by Beau Johnson
Money. That’s what it came down to. He’d needed more. To leave for good? Who knows? But as I told Jeramiah, I’d do my best to remember to ask him.
“So, you’re the guy.” Jeramiah had him in chains already, the man strung up by his wrists, locked in place at the ankles, and leaning toward me at an angle. He seemed collected enough, but the darker grey of his sweatshirt informed me that things within him were as they should be.
“I’m the guy.”
“Hear me out. That’s all I’m asking.” I don’t answer, making my way to the workbench and grabbing a hammer instead.
“If it’s money, and by the looks of this place I don’t think it is, but just in case, know I’m your guy. But if there’s something else you need—chicks, blow, I mean anything, anything that gets me out of here alive—then Fella, I’m that fucking guy too.” He’s trying, I’ll give him that, but I should have already known. The men working for him, willing to do the things he asked, it takes charisma, it takes charm, and if I were willing to break it down, a lack of empathy as well.
But I wasn’t willing. Never had been. Never would be.
“What it’s going to come down to, Greg, are the words that come from you next. Ready?” He was. His eyes now eager and alive with the possibility of removing himself from a situation he’d only ever had nightmares of. But he wasn’t ready, not if either of us were as honest as men like us never seem to be. He gives me names, sure, and each man would receive a visit from Jeramiah and me, but as the hammer rips through the skin above his right eye and I continue to pound at the bone I find there, I remind myself that easy or hard, it’s not that it needs to be done, but that it has to be done.
The memories I have worked no other way.
Back to TOC
MAMA WESTMORELAND’S SON
Listen. I get it. Wrong time, right place, and the world has been against you since the dawn of time. Not the most original story, Mark, but since I’m now unable to see you any other way I’m just going to go ahead and say it—you strike me as a you-do-you type of guy. That being said, it means I have to be me. All told, we wouldn’t be here otherwise.
So, nearest I can tell you are Mama Westmoreland’s only begotten son. Makes me think this could be why you only seem interested in things that revolve around good old planet Mark. Don’t get me wrong, we all do this to some extent, myself included, but you, my man, are as they say: a legend who takes the cake in order to shit the icing.
It stops here, of course. Which, by the amount of piss I see leaking into your sneakers there, makes me think you realize the same. And that operating table? Yeah, before my time. Means a whole lot of years and bodies share the same secret history neither of us will ever get to chat about. Me, I like the workbench. How the tools lay there randomly, in no particular order—just strewn about like no one here has a care in the world. But we do care, Mark. We care a lot.
The wall to your left? Skull fragments. Don’t ask me how they continue to stick out of the concrete as they do, but yeah, it is what it is. And I only work here, Mark, I don’t own the place, but that doesn’t mean I’m attempting to water things down. I’m not, Mark. Trust me. The plexiglass, though. That is new, brought in special just last month. Beyond it, that other little white room, we call that the kill box. A kill box inside a kill room. Can you believe? It, too, remains what it is, Mark, and if you knew what I knew, I do believe you would have steered clear of anything even remotely associated with what we do down here.
And the man who does own this place, Mark? Bishop Rider is the man’s name. Ring any bells? Nah, didn’t think it would. Him and me and a few others, we do our best to stay under the radar. Does it work? On what one would call a semi-consistent basis? Not always. We get by, though. Or have. And then situations like you and me and the chair you find yourself bound to there, they arise yet again.
What? You didn’t think I was just talking to hear myself speak, did you? Nah, not someone as big and bold as you. A man who knows how to put women in their place if it’s needed, right? A step above might include a man who believes he may or may not be entitled to sexual relations with anyone he chooses. Sound familiar, Mark? A little like anyone you know? You sure?
Okay, change of topic then. Call it a history lesson. A “previously on.” You good with that? Yeah, I thought you might be. It doubles back to that fella I mentioned: Rider. Big dude with anger issues on top of anger issues on top of anger issues. Likes to wear all black too, does dear old Bishop, and I’m only saying as much because I like to paint clear pictures when I speak to people, Mark. My own mother, she always said a gift was like a compliment: everyone should be lucky enough to get one. Makes sense? Yeah, I see you beginning to understand.
Anyway, Bishop’s sister never gets to see her eighteenth birthday, and Maggie Rider, she’s found as no mother should be found: facedown in a dumpster, her throat open to the bone. Each does not pass go. Each does not collect two hundred dollars. This is what many would call an inciting incident, Mark, and if walls could talk with regard to this particular event in this man’s life, they would also fucking bleed.
Rider turns in his badge, not as unlikely a scenario as one would think after his or her family is taken from them in the way his was. It’s what he does next that brings us to you. Or men like you. But before we settle on you exclusively, Mark, let’s bring you up to speed: he’s a hunter, Mark. He hunts. Rider’s confidence in his own precinct’s mishandling of the initial investigation so shaken that he takes things into his own hands. Does it work out? I’m going to say yes, Mark, as I’m not spoiling anything this far into the story as we are, but it does take him time. Years, in fact. Until he and Batista uncover Marcel Abrum as the man behind it all.
