The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Hussein remained unconvinced. He wiped his nose, hid his eyes with his arm, and continued to sniffle.

  “Hush. Don’t be a woman,” admonished the father, pulling the arm away. He dried the boy’s tears with the back of his sleeve.

  “You’ve done a very good job,” Daniel told Hussein. “Thank you.” He offered a smile that went unreciprocated, turned to Khalid, and asked, “Did anyone else touch anything in the cave?”

  “No,” said Khalid. “No one went near. It was an abomination.”

  “How long have you been grazing near this cave?”

  “Eight days.”

  “And where were you before that?”

  “Up.” The Bedouin pointed to the ceiling.

  “North?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long were you grazing up north?”

  “Since the end of Ramadan.”

  One lunar month, which jibed precisely with what Afif had told him.

  “In all that time have you seen anyone else out here? Especially at night?”

  “Only the jeeps with the blue lights. They come all the time. Sometimes an army truck too.”

  “No one else?”

  “No.”

  “What about sounds? Have you heard anything unusual?”

  “Nothing at all. Just the sounds of the desert.”

  “Which sounds are those?”

  Jussef Ibn Umar scratched his chin. “Rodents, a leaf bending in the breeze. A beetle gnawing at a piece of dung.”

  His words—the precision of his perceptions—brought back memories. Of bowel-tightening night watches, learning that there was no such thing as silence.

  “Night music,” said Daniel.

  Khalid looked at him appraisingly, trying to figure out if this urban fool was ridiculing him. When he decided the comment had been tendered in earnest, he nodded and said, “Yes, sir. And no false notes have been heard.”

  Steinfeld stepped out of the cave, frowning. He removed his gloves, brushed off his trousers, and walked toward Daniel. Several other techs were fingerprinting the Bedouins, taking foot casts and fiber samples from their robes. Afif’s men were walking slowly across the immediate vicinity, carrying collecting sacks, eyes locked to the ground.

  “Party time,” said Steinfeld, eyeing the nomads. “The goats smell better than they do.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Not much yet. I’ve taken distilled water samples, run the ortho-tolidine test, and it’s blood all right. The luminol spray’s the best for the rest of the cave but I need darkness to see the glow spots clearly. You’ll have to cover that sky hole.”

  Daniel called over a Border Patrolman, instructed him to throw a tarp over the hole.

  “Tight,” Steinfeld called out as the officer departed. “I did an ABO right there,” he told Daniel. “All of it’s O, same as both of your victims and forty-three percent of the population, so no big deal there. In terms of the other groupings, I think there was some difference between the two of them on a couple—maybe the haptoglobin, but don’t hold me to it. I could be wrong. Anyway, don’t get your hopes up. Blood decomposes fast, especially out here in the open. You’re unlikely to get anything you can use in court.”

  “Forget court,” said Daniel. “I’d be happy with an identification.”

  “Don’t even hope for that. The best thing I can do is take the samples back to the lab. Maybe something’ll still be reactive. I’ve got a guy in there chipping off pieces of rock, another one scooping up everything, including the shit, which is weeks old and definitely canine—if it barked you couldn’t be surer. If we find something interesting, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “What about the cloth?”

  “Looks like cotton,” said Steinfeld. “It might match your number one, but it’s very common stuff. In answer to your next question, the footprints are fresh—from the sandals of our nomadic friends. A few fingerprints have turned up, probably also theirs.” He looked at his watch. “Anything else? That blood isn’t getting any fresher.”

  “No. Thanks for coming so quickly. When can you give me your results?”

  Steinfeld snorted. “Yesterday. That’s when you need it, right?”

  CHAPTER

  42

  She went crazy about the cat, screaming and crying and just generally being lame, staggering all over the house, throwing open closets and drawers and tossing stuff onto the floor for the maids to clean up. Going into the kitchen, the cellar, his room—places she hadn’t been for years. Sing-crying in that weird shaky opera voice.

