She spilled her coffee throwing the perverted letter to the floor.
Who was sending her this stuff? And who would send such a thing to her home address? Nobody knew where she lived, she was sure of it. No one but the government and the office.
The office.
Dan Schoenmacher.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I.
The phone rang.
His eyes ripped open. Roberts lunged for the handset on his bedside table, knocking aside the alarm clock. The bedroom seemed to be on fire, the morning sun burning through the cloth of his drapes, engulfing the room in stark bright yellow, fluorescent and unreal, like glow-in-the-dark paint.
Shit!
He put the handset to his ear. It roared with noise, like a bad radio. He heard Lockerman’s voice buried inside the static. “Where the hell are you, Roy? I’ve been looking all over the place for your ass!”
“Just woke up. Be there in a minute.”
“Well hurry the fuck up, would you? This place is packed. It’s gonna be difficult finding the psycho in this crowd, and I need your help now.”
“I’m coming, already!”
“Meet ya at the south end of the gym. Hurry up.” He hung up the phone.
Roberts ripped the sheets off his body—they were sticky, though he could not recall any nightmares—and rushed into the bathroom. He opened a drawer by the sink, looked at the shiny, water-spotted square of plastic bag. “Fuck it,” he said and jumped in the shower. If the tattoo on his back wasn’t ready to get wet yet, then it wasn’t ready for the tattoo convention. And it was ready.
He showered, quickly scrubbing his scalp, and then turned off the water. He checked the tattoo. The multi-armed monkey on his back looked fine.
He dressed in an old, ratty pair of tight denim blue jeans, slipped on a thick, brown leather belt, and put on a white tank top. He felt a little skinny, but it was worth it—he wanted to show off his new tat.
On his way out, he stepped over Schoenmacher’s snoring body, rolled up like a bug in his sleeping bag. He slammed the door, knowing it would wake him up, but not giving a damn. The guy got out of going to the convention, but that didn’t mean he could sleep all fucking day.
His car felt sluggish, tired, as if holding him back. He took side streets, where there was bound to be less traffic and police, and gunned the car, rushing to Central High. He prayed that there weren’t any kids on skateboards out this early. He might have been DOOMED, but that didn’t mean he had to drive like an escapee from a rest home.
It took him about ten minutes to get there.
It took him longer to find a place to park.
The lot was packed with various motorcycles, like a twisted version of how the bike racks might look when school was in session: the standard chrome-shining Harleys and long-handlebar choppers took up most of the spots, held aloft by kickstands, and in groups (gangs parked their bikes together, obviously); there were other types as well—dirt bikes, motocross cycles…he even saw one that had a backrest shaped like a gigantic dragon, its mouth arching up high into the air, breathing fire.
There were cars, too. All sorts, from slick racy Corvettes to foreign model station wagons to Jeeps. Most were waxed and shiny, though some were muddy with red clay.
How the fuck did so many people find out about this?
Roberts couldn’t believe it—it was like the proverbial circus had pulled into town. He finally found a parking spot three blocks away from the school, in front of an aristocratic, Victorian house.
He walked toward the school, his tennis shoes putting bounce in his step. He was rushed, but he didn’t want to look like he was running, so he put a little swing in his walk and slowed down.
Three drunk bikers swaggered past him, almost bowling him over as they charged by his side. They were two large men in leather and one skinny-faced woman with big teeth and long hair. They passed a joint between them, grinning drunkenly. Roberts noticed that they had fresh ink on their arms—wonderful new tattoos of bright color.
I had something to do with that artwork, Roberts thought as he smiled, coming upon a long row of awesome bikes that guarded the front entrance like a moat of chrome around the gym.
