The door at the top of the stairs looked like it would take an explosive charge to break it down. He rapped with a coin and after a while a peephole flipped back. He could see the eye and that was all.
“What’s bothering you?” The voice was rough and smooth at the same time.
Eastland said, “I got some chicken for sale. You hungry?”
“What makes you think I might be hungry?”
“I hear you can use all the chicken you can get.”
“What kind of chicken you got? The regular or the extra crispy?” The man laughed.
Eastland said, “I got two young boys, real young. One is six, the other nine. That young enough for you? Their junkie mother OD’d last night. No close relatives so they can’t be traced. You can have them for five hundred apiece. I won’t bargain with you, chum. That’s the price. If you don’t want them there’s plenty does.”
The man laughed again. “Everyboy needs a home. Sounds all right. If they look all right I’ll take them. What color are they? I don’t pay as much for nigger kids, not that I’m prejudiced, you understand?”
“They’re white,” Eastland said. “One is a blonde, the other has darker hair.”
“Well you know what they say—gentlemen prefer blondes. You got pictures.”
“Would I come without pictures?” Eastland held up two small photos of naked boys he’d just bought in a porn shop. He knew the poultry dealer couldn’t see them clearly in the dim light.
Two dead-bolts slid back and the door opened into a room with the walls painted dark red. On the walls were enlarged photographs of small boys with erections. Some had spaced-out smiles as if they’d been drugged. The chicken pimp was a short man in his middle thirties with a swarthy face and a sports shirt. He reached for the pictures.
“You sick fuck!” Eastland said and kicked him in the crotch. The pimp doubled over and Eastland smashed him face-first into the wall. A door to a room with a bed in it stood open and Eastland dragged the pimp inside. The bed had manacles at top and bottom and he snapped them on the pimp’s wrists and ankles. He took a can of lighter fuel from his pocket and squirted it in the pimp’s hair. The pimp woke up and screamed. Eastland soaked the pimp and the mattress until the can was empty. He threw the can on the bed beside the pimp.
Not wanting to see it, the pimp’s terrified eyes moved to the pack of matches in Eastland’s hand. The match was dropping toward the bed when Eastland heard a sound behind him and whirled to face a fat man with glasses with a towel around his bulging middle. Eastland pulled out the magnum and ran after him. At the end of the next room a door slammed and a key turned in the lock. Holding the big .44, Eastland kicked the flimsy door down and went through. It was the end of the line for the fat man. There were no more doors.
The soldering iron glowed in the fat man’s trembling hand. “Keep back,” he warned in a shaky voice. “I’m warning you to keep away from me.”
On a dirty bed a small boy lay whimpering. There were burn marks all over his body. Eastland raised the magnum and shot the fat man in the crotch. The bullet tore on through and exploded when it hit the wall. Eastland shot the fat man in the belly and the bullet exploded inside him. Blood soaked the towel as he pitched back against the wall. On the floor the soldering iron was starting to smolder. Eastland let it burn. In a minute the whole place would be in flames.
The boy screamed when Eastland touched him. He screamed again when he saw the commando knife that Eastland took from his belt. Eastland put the knife on the bed and was putting the magnum away when suddenly the boy grabbed the needle-pointed knife and stuck it up under his chin. He was dead but still quivering when Eastland pulled out the knife.
Eastland vomited, convulsed with the horror of what he had just seen. Oh Jesus! he thought. Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus!
Then he ran out through the wall of flame. On the outside of the door he carved the word EXTERMINATOR.
“A good thing the sprinkler system came on,” one of the uniformed cops said to Dalton. “Otherwise it might take days to find out who they were.”
Dalton gagged on the stink of burned flesh. “Who were they?”
“The first one—him over there on the bed, what’s left of him—was Jonathan Minor. Age 37. Male Caucasian. Everybody knows—knew—Minor on The Street. Thirty-three arrests for prompting prostitution, assault, rape, white slavery, corrupting the morals of a minor. Lately he specialized in young boys.”
“Nice guy,” Dalton said.
A lab man was taping off the part of the floor that was burned. He scraped bits of charred wood into a plastic bag and sealed it. The first body hadn’t been moved and neither had the others.
“We have two others,” the cop said. “In there, a kid and a middle-aged man. We don’t know who the kid is and may never know. A kid that age wouldn’t have a record. He looks about seven or eight. God knows, he could be younger.”
They went in to look at the bodies. A man from the Medical Examiner’s office was bending over the boy, inspecting the wound in his throat.
“The fat guy is a state senator from New Jersey,” the cop said, enjoying the surprise. “Walter P. Blackerton. We got his ID from his wallet. He belonged to the Elks.”
“He would,” Dalton said.
Photographers and lab men came in from another room where they had been working. “You get a picture of the door?” Dalton asked.
“What door? Why the door?”
“The Exterminator, if that’s who it was, scratched his name on the outside of the door.”
The photographers said in a chorus: “You’re not supposed to say that name.”
“The kid died from a thin knife wound, near as I can tell,” the M.E.’s man said. “You can see the guy got shot. You know much about explosive bullets?”
“You don’t see them often,” Dalton said.
