now groaning and groggy man on the pan and guessed his catch weighed one hundred thirty pounds, One-twenty, once I drain all the parts… he concluded and walked over to the workbench to retrieve the new two-handled cheese knife.
“Wha… what the fuck, dude?”
Jonas heard the slurred speech and returned, standing over his catch, his head cocked to one side.
Bobby Kanther rolled onto his side and blinked, staring at Jonas’s shoes, “Wha… the fuh…” He repeated. He struggled against the plastic ties that bound him and when he raised his eyes and finally saw the two-handled cheese knife Jonas held at his side, he began to cry, “Oh, Jesus…” his throat closed and his voice became a high-pitched squeak, “fuck, oh, holy shit… Dude! Oh, my god… No, please!”
“Do you know me?”
“NO!” He shook his head wildly from side to side, “I swear! I don’t know… I really don’t… I don’t know… please!”
He stepped closer, “I am a Peaceful Being, I am…” he hesitated.
Throughout his life, he had never looked up his names to see for himself the words his mother told him were hidden in them, It’s funny I never looked them up before… The night before he had searched various websites for name origins and he discovered his mother had omitted a couple of the meanings of his first name. He had stared at the screen for a long time before finally deciding it was his fate to discover the full truth at this time. Folding his hands contentedly in his lap, he closed his eyes, modifying the mantra he had chanted his entire life until the new order was committed to memory.
“I am a Peaceful Being,” he began again, “I am Destroyer, I am He Who Oppresses,” he smiled down at the bound man and recited his mantra in a quiet, soothing voice while his catch stared up at him uncomprehendingly, “I am Accomplished, a Gift from God, a Wise Old Friend.”
“Uh…” Bobby Kanther whispered his voice barely audible, “okay.”
He knelt and pushed his catch onto his back, firmly planting a knee on his chest to hold him still.
“Oh, please…” Kanther pleaded, “Come on, dude!” The man sobbed, shaking violently, “DUDE!” He screamed.
“I am going to cleanse the market like the ocean tide.” He placed the wide blade across the man’s throat, “I am.” He whispered and grasping the handles in his hands, pushed the blade deep into the man’s throat, “I am… Jonas Alden.”
Milburn, NJ
Huh.
She blinked. This time she stood at the end of the long driveway that cut through the sloping grassy field; at the opposite end stood the white stone house with multi-paned windows, Same house. She turned to look behind her and saw the driveway disappear into the trees and when she turned back to the house she nervously licked her lips, Okay, clearly, I need a closer look. She began walking up the long driveway to the house and stopped, What’s that? She cocked her head to one side, listening, Is someone crying? She noticed the white garage next to the white stone house and strained to hear where the sound was coming from, fear pricking at the nape of her neck. Come on, we need to get closer…
She began to walk again when she noticed a white feather lying on the graveled drive in front of her.
Hey!
She bent to pick up the feather…
Her eyes flew open and her smiling lips pursed in a sudden annoyance, “Nuts.” She grumbled.
It was dark and she sat up, grabbing her journal and pen, she padded silently from the room. She went into the kitchen and flicked on the light over the stovetop. Standing at the counter, she recorded everything she could remember about the dream, again making sketches of the house and garage and layout of the property from her new point of view then turned off the light. When she walked through the living room, she saw the light come on in their bedroom and smiled when she saw Jordan peer from the doorway.
“You okay?” She whispered.
“Yeah, I just had a dream,” she waved the journal and pen in her hand, “I didn’t want to wake you, sorry.” She tilted her head for a kiss and flicked off the light, pulling Jordan back to bed.
“Okay.” Jordan
had pulled on the pajama bottoms she left on the foot of their bed and she slid them back off, “So what’d you get this time?” She asked, admiring Catherine’s nude frame as she slid back under the covers.
“I saw that house again.” She opened her journal to the pages with the sketches, “The first time I saw it I thought it was going to turn out to be the victim’s house, but now I’m pretty sure it belongs to your suspect.”
“Really?’ Jordan said, “You can really draw, Catherine…” she said, admiring the artistically drawn images of a house and garage.
She grinned, “Thank you.”