Inside, the noise hit him first—a rumble of deep, guttural voices arguing over prices, calling for customers like carnival barkers, echoing freak show laughter and tears of tattoo pain. There were cries for more beer amid the clinks of wallet chains and the claps of handshakes. Loud heavy metal music pulsed in the background, a heartbeat in afterthought. Roberts could smell the mingling odors of beer, sweat, and piss as he surveyed the crowded gym, watching the people who walked around the square track, visiting the booths of the tattoo artists (Corky must have contacted the whole COUNTRY) which lined the walls of the gym. There were so many people, so many different people, touring the booths: the requisite bikers and soldiers, then students, teenagers, Yuppie couples, musicians, elderly loners…it was like a core sample of the entire city was contained inside the gymnasium. The curious, the courageous, and the crazy, all gathered together for one big showcase of artistic talent.
I’d like to see a museum get this kind of crowd, he thought, imagining that such a thing was impossible. Why go to a museum to see a masterpiece under glass, when you could walk out of a place like this with a modern-day classic on your very own arm? And museums were full of snobs, too, not people…real people…like this odd crowd.
He stepped further inside the gym, wondering which end was the South end, where he was supposed to hook up with Lockerman. A large, leather-vested man with a goatee lumbered up to him, blocking his vision. “Round two, bro! Round two!”
Roberts looked over his shoulder, back to where the motorcycles were parked, thinking that the man was referring to a fight outside.
The guy leaned into him, using Roberts’ shoulder as a support. “I’ve already been once around, getting a little tiny tat at each and every stop. It’s not enough! I want more!” He belched. Roberts could smell tequila. “ONE MORE TIME!” The man pushed off him, nearly knocking Roberts to the wooden floor, and rushed toward the tattoo artist on his immediate left, pushing unwary people aside.
As the drunk trudged away, swinging his arms wildly, Roberts gasped. Fresh ink literally covered the entire surface area of both of the man’s arms. He couldn’t believe that the guy had been to every single tattoo artist in the place…and was going back for more. Crazy bastard. Had guts, though.
Roberts smiled and shook his head. Then he began to walk toward the opposite end of the gymnasium, looking for Lockerman and Corky.
On his way, he passed booths littered with hastily tacked flash drawings, samples of work. Some of the booths were sloppy and empty, with the lonely artist sitting in a metal folding chair, doodling on himself. Others were packed with crowds of long-haired folks looking on as the artist inside the throng worked on someone’s skin. Some had professional setups, with long tables in front of their booths lined with slick binders full of art samples and snapshots. These places, to Roberts’ astonishment, were taking numbers—one was currently on number thirty-six. From four to six artists were working at the same time in these booths, men and women, either working on people in chairs or people lying down on portable cots.
Those who were actually going under the needle were as various in personality as the artists themselves. Some winced in pain, others grinned, getting off on both the agony and the stare of disbelieving onlookers. Beautiful blondes, soldiers, bikers, college students, punk rockers, and the anonymous were all getting inked, many for the first time.
Roberts was amazed. He stopped and watched a few artists at work, mentally comparing them to Corky. Most were quite good, but Roberts still felt that the beast on his back was the best damned piece in the entire convention. That felt good—to know that he himself stood out from the masses, as
did his tattoo. And at the same time he was a part of them all, too, the entire building flooded with unique individualists linked together by honesty and guts.
He spied Lockerman at the far end of the gym, standing with someone he’d never seen before by the emergency exits, each with a small plastic cup of beer clutched in his hand.
“Hey!” Roberts yelled, approaching them. “What a crowd, eh? I think we outdid ourselves.”
The man beside Lockerman smiled nervously, his faceful of zits puckering on his cheeks. Roberts nodded at him. Lockerman leaned forward, almost losing his balance. “It’s overkill, man. I don’t know what your buddy Corky did, but he must have invited every lowlife in the country to this little party of ours.”
Roberts rolled his eyes. Lockerman seemed to have had too much to drink. “Who’s he?” he asked, thumbing over toward the man beside his friend.
“Rookie. Krantz. Had to pull him from Schoenmacher’s stakeout. The captain wouldn’t give me any men—he knew what was up with this operation. Doesn’t think it’ll work, but what the fuck does he know?”