“Looks like that’s what did him in. One blew off his balls and hit the wall. The other—first or second I can’t say—blew up in his gut. You’re right, I haven’t seen much of them either. They make a hell of a mess.”
“Who do you figure killed the kid?” the cop asked.
Dalton shrugged wearily. “Can’t help you there. What do you think?”
The question was for the M.E.’s man. “I can’t even make a guess. You’ll have to wait for the autopsy to even know what killed him. After that it’s your department.”
“What now?” the cop asked.
“What we do now is start asking questions along The Street. Did anybody see a fairly tall white guy wearing big shades and a baseball cap. That’s the only make we have on the killer.”
“It’s just a waste of time.”
“Probably. But we have to go through the motions.”
“Looks like he’s starting to move around,” the cop said. “First the three punks in the Bronx, then Pontivini, and then this.”
“Yeah, he gets around all right,” Dalton said.
When Dalton came into the stationhouse the desk sergeant said, “That guy at the lab has been trying to reach you. What’s his name? Joe Lopez. Wants you to call back.”
Dalton went up the stairs two at a time and called the lab. A guy put him through to Lopez. “You got something, Joe?”
Lopez refused to be hurried. “That boot print, we didn’t get a match to any of the impressions we have on file. That probably means boots like that aren’t retailed through ordinary stores. I can’t say that for a positive fact. But it looks like it.”
Dalton’s heart sank. “You mean it’s a foreign make that isn’t sold in this country.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s possible. If it’s a foreign make that isn’t imported, where do we begin? England? Germany? Austria? Spain? The Far East? Behind the Iron Curtain?”
“Shit!” Dalton said.
“There’s another possibility,” Lopez went on calmly. “There are companies in various parts of the country that sell hunting and camping gear—boots too—exclusively through mail order. Tha
t’s supposed to make the product special. Usually they have one retail outlet where the stuff is manufactured, but that’s all. Most people order from catalogues and write in the order.”
“Then a company like that would be in hunting and fishing country. I don’t know where. Michigan. Maine. Idaho. Places like that.”
“The company doesn’t have to be there, not necessarily,” Lopez said. “It could be in Chicago. I don’t know why I picked Chicago except it’s the biggest mail order city. You mentioned three states, all in the north or northwest. What about the rest of the country? People hunt and fish in Alabama, Texas, Colorado …”
“Please don’t name all fifty states, Joe. I don’t think I could stand it. Get your boys on the phone and keep calling till you get something. Not that many people in New York hunt or fish. The ones that do probably get their stuff at Army-Navy stores. Try to get a list of mail order customers from this company—if it exists. New York City, all boroughs but especially the Bronx. How many years back should they go? As long as it takes. Yeah, I know the boot print indicates fairly new boots. But maybe the killer didn’t wear the boots that often. Find the men and get it done, Joe. This one comes straight from Deputy Mayor Kahane.”
“That faggot,” Joe Lopez said.
When Dalton hung up he found two call-back messages on his desk. Cheryl wanted him to return her call. So did a guy named Shaw who worked for the CIA.
CHAPTER 12
Dalton threw the message from the CIA in the wastebasket and decided to call Cheryl as soon as he made himself something to eat. In the corner of the squadroom was a battered old refrigerator that kicked and whined but worked well enough. The freezer compartment was badly in need of defrosting. From it he took a pack of frozen hot dogs, dusted off the frost and carried it back to his desk. One thing you had to say about hot dogs: you couldn’t do much to them except eat them. But they were food and he hadn’t had much of that lately.
He smashed the dogs against the side of his desk until one broke off from the rest. This hot dog routine was one of the reasons other cops said he was slightly crazy, but he saw it as a practical way to make a meal. He put the other hot dogs in the freezer and got out a roll and mustard. There were paper plates in his desk—he had all the fixins.
From the inside of his desk he took an electrical cord. One end was a plug; there was a switch in the middle. The other end had two forks taped to the wires. He plugged in the cord and twisted it around a gooseneck lamp until the forks were hanging a few inches from his desk. He stuck a fork into each end of the hot dog. As soon as he pressed the switch, the hot dogs began to cook.
Watching the hot dog sizzle, he called Cheryl and got through to her.
“You sound tired,” Cheryl said. “Have you had anything to eat?”
“I’m just about to dine on a delicious hot dog. There’s all kinds of nutritious stuff in there. Pork snouts, chicken feathers, gamma grass, and don’t forget that artificial coloring.”
“I should report the NYPD to the Human Rights Commission, making you eat food like that. Stop the kidding. How is the case coming along?”
Dalton felt the hot dog and decided to give it a few more minutes. They had a tendency to remain frozen in the middle.
“Joe Lopez at the lab says that boot isn’t sold through retails.” He explained the rest of it.
“What about the typewriter he used to write the letters?”
“All we know is it’s an old Smith-Corona portable. A manual machine. You know how many old portable typewriters there are in the world. The Smith was the most popular, so there are millions. We don’t have the number of the machine, so the factory can’t even begin to check where it was sold originally. God knows how many people have owned it over the years. The Exterminator could have bought it in a pawnshop. If we find the machine, I guess we’ll find the Exterminator. That’s the problem—we haven’t found either.” Dalton switched off the cord and scorched his fingers freeing the hot dog from the forks.
