Duet for the Devil

by T. Winter-Damon

  [ 250 ]

  Reality slams him like an iron door clanging closed, warding against the Nightmare World that lies just beyond…

  “I’m okay. Don’t worry, Clarence, just a bit too much partying—”

  “Anything I should know?”

  “Naw. Just the booze & the redhead—”

  “Redhead…? & you tell me ’nothin…?

  “Seriously, Frank, I’ve got fantastic news! The little Jefferson girl, the one whose murder scene you investigated with me? We got the killer, Frank! We got that bastard! Your clue, the torn scrap of denim, remember…?”

  “Yeah?—”

  “Forensics lucked out. There was blood that matched her type. They also picked up traces of some motor oil with special additives, some state-of-the-art stuff they’re using in those airboats—”

  “GREAT!”

  “But that was a wash—”

  “So?—”

  “So. We thought spectroscopic analysis pulled some vague traces of what appeared to be phenylacetone, sodium acetate, acetic anhydrite, ephedrine—”

  “HAH! From a meth lab. Right?”

  “That was the drift, but you know how fast that stuff boils off, & we’re talkin’ that ninety-plus-degree weather. Bottom line, we didn’t have enough to be certain. Not court-certain, for sure! Nothin’ that’d stand up, &, besides, ever since the smokable hit the streets hard back in late ’89 or early ’90, the labs’ve popped up everywhere. Low risk compared to crack. No importation. No U.S. Customs to hassle with. Main risk is the ever-present danger of flash fire & fast blowout with those flammables they work with. But that’s why the movers ’n shakers use expendables as processors.”

  “Okay, okay, so give, Carter, what’s the scam?”

  “The forensic guys went back & followed your bootprints. Shit! We both missed this one, Frank. They found the wire spur that the denim scrap was snagged on—fibers, & a tiny piece of flesh nicked from our killer’s thigh when he ducked through the fencing & caught his pants leg…that & some blood—”

  “& it was enough?—”

  “Yeah, you better beeelieve it, Pardner! The DNA “fingerprinting” nailed it. Ever since the FBI put the NDNATC Network online, the DNA patterns from blood-samples—mandated for several years on a state-by-state basis following their adoption of the uniform sex offender codes—of convicted sex-criminals prior to clearing for releasee-status finally have been fed into the IC computer at Quantico.”

  “&—”

  “Our boy was an NMA, Darnell Alonzo ‘Fatboy’ Fuller, thirty-three years old. With a jacket for indecent exposure.

  —some beef for playground weenie-waggin’ up in Raleigh, NC—back in ’80, & a double bill in New Orleans—a molestation felony with some eight-year-old kid he lured into his car, & the three-year-old daughter of a girlfriend who was dumb enough to let this freak babysit her. All NFJs, by the way. Okay, the first half was linked to a string of similar abductions, but the others bowed when asked to identify, we think there may have been coercion, but no proof, they may call him ‘Fatboy,’ but he looks like a weightlifter fast-gone to bone & sinew from tokin’ that killer ICE to me— ‘Tank’ seems like it’d’ve fit the bastard a whole lot better back then… Anyway, the second half started with a rap for oral-&-anal sodomy, but managed to plea-bargain it down, copping to simple molestation of a minor— I’d love to set those asshole attorneys & the judge responsible loose as punk-bait in stir for a week! He did fucking nine years of his twenty stretch & snowed ’em into a release for ‘good behavior,’ claimed he’d been heavy freakin’ on speed & he was clean, now. He’s out FIVE FUCKING MONTHS, & we hang him for this one…” Clarence’s voice breaks off into a sharp, agonized rasp of stifled fury.

  “Easy, Clarence, easy,” Frank says, “you’ve got him, & nothing you do can bring her back, but Florida will fry the fucker. Ol’ Smokey turned that sonofabitch Bundy into home-fries down here, remember…? SHIT! There’s some justice…

  “Just don’t let it get under your skin. Don’t take it home with you. Don’t let it ruin your life…” Bitter laughter interrupts Hawkes’ sermon. “& believe me, Friend, I know, how I fucking know what it’ll do t’ you…

  “Yeah, you’re right, Frank. I’m okay.” Carter’s voice has leveled out again. “In the string of accused molestation-abductions, he’d used some hype about showin’ them cartoons, he’d done his research, knew what Saturday morning dreams the glass teat was pushin’ to the kiddies & they were gung-ho for, & he used this verbal tap-dance & a nice big ‘signed’ color poster to lure them in realllll close where he could snatch ’em…

  “We looked for a similar MO down here. You know, maybe some attempteds…?