I bet he doesn’t know you’re drunk on duty, he almost replied.
Lockerman swaggered forward again, breathing hot beer into Roberts’ ears: “There’s no way we’re gonna find the Killer in this big a crowd. Just the three of us? No fuckin’ way.”
Roberts turned, shrugged at his friend.
“We fucked up, big-time.” Lockerman slammed back the beer in his hand.
“Sure did,” Krantz said, chuckling to himself.
“Fuck you,” Lockerman said, slurring the words. “I’ll fuck you up big-time, if you don’t shut your damned mouth!”
Roberts jumped in. “Where’s the beer? Might as well enjoy ourselves anyway, right?”
Lockerman pointed a long finger over a crowd of heads, and Roberts sighted a large, red banner that said BUDWEISER in white letters. Beside that—and a little bit smaller than the beer ad—was the Channel 12 logo.
It reminded Roberts of Birdy’s cat.
Roberts left to get a beer, not quite believing that Lockerman had allowed himself to get drunk. Why would he do such a thing? He couldn’t be scared could he?
“Fuck!” Roberts shouted to no one in particular, wishing he hadn’t slept in so he could’ve baby-sat his friend. Some cop. Some friend.
He picked up a beer from the stand—it was free to artists, KOPT personnel, and security (obviously)—and he eagerly slammed back the plastic cup. In the distance, he spotted a KOPT cameraman touring the crowd, filming various artists hard at work, getting material for Monday’s program.
He headed back toward Lockerman. And then he saw Corky, inking the forearm of a soldier—by the looks of the head-shaved boy, he was enjoying the pain of his first inking. A small crowd of about six of the soldier’s buddies were standing around the table at the booth, egging the kid on.
Roberts entered the interior of the booth, feeling a certain privileged honor at being allowed behind the table Corky had set up to both fend off the browsers and display his flash.
Corky looked up at him and smiled, puffing a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “How’s it goin’, typewriter man? Show this corporal here the work I did on your back—I was just tellin’ him about it a while ago.”
Roberts turned around and knelt down, giving the young man a good long look at his tattoo. He couldn’t stop grinning in pride.
“Wow, that’s cool!” the corporal said, his voice sounding younger than he looked. Roberts could barely hear him above the din of the crowd. “Maybe I should get one like that; how about the same thing, Corky? Except instead of wearing a suit like his does, make the little guy gung ho with a rifle, wearing camouflage?”
Corky chuckled, smoke streaming from his nostrils. “Nothin’ doin’, buddy. I already started this first one I’m doing here. And besides, that’s his personal tat. It’s one of a kind; I never repeat myself.” Corky smiled at Roberts.
Roberts noticed that Corky looked somehow different. More energetic. His sleeveless T-shirt had a large half circle of fresh sweat that spread out from his armpits, pooling on his back and chest. His jeans were faded and ink-stained, from rush jobs. His hair—that was it, that was what made him look so different—was professionally done, pulled back tighter than usual, and tied up neatly in the back.
It showed that Corky had prepared for this event, and that it was important to him. He was psyched for it all, having the time of his life…and making quite a bit of money, too. He was working, and having fun. Roberts felt a twinge of jealousy.
He propped open a folding chair, and sipped on a beer. He did not want to go back to Lockerman just yet. His friend had let him down, had given up on the Killer before things even got going. And the Killer was probably here right this moment, a face in the crowd.
Roberts almost hoped that the psycho was stalking someone at this very minute. It would teach Lockerman the hard way.