“We should get you some art pencils…”
Catherine turned the page to the layout she had drawn of the property, “This is another overhead view; I was here,” she pointed at the end of the long straight driveway, “And when I tried to approach the house I heard crying.”
“The victim?”
She shrugged, “The victim? The suspect? I don’t know. I admit I got scared and when I looked down I saw a white feather lying on the gravel…”
Jordan grinned, “Your mom watches over you even in your psychic dreams now?”
“Susan said she told her it wasn’t her fault I wasn’t seeing her in my psychic dreams too. I understand why now. I guess the feather’s a good way to remind me when she’s around.”
“She’s looking out for you.”
“Yep.”
Howell Township, NJ
CMark… The HFT exchange, Comprehensive Markets. And so it shall be. He checked to make sure he had all the information he needed on the specialized spreadsheets he had designed for tracking the four CMark executives he chose as potential targets. He shut down his laptop and stood, grabbing the remote for the TV.
He had lived on the Fair Winds & Following Seas for four. months when he overheard two techs at work go on and on about the killing they made in the real estate market, one had purchased a townhouse and the other bought a house in foreclosure with a pool. He had stayed out of the conversation, as he always did, but one of them draped his arms over the cubicle partition and told Jonas he made enough, he should take advantage of the buyer’s market too. At the time, Jonas had only shrugged, he never engaged in friendly banter with his co-workers, but he did start looking for distressed properties online that night, more from curiosity than anything else. When he found the place on Olde Noah’s Tavern Road, he fell in love at once with the privacy and quiet and wrote a check for the reduced purchase price.
He turned on the TV and stretched, rotating his neck, his eyes scanning the bare walls and open doorway leading to the kitchen. Farmhouse surrounded by trees, he mentally recited the realtor’s property description, the picturesque twenty acres is perfect for horses or a private estate. The soil tested poorly for farming, the house suffered from decades of neglect so the property had been for sale for more than a year when he found it and had the old two-story stone house fully restored. He furnished it sparsely and when he embarked on his mission, he moved the long wooden kitchen table he purchased online into his living room, placing it and his office chair in the middle of the room and set up his laptop and large monitor on it. He moved the elliptical trainer from in front of the TV to the side of the room, next to his free weights, strategically placing it so he could still use the equipment daily while watching TV. He even moved his bed to a back room on the first floor, leaving the fully restored upstairs bedrooms and office unheated and unused. Centralized, he thought, turning the TV back off and left the remote on the table, and fully optimized.
He pulled on a jacket and left the house, looking up at the clouds as he walked to the garage. He entered through the side door and pulled a pair of latex gloves from the box on his workbench. He pulled them on his hands while he gazed at the body parts he had stacked, teepee-style on the drip pan; the torso was upside down, resting on one shoulder to allow blood to drain from the neck and he had propped the other limbs around it, cut ends down, to maximize drainage.
A sufficient amount must be gone by now… He peered at the short section of garden hose he used to siphon the blood and fluids from the pan to the drain in the middle of the garage floor. Time to pour what’s left in the pan down the drain. He set about bagging the body parts in the four dark plastic garbage bags and lined them up by the garage door. He had already bagged the shoes and cut up clothing, and destroyed the cell phone after he removed battery and tossed it in his recycle bin. He bagged the phone, wallet, keys and the other items he found in his catch’s pockets, placing them in a small bag filled with fast food refuse. He left the small colorful bag next to the garbage bags, intending to place it next to another fast food bag on the passenger seat so he could toss both in a trashcan at some fast food restaurant on his way to the Fair Winds & Following Seas.
He stripped off the gloves and discarded them in the trashcan next to his workbench. He emitted a huge yawn and fished out his phone, checking the time. I’ll have to get some sleep before I head out… He locked the garage on his way out and walked tiredly back to the house, Then I’ll load up the car… It’s going to be a tight fit, but there should be enough room.
Secaucus, NJ
“Robert Kanther.”
Jordan looked surprised, “Wow, that was fast.”