  “Snow-ball, come-a-here, come-a-here!”

  He got a little nervous when she invaded his room and started going through it, even though he knew he’d been careful.

  Have you seen my baby? Tell me, damn you!

  No, Mom.

  Oh, God! Sob, cry, tear hair.

  He’d cleaned up really good—not a speck of blood remained. Used the surgical scissors from the case and cut up what was left of the body into little pieces, wrapped them up in newspaper, and dropped different parts in different sewer drains all over the neighborhood. Doing it at night when it was fresh and cool, the summer flowers blooming and giving out this really sweet smell that lasted forever.

  An adventure.

  She went out, too—the first time he’d ever seen her out of the house. Put on this satin robe that looked ridiculous on the street and actually made it halfway down the block singing, “Snow-ball, come-a-here, bad boy, naughty lover!” before having to rush back all scared and pale and locking herself in her room and throwing up so loud you could hear her heaving through the door.

  When she finally realized the little fucker was gone for good, she started to get paranoid, certain that someone had killed it, convincing herself it had been Doctor, catching him in the library and accusing him of it.

  Doctor ignored her, and she kept screaming that he was a murderer, had murdered Snowball for some kike blood ritual, using the blood for his fucking matzo.

  Finally Doctor got mad and said, “Maybe it ran away because it was sick of you, Christina. Couldn’t stand watching you drink and puke yourself to death.”

  After that it became just another fight, and he climbed down the stairs and took his regular seat on number six. Listening and stroking himself and filing sex-pictures for future jack-off sessions.

  The next morning she called the Humane Society, told them her husband was an animal murderer, had killed her prize Persian and taken it to the hospital for experiments. Then she phoned the hospital and the Medical Board and reported Doctor for cruelty to animals.

  The minute she opened her mouth everyone could tell she was crazy. No one paid any attention to her.

  During surgery, the roaring had stopped. He’d felt about eight feet tall; everything had gone great.

  A success, real science. Cutting carefully and peeling back all the layers, seeing all the colors: yellow fat, meat-red muscle, purple liver, tannish-pinkish intestines, all those bluish membranes covered with a network of blood vessels that looked like roads on a map.

  The little heart pumping, kind of leaking around the edges.

  It made him like the cat, feel that it was his pet.

  The insides of animals were beautiful, just like the charts he’d seen in one of Doctor’s books. The Atlas of Human Anatomy—plastic sheets, layers of them, with different stuff painted on each one. They lay in a pile, one on top of the other. You peeled them off one by one, starting with a whole person—naked—and then peeling and getting the muscles, kind of a striped, red muscle man. Then off came the muscles and you got the organs, then a fringey-looking man made only of nerves and a brain, then a skeleton.

  Two of them, actually. A plastic man and a plastic woman.

  He liked the woman better, liked learning that inside, tits were mostly fat.

  Funny.

  Insides were beautiful, all the colors, really complicated.

  School was fruit flies and words, not r
eality, nothing like this.

  Not science.

  When he was finished with the cat, he cut its diaphragm and it stopped breathing.

  Then he cleaned up, took his time doing it, being supercareful.

  That was the key, to clean up really good. You’d never get caught.

  Without the cat she got worse, crazier. Spent a lot of time in her room talking to herself and barfing her meals—she was definitely losing it. The maids called her Senora Loca, didn’t even bother to hide the fact that they thought she was nuts.

  He wondered why she and Doctor stayed together, why Doctor didn’t just kick her ass out. Then he heard them fighting once, she accusing Doctor of fucking candy-stripers at the hospital, saying that he better not pull the shit he’d pulled on Lillian—she’d take him to the cleaners if he ever tried that shit on her. He’d be taking the bus to work, eating beans for dinner before she was finished with him.

  Doctor didn’t answer, so he figured there was something to the threat.

  Not that the fights happened too often anymore, ’cause they didn’t. Because Doctor was almost never home. But when he was, the shit really hit the fan.