Still, even if the Killer was here, this convention would do some damage to him. This gathering was important to the tattoo community, a chance for artists like Corky to prove themselves to the public, to show them that skin art was safe and nothing to be afraid of. That the Killer was an independent psycho. Even if the crowd was too big for Lockerman and his rookie to find the Tattoo Killer, this convention did more harm to the Killer than anything they’d done so far. The Killer had become a symbol of terror in the community, latching on to the mystery and myth behind tattoos, giving the art form itself a bad name. But now the artists had come out to show the world that they were not evil, were not psychotic or dangerous—they were just regular people with an exceptional talent for art, art that was well worth permanence. And Roberts knew that he was a part of that change in public perception; the news—the fake news, the television news that emphasized the negative forces in the world—was now countered by a better news, the only true news: word of mouth. Where the message was important, where real human beings were involved, instead of some idiot box that played on the public’s paranoia.
This beer is going to my head, Roberts thought, trying to pull himself out of his own thoughts. The convention roared around him. He looked over at Corky, whose eyes were clenched in concentration as he scrambled the tattoo machine across the soldier’s arm. A bead of sweat ran down from his temple, mingling with the hairs of his beard. It looked as if he were making love to his work.
“BACK OFF, MOTHERFUCKER!”
Roberts nearly spilled out of his chair as he turned, twisting to face the screaming voice. It was Lockerman, standing in firing position, his legs spread apart, his shining black gun pointed in Corky’s direction.
And the gun wobbled in the air as Lockerman squinted one eye, trying to focus on the nub of a sight on the pistol. His body rocked side to side, as if he were standing on the deck of a ship.
Roberts couldn’t believe what was happening. “Lock…”
“Shut up, Roy, and get the fuck out of there before you get hurt.”
The crowd of soldiers who had been watching Corky work backed away, half watching Lockerman, half watching their buddy inside the booth as if expecting him to commit some heroic act. Krantz stood behind them, unsnapping his holster, using one of their bodies for cover.
Corky did not look up. He finished the line he was drawing on the soldier’s skin. Roberts noticed that the kid’s eyes were wide open and red, like fish eyes.
“What are you, fucking crazy? This is Corky…”
“I don’t care who or what he is. Look at that tattoo he’s doing, Roy.”
Roberts looked. It was a cat, apparently…a cat with sagging breasts that dangled from an open ribcage and a human face, licking itself…just like Schoenmacher’s cat.
Corky clicked off his inkgun, and slowly looked up at Lockerman, grinning. “Problem?”
Locke
rman blinked drops of sweat out of his eye, still drunkenly training the gun on Corky. “You killed my Tina, you son of a bitch!”
Roberts’ mind was racing, the scene before him fading into tiny buzzing pinpricks of light and sound: Corky’s voice, whispering into his ear, I like to cut things, Roy, I like to cut things…Corky’s horror story about tattoos—tattoos forced on other people—tattoos coming alive just before death…Corky’s violent reaction to finding out about the Tattoo Killer (about himself, about being pegged)…and Corky had gotten on the news, hadn’t he? Yes, he’d been on the news, and he’d been using Roy for that purpose all along, turning him into his accomplice, making Roy just as guilty as the creature on his back which typed words into a square of bloody flesh….
The click of Lockerman’s gun being cocked brought him back. “You killed my Tina, fuckhead, and now I’m gonna kill you!”
II.
Dan Schoenmacher rewound the videotape. It seemed to take forever to get back to the beginning, the VCR screaming like so many blinds being drawn as it quickly reeled the tape in reverse. When it finally stopped, making a loud popping noise like a slap in the face, he pressed the play button on the remote control, hot in his hands. The KOPT logo flashed on, and then he punched slow motion.
It had to last.
Judy’s wonderful face came on-screen, her face expressing a smile in slow, intricate muscular motions. Schoenmacher focused on her painted lips, puckering and flexing in French-kiss languor.
The sound was muted, but she was speaking to him in her silence—not reading the news, but telling him in infinitely drawn-out words and expressions how much she loved him, how much she wanted him. Her tongue inviting him to her house to take her in his arms and make sweet, gentle, slow-motion love to her, just like she was doing to him right now, with those lovely pink and wet lips…
Grave Markings: 20th Anniversary Edition Page 28