The victim’s car turned into the alley and approached the lot. He stepped away to the other side of the roadway, hiding behind a large city trash container. The little convertible pulled into one of the available parking spots. The driver got out, Starbucks cup in hand. She went in the back door. Wycliff checked the time on his cell phone. Ten minutes before the hour. A couple of minutes later, a middle-aged man came out. He got into a Jaguar that was parked a few slots from the Audi and drove away down the alley.
Another thing Wycliff remembered: a normal therapy session was fifty minutes long. This allowed a patient to leave before the next one’s session. Hopefully, the following patient would arrive and go in before his quarry came out. If that didn’t happen, he’d abort and wait for another chance. Nothing he could do about that except wait and see.
He walked back to the street and moved his car around the block. He didn’t want anyone seeing it in front of the therapist’s building and being able to describe it to the cops. A thousand to one shot, but he was going to take every precaution he could think of. He took a short stroll around the neighborhood to calm his nerves. Not much pedestrian traffic. He didn’t present anything special that would single him out. A man on foot, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, jeans, sunglasses, and a baseball hat. Hundreds of guys would fit that description.
It was time to get the show on the road. The alley was quiet. He checked the time. Almost ten before the hour. He hovered behind the trash dumps, using them for cover. Sweat was forming in his armpits again. The front of his shirt was wet, too, along with his hair under his hat. He wiped his hands on his pants.
A Lexus SUV drove down the alley and pulled into the lot. The driver was a small woman dressed in a business suit and slacks. She stood outside her car for a moment, checking her makeup in her compact mirror. Satisfied that she passed muster, she went inside.
Everything was going according to plan. He had brought a pair of construction worker’s gloves with him. He took them out of his back pocket and pulled them on. He didn’t want his hands touching the victim’s flesh. He was going to walk up behind her, grab her by the neck, and snap it. She was a pudgy, middle-aged woman, and he was a large, strong man. It would be like breaking a chicken’s neck. Then he’d grab her purse and take off. To the cops it would appear like another LA robbery that went off the rails, like the one of that famous publicist who had been accidentally murdered during a botched car-jacking.
The gun, tucked behind his belt at the back of his pants, felt like a tumor. It was a mistake to have brought it. He should have left it in the car. Too late now – by the time he went to his car and returned, the woman would be gone.
The back door opened. He tensed up, watching.
The woman was on her cell phone, blabbing away a mile a minute. Son of a bitch! he cursed silently. He couldn’t go for her while she was talking. Even if he broke her neck instantly, the party on the other end would hear the impact, her last gasp or cry before her lights went out.
‘I’ll call you later,’ she said into the phone. ‘I have to go.’ She hung up and rummaged around in her purse for her car keys.
He had let his guard down, so now he wasn’t ready.
He would never be ready.
He crossed the alley, walking towards her. The woman glanced up as he approached. He continued on past her, as if he was going into the building, and she looked away from him. She found her car keys and buzzed the remote.
Two steps and he was behind her, his hands on her neck, squeezing violently. He felt flesh and muscle tense, then start to spasm. He bent her neck back, trying to snap it. But immediately he realized, with a surge of panic, that this was not going to be the piece of cake he had assumed it would be. The woman was stronger than he had expected. She started bucking wildly, kicking her legs like windmills, her long fingernails clawing at his hands. He tightened his grip on her throat. Hardly the chicken’s neck he’d expected, it was thick and muscular. He lifted her off her feet so her legs couldn’t get a purchase to push back against him.
‘Sofia! You left your coat in the office.’
Still clutching his victim in a death grip, Wycliff jerked around in the direction of the voice. A man was trotting towards them, brandishing a suede jacket. ‘You don’t want to …’ He stopped in his tracks as he realized what was happening.
The psychiatrist was middle aged, balding, sporting a graying, neatly trimmed Van Dyke. For a moment, he and Wycliff stared at each other, both frozen. Then he turned and ran back towards the building.
Wycliff let go of his victim, who thudded to the ground. He ran after the therapist, who was reaching for the handle to open the back door. Wycliff pulled the gun out and fired. The therapist went down in a heap. The back of his jacket was red with blood, spreading fast.
Wycliff rushed to him. He hovered over him for a second, looking down in disbelief. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed hard to keep it down.
The woman.
She was on her knees, coughing, her face crimson, veins pulsing in her temples. She started crawling away from Wycliff, fumbling in her purse for her cell phone.
He kicked the phone out of her hand. It skittered across the asphalt. Her look to Wycliff was primordial venom. ‘That bitch Laurie,’ she spat out, still trying to crawl away, like a broken-legged dog.
He shot her in the back of her head.