  He missed going down and listening. Even though his mind was working good, he had plenty of mental pictures and kill-sex memories to work with, there was nothing like actually hearing it, actually peeking through the door and seeing it.

  They had a real good one when he was fifteen. A week after his fifteenth birthday, which no one had celebrated. He hadn’t expected anything—she was too drunk and Doctor had ignored his birthdays since he’d refused to have a Bar Mitzvah.

  Fuckbrain never did anything religious—why the fuck should he learn all that Jewish shit?

  He’d waited for it to feel like a birthday. When it didn’t, said fuckit, fuck them, and went out for a night walk. He found the dog a couple of blocks away—a ragged-looking terrier with no collar—choked it out, then brought it home hidden under his coat. Up in his room he anesthetized it and set up a terrific anatomy session, using the big Liston amputating knife and really enjoying the weight of it. The power.

  Later that night he had terrific dreams, bunches of animals and girls all dancing and screaming and begging him to do it to them; he was sitting on this throne-type chair looking down on this pit that was half fire, half blood. An outrageous scene that he cleaned up perfectly and felt good about.

  They woke him with their fight.

  All right! Happy birthday!

  He was down there again on step six, feeling rich with memories, really comfortable.

  He’d missed part of it but could tell it had to do with Sarah—the best ones always did.

  She’d graduated college with honors, had been accepted to the first medical school of her choice, and Doctor was flying up to see her, rewarding her with money, a new wardrobe, and a trip abroad, all expenses paid—first-class airfare, the best hotels, a couple of charge cards.

  When the hell did you ever give me anything like that?

  When the hell did you ever deserve it?

  Screw you, you cheap bastard. I gave you my life, that’s all. Ruined myself for you!

  Here we go again.

  Don’t sigh at me, you bastard. You’re damned right here we go again. Don’t think for a minute I don’t know what you’re doing.

  And what’s that?

  Giving her all your money so there won’t be any left in the community property.

  Thinking about inheritance, are you?

  Damned right. What else is there to live for?

  Way you’re going with the booze and the purging, Christina, I wouldn’t count on being around to inherit anything.

  Just you wait, you bastard. I’ll be standing there when they put you under, laughing, dancing on your grave.

  Don’t count on it.

  I’m counting.

  Ten to one your electrolytes are out of whack, God knows how much liver you’ve got left—you even smell like a drunk. Jesus.

  Don’t Jesus me. Jesus loves me and he hates you, ’cause you’re a Jesus killer. Don’t you dare roll your eyes at me, you fucking kike Christ-killer.

  All of a sudden you’re religious.

  I’ve always been religious. Jesus loves me and I love him.

  You and Jesus have a regular thing going, do you?

  Laugh all you want, you bastard. I’ll be saved and you’ll burn—along with that little hook-nosed bitch and her hook-nosed mother. I’d take you to the cleaners right now, show the world what a thief you are if it didn’t mean they’d stick their grubby hands in the pot, get their kike shyster lawyers to take it all away from me.

  I thought I was giving it to them, anyway.

  Don’t try to shit me, Charles. I know what you’re up to.

  Fine, fine, whatever you say.

  I say your hook-nosed bitches are going to burn along with you. I say I’ll be damned if they clean me out before they do it.

  Sarah’s a terrific kid. She’s earned it. I’ll give her what I want.

  I’ll bet.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  No smile anymore? You know exactly what I mean.

  You’re disgusting. Get the hell out of my sight.

  And your little hook-nose bitch, she’s pure class, with her hairy legs and nose like a—

  Lillian’s a thousand times the woman you’ll ever be.

  —parrot beak. Real classy, that nose, huh?

  Shut up, Christina.

  Shut up, Christina—trying to throw me out with the trash, are you? Well, I wasn’t so disgusting when you wanted shiksa pussy, was I? Ignoring me, hotshot? You didn’t ignore me when you wanted shiksa pussy, when shiksa pussy was all you wanted. You kicked your hook-nose bitch out so you could have some of this, c’mere, look—all blonde and sweet and ready to—

  You’re repulsive. Cover yourself.