The Abrum brothers, actually, but you never hear much of Marty’s involvement in any of the narrative that’s out there. Which is unfortunate, really, as bone and marinara sauce is, in my opinion, one of the best combinations of deterrents out there. Granted, I had a front-row seat for this specific event, but still, two great tastes that taste great together? Come on. How can one go wrong?
As you’d think, it doesn’t appease the man, not at just taking the brothers out. He goes on, tracking every man involved with the making of that video his sister is killed in. It becomes his only goal. The only narrative. His obsession plus one. He goes after not only the heavy hitters, but people on the distribution end of things as well, eventually finding a seventh man, a man who the whole time hid in the bathroom of that hotel room they take April Rider apart in.
Mark, your eyes—they’re doing something funny. Mark, my man, have you been holding out on me? You do realize April Rider is raped by six men in masks before she’s killed, right? And that these acts, by people with bigger balls than ours, they record them? Because if you did know this, there’s no way a man like you would download them and attempt to sell them at five bucks a pop. Ludicrous is what something like that would be. I mean, attempting to profit from a minor’s serial rape and murder? Who does that? You’d have to register pretty fucking low on any type of spectrum to even entertain the idea is how it’d be seen.
You need a moment? Some time to reconcile what I’m throwing your way? If it helps, know that I’ve known from the start. But to be fair, Mark, it did bring you to us, and if you take anything from our time here together, have it be this: we are nothing if not thorough. Which circles us back to something else I’ve already talked about. Any guesses as to what that might be?
I’ll give you a hint. You brought attention to yourself, Mark. People who do such things, once we catch wind of them, we vet them, as any self-respecting catchers of assholes should. It means we don’t just know, Mark, we’ve seen your sheet. You’re not only a man who chooses to beat women, Mark, but one who’s also a registered sex offender, now out two years of a ten-year stint.
What? Oh yes, I did, in fact, say we. Didn’t even hear them big black boots come up behind you, did you? Light as fuck on the feet, ai
n’t he? For such a big guy, I mean. Anyway, Mark, that’s my allotted time. Yours truly but a pre-show to the main event. Can’t say it’s been fun either, but then again, why would I? Rest assured, I’m leaving you in very capable hands. I also leave you with one last piece of advice: don’t beg, Mark. He only makes it last longer if you do.
Oh, and enjoy the kill box. I hear it’s just been cleaned.
Back to TOC
NEW TOYS
CCPD apprehend Jody Matheson early, and good for them, but all told it’s not near soon enough. Candace Kingyens, the young woman they find him with the night it goes down, not his first victim but his fourth. Arms severed at the elbow and skin removed to the bone, Matheson is adding these pieces to what he calls his creation when he’s caught.
“That’s what they’re calling it?”
“Manifesto states it, bullshit and all. Fucking incels.” Batista spits as he says the word, and in that one moment, the detective tells me most of what I needed to know. “We’re not just talking crazy here, Bishop, but certa-fucking-fiable.” I couldn’t disagree. Matheson and most of what he’d been attempting to create held together by twine, wire, and parts of three other women: Melinda Russell, Janice Collins, and Heather Hill Lucki. All four fused to one another in ways that bring Mary Shelley to mind.
“But here’s the thing,” Batista continues. We’re out back of the Ronson house, the smaller safehouse that sits above Culver. Ground floor to top edge, the furthest point of the property line bleeds into a half mile of ravine that’s backed by steep escarpment. Batista looks past this, out to the city he’d sworn to protect. Out to a city now bathed by the night. Me, I’m focused on the big man, his voice unlike anything I was used to. “Matheson, I think he may have had help.”
I’m not surprised. The depravity that inhabited Culver rivaled only by the obscene. Both trumped by men who believe they deserve.
“APB or need to know?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
Ah, the shoe drops. Message received loud and fucking clear.
Time to go to work.
But there was nothing to latch onto. No leads. CCPD as well as the time I spend digging in on my end coming to the same conclusion: Matheson a lone gunman despite key pieces of evidence suggesting otherwise. Which happened at times whether we wanted to admit to it or not.
Doesn’t mean the man couldn’t inspire others.
“You’re sure?” Batista was, the media more so; had gotten hold of the particulars somehow, leaking Adam Kowalyk’s name and the atrocities now associated with this man.
“Two women so far. Kate Pilarcik, no fixed address, and Rachael Kruger, mother of two. Both found off Canal, down under some brush and a half-ass attempt with cardboard. Petechial hemorrhaging puts strangulation as cause of death, but on top, each had their arms replaced with the other’s. Not quite Matheson’s signature but close enough to suggest a copycat.”
True. Which was horrific enough, but where Matheson clearly had some type of surgical training along the way, Kowalyk did not—his additions and subtractions held together by duct tape on top of electrical tape on top of duct tape. An attempt with a staple gun had occurred at some point as well, but I didn’t need the coroner’s report to tell me what I already understood. Men who jump into new things tend to stumble more often than men who take time to plan. More to the point: Kowalyk’s methods, deadly as they were, seemed hasty and brash to me, having novice written all over them.
“Warrant?”