  “Well, Frank, I wasn’t quite straight with you when I said the airboat lube was a washout—it did help us zero in on the fact he was roamin’ around the state a bit. There were a couple of possibles on the MO in Orlando, a couple more near Titusville, Daytona Beach, & Winter Park—he was cruisin’ a bit to keep us dizzy.

  “We blitzed the vice & narco squads statewide, hit ’em with flyers sporting his mugshot. & it paid off. Metro Orlando PD netted him in a meth-lab stakeout. They had me down as guest-cop-of-the-week ridin’ shotgun with ‘Gator’ Gambel, chief honcho for the strikeforce.

  “The punk, Fuller, reeked of that sickening-sweet perfume smell that telegraphs the skells workin’ those cookers. So strong it made my gut churn. Had him dead bang with his cartoon pictures in the backseat of his fuckin’ silver Colt. The kids’d said they thought it was a ‘little grey or silver car.’ Yeah, & we matched bloodstains on the backseat with Stephanie’s. & he copped to the kill after we Miranda’d him…”

  “Great, Clarence! I’m glad you busted the ratfuck bastard! What’s the word from the D.A.—?”

  “He triple-checked our paperwork. Said we’re sanitary. But even the clean shot at the ‘Book ’em, Dan-O, Murder One,’ bit just can’t get it out from under my skin… After what that piece of pigshit did to that poor little kid… FUCK! Frank. The chair’s not going to bring her back, is it…?”

  “But that’s the best you can ever ask for. Life’s a bitch, Clarence, don’t you think I know it? Hell, at least you got your man— I’ve tossed my fuckin’ life in the dumpster tryin’ just to catch mine…”

  “You’re right, Frank. I’ve gotta keep it in context. Thanks. & be cool, Buddy—. &, oh, yeah, I almost forgot— I’ve got some news clippings you might be interested in, that is, if your car’s fax is working by now?”

  “Yep. Hit me. I need something to focus on, once I blow this burg… That is, if they don’t tar ’n feather me first.”

  “Be careful, Frank. They don’t cry tough down there. They slab their problems, & the tie you wear to your funeral is more than liable to be your own tongue danglin’ out through the slit where your throat used to be…”

  The phone clicks.

  The line goes dead.

  Frank feels like a conman, stroking his friend when all he feels is empty, sordid, dirty. He looks down at the bloodstained sheet. The flies are still crawling…still buzzing…

  So is the phone.

  He hangs it up, & heads for the john for a long, scalding shower—trying to forget that night of secret shame, & all its repercussions… That poor little kid was the very worst of it… Her mother noticed the bruises on her privates, & was told she’d “fell & hurt herself…” Further inspection revealed bleeding in her vagina & anus… She finally admitted Bob or Jim had threatened to kill her kitten if she ever ‘told’… Both were arrested for numerous sex counts involving their molestation of the girl, as well as statutory charges after they admitted having had intercourse with Lois & Missie… Those latter dropped when the girls refused to testify. They all admitted having a party there, but kept quiet about the rest of us… Lois left town & moved to Florida to ‘live with her aunt,’ but we all knew the real reason was one of us had knocked her up…

  But I nailed Lois’ old man, didn’t I, jus
t like we got THIS ONE.

  Even if it took so many goddamn years…too late to help Lois & Janie…too late to save HOW MANY OTHER LITTLE VICTIMS…? But we nailed his pervo ass, for his key role in that ring of Midwest pedophiles & kiddie-porn producer/pushers…

  [ 251 ]

  “So, where are you headed, now, Frank?” Rios asks as he slices off a tender chunk of spicy Cajun-style “blackened” swordfish steak, spears it with the glistening tines of his fork, & pops it eagerly into his mouth.

  The restaurant is King Neptune’s Grotto, Rios’ favorite upscale seafood spot. But, neither of them is paying any attention to the profuse array of antique nautical decor. Or to the 20-foot indoor waterfall cascading down amid colored spotlights. Or to the numerous portholed & multi-faceted Plexiglas aquariums framed in injection-molded, mock “verdigrised bronze,” filled with darting, brilliant-hued saltwater fish—the displays resembling Victorian-bizarre relics from Jules Verne’s imaginary Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Beneath The Sea.