“I know,” Mary grinned, clutching the device to her chest, “I just love my new fingerprint scanner. An employee for one of these companies around here was getting in her two-mile walk for the day and found it.” She followed them down the tree-lined road to the blue tarp tucked between the trees. “I think it’s been out here for at least a day, Lucas should be able to pin that down.” She waved a finger at them, “I sent his info to both of you in an email.”
“Ooo, thank you...” Catherine began tapping furiously on her tablet, “I’d still like to see the torso.” She said, sounding distracted.
Mary arched her brows high at Jordan who shrugged, “Yeah, she’s doing that now.”
“Okay.” Mary gestured, “We’re ready to transport, so whenever you’re done.”
“Thanks,” Catherine said and handed her tablet to Jordan, “I’ll only be a minute.”
“So…” Jordan murmured, turning to look at the street, “We are on Hartz Way and this is the fourth victim found in an industrial neighborhood nearly identical to all the other dumpsites and…uh,” Catherine pulled some latex gloves from her pocket and she held up a hand, “where’d you get those?”
“From the box in the car, of course.” She pulled them on her hands and bent to lift the corner of the tarp.
Jordan’s eyes flicked nervously from Catherine to the torso, “You’re sure you wanna’ do this?”
“Yeah,” Catherine’s nose wrinkled, “I saw one in a dream already and it looked just like this, like a mannequin.” She looked up at her, “It doesn’t look real.” She looked back down at the torso; the neck, left shoulder and both hip joints had raggedly cut edges and matted pubic hair surrounded a dark patch, “It’s so much work to sever the head and limbs,” she murmured, “why emasculate him too?”
“Sex and power…” Jordan shrugged, “they’re considered the same thing by lots of people.”
“So he takes away their power when he cuts off the genitals.”
“I think so.”
“Alright now, I am gonna…” She reached a hand towards the victim’s extended right arm, the stiff fingers pointing into the trees.
“Catherine,” Jordan hissed, “I really don’t think…”
She looked up at her, “I won’t contaminate it if I’m wearing the gloves, right? Just two fingertips, I swear.” Jordan pressed her lips together in a thin line and remained silent while Catherine placed the tips of two fingers on the dead man’s hand and closed her eyes, You may speak to me but not through me. “So…” she whispered, “what are you pointing at?” The flesh felt like hard plastic through the gloved fingertips and she drew in a deep breath and waited; A car trunk… and… and… cables… lots and lots of colored cables… She dr
ew in another breath but the images faded. “Well,” she shrugged and stood, “I could see the trunk of a car and lots of cables.”
“Jumper cables?”
She shook her head, “I don’t know.”
Jordan dropped the tarp back over the remains and wrapped an arm around the small shoulders, “Everything gets better with practice.”
“I hope so…” She stripped off the gloves, “Didja’ see what I pulled on him so far?”
“Oh… no, hang on a second.” Jordan held up her tablet and tapped the screen, “Okay, so Robert… Bobby Kanther, according to his LinkedIn profile, was Vice President of U.S. Sales for SEEx, Straight Edge Exchange, in Edison, New Jersey.”
“That’s thirty miles from here.”
“And he transported him from wherever it is he prepares the torsos and dumped him here.”
Mary called to them from her van, “All set?”
“Yeah, thanks Mare,” she waved, “we’re done.”
They got back in the car and Jordan handed Catherine’s tablet back to her, “Can you log in with my user name and password and get the warrants going for his financials?”
“Of course.” Catherine clicked the seatbelt into place and began tapping on the tablet again.
When Jordan started the car, she could see Mary waving both arms overhead as she trotted over and she slid the window down, “Hey… what’s up?”
“You’re not gonna believe this,” she groaned, “two more torsos just came in.”
Pawtucket, RI
Still exhausted, he yawned and blinked as he drove, I slept all afternoon and all last night and I’m still tired… He had managed two catches in one night but he had to taser the first man twice to keep him quiet in the trunk while he waited to seize the second from another bar two hours later. The second catch was true providence. He had decided to attempt two in one night but he had given the plan a low probability for successful outcome given the increase in variables that could interfere with the narrow timeline. But he exited the bar as soon as I was ready, right on time, as though he was delivered to me by the Hand of Fate. And although his first catch was breathing when he cut his head off, he never regained consciousness like his second catch did.