  Hook-nosed bitches don’t have this, do they? Hook-nosed bitches are all hairy and smelly and dirty, just like the animals they are. Hook-nose Lillian, hook-nose Sarah—

  Shut your mouth!

  Ah, that wipes the smile off your face, the thought of your little angel having a dirty—

  Shut up before I—

  Before you what? Beat me up? Kill me? Go ahead. I’ll come back to haunt you, dance on your grave.

  Enough.

  Not enough, Charles. It’s never enough, because you’re a thieving, lying bastard who wants to give away what’s mine to some little slut because she’s convinced him she’s the fucking Virgin Mary or something. What do you think, you stupid bastard, she doesn’t have one too? How do you think she got into med school? Got on her knees for some admissions officer and—

  Shut your goddamned filthy mouth.

  The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

  Listen, you stupid, drunken moron! She got into med school because she was a straight-A student, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and has more brains in her little finger than you have in your entire alcohol-besotted brain.

  A straight-A slurper.

  All right, Christina, I’m not going to let you get to me. You’re jealous of Sarah because she’s a fabulous specimen and she threatens you.

  She’s a little hook-nose bitch, just like her mother.

  Her mother’s a first-class lady. I should have stayed with her.

  Then why didn’t you?

  God only knows.

  God knows, all right. Jesus knows. That you’re a hypocrite and a fucking liar. She was frigid and boring and hairy. You wanted smooth white legs, some nice shiksa pussy, come in the Virgin Mary’s mouth—wanted it so bad that you took me right in the examining room, all those patients still in the waiting room, and raped me, you bastard!

  If any raping went on, it was you that did it—

  Raped me and used me. Now you want to give what I earned—my blood money—to your hook-nosed bitch.

  Enough, I’m tired. I have to operate early.

  You’re tired? I’m tired too. Of your bullshit. Gi
ving her all those clothes and that trip—she’s already spoiled rotten.

  She’s a great kid and she deserves it. Discussion ended.

  She slurps, just like her mother.

  Her mother gave me a first-class kid.

  And me? What did I give you? Tore myself up—I’ve never been the same!

  Tore yourself? That’s a laugh. You had a pelvis someone could drive a truck through.

  It tore me, you fucking bastard. What did I give you, you fucking bastard?

  A weirdo.

  Fuck you!

  He’s a weird kid, Christina. No two ways about it.

  Listen to me, you fucking kike. He’s beautiful—that hair, like a Greek god! Those dreamy eyes. A small, straight nose. And tall—he’s already your size, going to be taller than you, going to be able to beat the shit out of you when I tell him to, to protect his mama.

  He’s weird, Christina—got all of your weird genes. Ever try to talk to him? Course not—how could you? Too damn pickled—

  Fuck you, he’s beaut—

  Try it some time, you drunken moron. Say hello and catch the weird smile he gives you. He’s like you—bizarre, stays in his room all day, all night. God knows what he does in there.

  He’s studying. He’s an intellectual—it’s in his eyes.

  Studying what? He’s flunking out of school, hasn’t gotten better than a D in three years. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you? The headmaster doesn’t call you—nobody calls you because everyone knows you’re too drunk to talk. They call me. Teachers, counselors, every one of them thinks he’s weird. The headmaster called me last week. In fact, I had to bribe him with a new science lab to keep your beautiful kid from getting booted out.

  Did you tell the headmaster he had a crazy, cruel father who never paid any attention to him or to his mother, whom he raped? That his father killed Jesus and wanted to kill his wife, too, so he could fuck candy-stripers? Did you tell him—

  No friends, no attention span, sits in class all day staring off into space—your genes, all the way, Christina. God only knows if he can overcome it. The headmaster suggested that he get psychiatric help. I talked to Emil Diefenbach—he works with a few teenagers, said he’d be happy to meet him.