  All a “reality” conjured up in some marketing amalgam of David Copperfield stage magic, leftover Disney/Tinseltown-F/X & P.T. Barnum modesty & candor. Dreams for sale, not seafood. Pirates & Paradise for the wish-fulfillment hungry, luring obese billfolds primed for quick-trimming, tempting the online slip-&-slide of sky’s-the-limit Platinum Cards & Diners Club & American Express & Carte Blanche…

  Frank saws away at a K.C.-cut steak cooked rare, his plate swimming in the deep rose-pink of mingled blood & juices. The once-crisp skin of his baked potato is dark-stained, sopping with the spill of crude gravy.

  Stacked next to his dinnerware are the faxes received from Clarence Carter en route to the restaurant. “Interesting. Very interesting,” Hawkes muses, while chewing a savory chunk of near-raw beef. “I think Carter’s got the program, Rios—a couple of these news clippings seem extraneous, but there’s a pattern here, I can sense it pulling at me…there’s no such thing as a truly ‘random’ killing, although the victims certainly may be.”

  “How can—?”

  “Rios, even the most consciously, scrupulously, paranoically meticulous slayer is goin’ to betray something of him or herself in actin’ out this anarchic psychosexual drama that is his/her obsessive raison d’etre—”

  “But, Frank, we both know that the most dangerous of the ‘recreational slayers,’ like your postulated Brittain/Zodiac/Green River/etc., the true sexual sadists or sadistic sociopathic killers—whatever term you choose—may vary their MO so as to avoid creating a discernible pattern. Like the original, gloating admissions of Henry Lee Lucas—”

  “No. It isn’t necessarily the MO—like you said, Lucas copped to confusing authorities by varying his method of execution, ‘I’ve got thirty-six states, in three different countries… I’ve had shootings, knifings, strangulations, beatings, & I’ve participated in actual crucifixions of humans.’ Yeah, I know his confessions chapter & verse. But that’s tactical stuff, for the most part, as opposed to strategic, to borrow the military terminologies. The ones who get caught are the ones with an MO. Or the ones who start to lose it… The Edge… either through overconfidence at their own invincibility or because of the slow or sudden spin into delusionary psychosis…”

  “Not much difference, is there, Frank? Although, as the old saying goes (& I never get it quite right), ‘Just because a paranoiac experiences delusions of persecution doesn’t mean someone may not actually be persecuting him or that everyone who believes they’re being persecuted is in fact unjustified or a paranoiac.’”

  “Too metaphysical for me, Rios! The chicken & the egg. The sound of a tree falling in a forest when no one is there to hear. To get back on track with our original subject, it’s more the subtle ritualizations that even the most seemingly chaotic of serial killers expresses & the specific paradigm of circumstances that serves as stimuli that he ‘keys off of,’ in turn triggerin’ his extreme of ‘self realization’ through the act of murder—‘what makes me real,’ is a frequently heard expression with numerous individual variations. ‘Doing My thing,’ as Zodiac was wont to phrase it. Sadistic: yes. But also an act of extreme desperation to define a sexual identity that he finds nonexistent in ‘normal’ ‘straight’ sex, any attempt at which normally leaves him totally impotent. He must dominate. So he rapes or seeks the ultimate submissives—­through necrophilia or pedophilia, but always a vicious pedophilia that seeks to degrade & torment, in which there is no love but only the lust to inflict suffering. His own identity has generally been ‘stolen’ from him early in life through zealous Puritan punishments for the ‘sin of pleasure,’ or through homo­- or heterosexual molestation or rape, in some conjunction with a confusion of the sex act & violence of pleasure & pain…”

  “Straight out of your Pattern Violence, Mass Murder, and Serial Killings in Contemporary American Society— I’ve read your textbooks as well as your best seller.”

  “Then you understand the other linked concept as well, right…?”