“Nine a.m. this morning. No one home at the time. Units sit there now. Same as his parents’ and the bowling alley he works for.”
“Why do I have a feeling none of those places are the ones you believe he’ll turn up?” Batista wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have something along this type of line. I’d worked with the man too long to believe anything different.
“If you were an admirer of someone’s work, you think you’d ever want to see where it all began?” I close the trunk. Shove my Glock into the holster beneath my jacket. “Not the worst scenario I’ve ever heard, John. If one professed to think like a psychopath, I mean.”
Batista smiles. I don’t.
I was on my way.
Doesn’t happen that first night, nor the second, but on the third night Kowalyk gets sloppy, and I catch movement from the bottom-right window. Matheson’s house was a raised ranch, detached and with a circular driveway lined by large boulders and koi ponds at its center. Located in the north end of Culver, the extravagance shouldn’t have surprised me, but continue to surprise me it did. Money and affluence, more so power and greed, each does this to parts of me as well. And if I looked at things hard enough, it meant there was probably more luck involved with the catching of Matheson in the first place, and only because money is more entwined with perversion than I’d like to admit.
Kowalyk, though. Here, now, was a much different story but one still very much the same. Smaller than Matheson, he was no less violent. Both having domestic disturbances in their files. Nothing along the lines of chopping up and rearranging women’s body parts, no, but still, the signs had been there.
I exit the van.
Slide up on the right side of the house and am about to open the side door when it’s opened out toward me. Gone and shaved to the wood, his hair is no more, but a week’s worth of stubble had begun to beard. Backpack up over one of his shoulders, in a jean jacket, jeans, and a white tee, I’d say my timing was perfect but the noise that escapes him does it for me. Suppressor already attached; I extend my Glock. “Back inside, junior. Slow.”
Stairs are to the left, off a small landing. I suggest he take them, and I follow. This changes when he hits bottom. He bolts here, to the right, and almost instantly I hear metal and what I would soon find out to be bone collide. I locate the light switch, hit it, and see Kowalyk laid out flat upon his back. In front of him, between his splayed legs, stands a metal support beam of an unfinished basement that hadn’t even kissed him before fucking him sideways.
I inject him with the syringe anyway.
Some nights are easy. Others, hard.
Tonight, I admit I got lucky. The man I throw over my shoulder? Not so much.
I head back to the van.
The fallacy behind incels is this: it’s not about sex. They may want you to believe as much, but no, it’s about a call to arms. Dominance and supremacy over what they perceive as an object meant to be beneath them.
“You’re awake. Good. No, over here.”
Stripped to his underwear, he’s groggy, drooling, but in time comes to register the arm in my left hand. Not as defined as most men his age, the detached appendage weighs roughly eleven pounds, give or take, and I hold it over an idea I can’t take credit for. I fought it at first too, suggesting its construction could bring unwanted attention, but Ray takes me to task at this, stating it was no less dangerous than our runs to one-armed Billy and his pigs.
Touché.
Standing three feet high in the middle of the room and six feet from the table Kowalyk is strapped to, it would fit most men. The mouth of the chute leading to an incinerator that now ran under the foundation and toward the back of the safehouse, the venting ports when used releasing directly into the ravine beyond it.
And if anyone could pull it off, it’d be Ray. I mean, the man did at one time insert sonics into my teeth.
I drop Kowalyk’s arm into the chute. He attempts to scream, there on the big table, but the drugs still have hold of him—moans being all he’s able to produce. Doesn’t stop him from realizing he was less now, all four stubs up and converging on his middle at the same time. For inspection? I’m going to go ahead and say yes.
“I’d like to say I understand people like you, Adam, but I can’t. You hate yourself, I understand that much, but as for the woman part of things, that falls on no one but you.”
He blinks. Moans. Continues to wiggle his newfound stumps.
It’
s enough. It was time.
I unbuckle him from the table, and to his credit, he retains a little something as I carry him, arms extended, toward the kill box. He relents halfway there, however, and what remains of him goes limp. Doesn’t stop what happens next. I place him inside the chute, the length of his arms just long enough to allow him to hold on to the sides.
His eyes widen, sutures splitting as he tries to hold himself up. I watch blood seep from his wounds. I watch it ooze down the side of the box.
“No…” he manages. “Please…no.”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”
I turn off the lights and leave him to his thoughts, the orange glow from beneath him growing stronger even before I’ve made my way to the stairs. It unleashes a scream I thought I’d have heard by then, the one that trails after him once he’s no longer able to hold his weight.
In a perfect world, we’d have gotten Matheson too, but as I’d eventually tell Batista, Kowalyk would have to do.
Back to TOC
LATE TO THE GAME
“I know you?” He did, even though we’d never met. Lot of years between now and the event Danny and I shared. I couldn’t fault him either, not for that, but what I do fault him for is the role he played in what the Abrum brothers set in motion all those years ago. A role which, judging by body language alone, someone felt had moved past its sell-by date a decade or so back.
Not where things involving me were concerned.
Not even close.
Jeramiah long ago making up lists and checking them twice in regard to probation, transfers, expunged, reduced, or commuted sentences.