Cheryl said, “But you still think he was in the army?”
Cradling the phone against his shoulder, Dalton said, “Wait a minute. I got to see a dog about a man.”
“I thought you were just kidding.”
“Not when I’m hungry.” He put the hot dog in the roll and covered it with mustard and took a bite. It was terrible but it was hot. He finished it in three bites.
“You’re going to ruin your stomach,” Cheryl said.
“I’m only guessing he was in the service,” Dalton said. “The rifle he used, the M-16, is almost impossible to get, even in this city where you can get everything. What I mean is, why didn’t he use some other weapon? For instance, I hear there are a lot of British Sten guns around here ever since the Free Quebec crowd went out of business. But suppose he was in the army. Hundreds of thousands of guys were in the service.”
“You were in it, does it still bother you?”
“You get over everything. Those were some times all right. I guess those years were very different for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I was there and you were here.”
“Why don’t you ever talk about it?”
“Well, it wasn’t like Sarah Lawrence.”
“I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I’ve never known anyone like you before.”
“You mean a cop? Not many people from Scarsdale know cops on a social level.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t say that to be mean. It was bad over there, wasn’t it?”
Dalton laughed without bitterness. “It was bad. Not as bad as New York City. Bad enough. Can you get off for a while?”
“Impossible,” Cheryl said. “You feel like taking a break?”
“What’s the point if you can’t get away?”
“Don’t give up so easily. There is such a thing as a midnight admission.”
“Sounds slightly dirty.”
“It isn’t, it’s lovely. It so happens there is an empty room down the hall with a bed in it. Some of the doctors and nurses use it on special occasions. I’d say you were badly in need of treatment right now.”
Dalton grinned. “Have you ever used it?”
“Now who’s being dirty?” Cheryl said. “If you hurry you can get here by midnight. Hurry harder and you’ll get here sooner.”
“I’ll use the siren,” Dalton said.
All day Eastland had been bothered by thoughts of Michael. What if something happened to him—where would Michael be then? During the past few visits Michael hadn’t really responded. At one point, instead of answering yes or no with a blink he’d merely closed his eyes and kept them closed. Then, just before he left, Michael blinked his eyes over and over, trying to get some message across. By then there hadn’t been time and he had to leave without trying to find out what it was Michael was trying to tell him.
Now it was late at night and he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to know what Michael wanted. Visiting hours were over, but he intended to see his friend, no matter what the rules said. That meant he had to get into the hospital without being seen. They knew what he looked like after many visits, so if he was spotted word would get right back to Dalton. The cop hadn’t questioned him again. On the other hand. Dalton was no fool; he’d start all over again if the hospital called.
Eastland walked a long way before he flagged a cab. He got out fifteen blocks from the hospital and walked the rest of the way. Hardly aware of it, he was falling into the routine of the hunted man. During his many visits he had noticed that a nurse looked in on Michael every thirty minutes, always exactly on the half-hour. He didn’t know how they did it at night. Probably the routine remained the same.
The only way to get in was through the ambulance entrance. That was where there would be most activity at night; even as he walked he heard the scream of an ambulance siren. It passed him, all its lights flashing, and then there was the howl of another ambulance in the distance. He walked faster.
When he got to the hospital they were running a stretcher in from the first ambulance. The second one pulled in to the second entrance. The woman taken from the second ambulance was kicking and screaming, trying to break loose from the canvas straps that held her on the stretcher. She screamed and begged them to let her die. When they carried her in, Eastland slipped in behind them and stood behind a pillar until they took her into the emergency room. There should have been an armed guard at the ambulance entrance, but instead of doing his job, he was drinking coffee with a nurse not far from the elevator. The guard was young and they were having a good time.
To get to the stairs Eastland had to pass the elevators. So he had to wait until the guard got through bullshitting with the nurse. After a while the nurse went up in the elevator and the guard went back to his post.
Eastland edged his way to another pillar. The guard had his back turned and was looking out toward the hospital grounds. Eastland watched while the guard stretched and yawned. Then, getting to the last cover, the last pillar, he ran for the stairs. Michael’s room was on the extensive care floor and he had to get all the way up without being spotted. Now and then he stopped to listen. No one came down the stairs or started up. He didn’t think they would—the stairs were fire stairs used only for drills and emergencies—but you never knew. But nothing happened all the way up.
Easing the door open, he looked at his watch and checked out the corridor. It was a few minutes after twelve-thirty. A few minutes later a nurse came out of Michael’s room and went to the elevator.
That gave him about thirty minutes. Maybe it did. He went to Michael’s room and opened the door. Michael wasn’t asleep and his eyes moved to him at once. The respirator that was keeping him alive wheezed steadily. Moonlight came in the window. Scotch-taped to the wall was a painting done by one of Michael’s children. It was bright with color and under it was written in a childish hand: “I love you, Daddy.” There were flowers on the night table. The room smelled of fresh flowers and despair.
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