  “That the serial murderer’s prime motivation is not the brief, though intense, sexual rush afforded through murder, but an act of rebellion against an establishment he perceives as hostile to his own existence. Okay so far? The ‘consensus reality’ of Establishment he subconsciously senses is what renders him irreal. It is a political act, an almost-pure act of Anarchism by which he can loose the night terrors of Chaos he secretly suffers upon this Establishment. This sense of persecution is the common logic-bridge he or she shares with many paranoiac or hebephrenic psychotics. I anticipated your line of thought, Frank, that’s why I digressed into the earlier discourse. After all, it’s the still-controversial central premise/logic leap you posit in the title of your second text: A Profile of Anarchic and Psychotic Terrorism in Urban and Rural North America. Right?”

  “You have read my books & paid attention to them, haven’t you, Rios? I’m flattered! I guess it’s the Hell with any last pretense at ‘good ol’ boys’ tonight, & we both come out of the closet as at least pseudo-intellectuals, right?”

  “Yeah, none of that Happy Horseshit, Pard? We’ll both admit our college days were spent as more than just jocks or pussyhounds?”

  “Okay, Rios. You’ve got it. Anyway, with Zodiac/Brittain, it’s the presence of water or water names nearby the murder site, the favored proximity to the nexus of city, county or state jurisdictional boundaries that so often confuses the transferal of info by ‘competing’ law enforcement agencies, rendering them ineffective in identifying, let alone apprehending Him. &, of course, as I’ve explained to you, there’s the presence of one or both of His accomplices. Even the apparent ‘randomness’ in His choice of weapons may be the tipoff—a sudden string of ‘unrelated’ murders, ‘accidental deaths’ or ‘suicides’ in some cross-country chain may betray his involvement. There are a number of still functioning but undetected serial killers loose in America today—at least two dozen, by conservative estimates…slayers too smart & too controlled to be caught. But Zodiac’s the Main Man of Multiple Murder. You can bet your life on it…”

  “So, what’s the bottom-line on the faxes, Frank—?”

  “I sense a pattern, Rios. No MO. But a fuckin’ pattern. I’m gettin’ VIBES from these.” He lifts the top sheet of paper, slides it down in front of his companion:

  LOCAL FARMER SLAIN IN GRUESOME AXE MURDER!

  “His body was dumped in the Missouri River. It washed up on the south bank, near Fort Osage. Near the border junction between Lafayette & Jackson Counties. No motive established.”

  Frank flips another page upright in front of Rios.

  BLOOD GRAFFITI MARKS DEATH

  SCENE IN GANG SLAYING OF FOUR

  “Quincy, Illinois, Rios. Four nights ago.”

  “On the Mississippi, right? But a gang slaying…?”

  “What’s the hook? This one would have blown right by me, but a buddy of Carter’s was one of the investigating officers. Seems Clarence has already put out feelers—”

  “Looking for murders t
hat just don’t scan right, where something seems hinkey? If you discount the eighty percent that are obviously done by KAs, & just focus in on the portion of the twenty percent where you spot some weird kink &/or happen in your ‘high risk’ proximities, you’ve narrowed it down a lot, ehhh? Not bad. Not bad at all, Frank!”

  “He’s got a solid rep as a real pro, & there’re a lot of folks who owe him for past favors, plus he’s got a network of sorts goin’ with guys who’ve served with him before. I’ve got plenty of other sources, too, but right now Carter’s fresh on the trail, & that means a lot.

  “Now, take a look at the notes this guy forwarded to Carter—”

  Frank peels another page from his stack & lays it face-up on Rios’ growing pile. The light is poor, intended for mood & not for reading. Rios pulls a penlight from his pocket, & skim-reads the small print, drumming the fingertips of his free (left) hand against the tabletop.

  He lets out a low whistle. “One kid had his eyes poked out with a row of needles? & his nasal bone punctured the floor of his brain pan in one quick commando-style killing stroke…? Martial arts training? That’s a defense move some militant feminists stress as a definitive tactic in rape prevention, isn’t it…?”

  “Yep. Read on…”

  “The angle of impact & expended force suggest the assailant was shorter than the victim & sleight of build? Whoa!”

  “Did you get to the part—?”

  “Where the coroner noted that all three shooting victims (all done with the same 9mm, close-range, execution-style—shit! the one kid had it shoved right up his barenaked ass!) showed signs of recent coital activity. To be more precise, their genitals, pubic hair, underwear, & the interior surface of their pants were encrusted with fresh semen, vaginal secretions & blood. As did the pavement at the crime scene, the forensics boys attested…”