He was shaking uncontrollably. ‘Oh God,’ he whimpered. ‘Oh God.’ Then he was running down the alley in the other direction, sprinting, his lungs on fire, still grasping the gun, the murder weapon, as if it was welded to his hand.
The driver of the SUV had rushed outside when she heard the gunshots. She hovered over the therapist, then whirled and looked in Wycliff’s direction and screamed. ‘Stop!’ she cried out, from forty yards away. ‘Help! Police! Stop!’
Wycliff burst out of the alley onto the side street where he had stashed his car. He shoved the gun into his pants pocket and managed to unlock the car. He dove inside, fumbling the key into the ignition. The car roared to life. He tore away down the street, running a stop sign and turning onto a larger street, driving blind, then another turn, then he was crossing Wilshire heading north, lucking out by catching a green light, and he was on one of the leafy residential streets between Wilshire and Sunset in Beverly Hills and he slowed down to the speed limit, but he didn’t stop.
TWENTY-TWO
The house was quiet. Wycliff let himself back in and tiptoed across the living room to where his brother was sleeping. He touched a hand to Billy’s wrist. He was still alive, sleeping. He checked the machines. Nothing had changed.
He grabbed a Corona out of the refrigerator, drank half of it in one swallow, and collapsed into the chair at the side of his brother’s bed. He had murdered two people he didn’t know. Shot them in cold blood without mercy. For what? Not revenge, not passion, not from the heart. For money. What a weak, stupid reason. He had wanted to be a player. He sure as hell was one now.
He drained his beer and checked on his brother again. No changes. He stripped off his clothes and took a long, scalding shower, trying to wash his sins and fear away. He couldn’t. They were inside of him, unreachable.
He dressed in fresh, clean clothes, bundled up everything he had worn, including his hat and shoes, and stuffed it all in a trash bag. When he could get away again he’d find a dumpster far from here, one used by a commercial establishment, so he could bury it under dozens of other bags. He hid the gun under his mattress until he could return it to Charlotte’s apartment. It was the property of a woman who had probably never fired it. There would be no reason to link it to the murders.
Not yet noon, but he went outside with a stiff bourbon and his cigarettes to calm his nerves. He was still shaking uncontrollably. He had to stop that, he had to force himself to appear calm. Pretty damn soon, if not already, the killings would be all over television and the Internet. This would be a media circus, of which he was the unknown star. He had to make sure it staye
d that way.
He smoked two cigarettes and downed his drink and went back inside. His brother was stirring, slowly coming to. He took Billy’s hand in his and held it like he would hold an injured bird, softly, a caress. Billy’s eyes opened. He looked at Wycliff.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked, his voice so thin it was like a faint wind blowing on a reed. ‘I woke up earlier. You weren’t here.’
‘That must have been when I was taking a walk,’ Wycliff lied.
Billy’s voice was so faint the words were almost inaudible. ‘I was worried about you. That something had happened to you.’
‘Nothing happened to me,’ Wycliff told him, fighting to keep his emotions in check. ‘I’m right here. I’m always going to be right here.’
By noon the murders were the leading story on every TV station in Los Angeles, the Internet, the newspaper web sites. While Billy slept, Wycliff watched the story unfold on television, switching from one station to another. The woman who had seen him fleeing the scene couldn’t offer much useful information, since she had only seen him from the back, at a distance. Still, she was able to state without any doubt that he was a tall white man. That narrowed the field, but as yet not enough to matter, the police spokespeople dealing with the media crush explained. They were terse regarding releasing information, but they did let slip that an autopsy would be done on the victims, to find out if the murderer had left any traces of his DNA on them.
Wycliff shuddered when he heard that. The woman had clawed at his arms like a mountain lion. The police might find scrapings under her fingernails. Would they be able to trace them to a crime committed over a decade ago, for which he had gone to a county jail, but not a state or federal prison? Despite all the hype on CSI, he knew that most local police forces were woefully behind the times in gathering forensic evidence. So maybe he could dodge that, at least buy some time.
The best thing to do was hunker down. He had a mountain of money hidden away. Worst came to worst, he could run, like he had so many times before. He didn’t want to this time, he was hoping he could have a future here, but if it came down to staying or surviving, there would be no choice.
His cell phone rang. He clutched when he saw the caller ID. He got up from Billy’s bedside and went out to the back yard.
‘What are you doing, calling me?’ he raged at Laurie.
She sounded hysterical over the phone. ‘Do you know what’s going on? The media is covering this wall to wall. My in-laws are out of their minds. His son has already been here. He came to console me. I thought I was going to lose it. I’m petrified.’
His worst fears about her were being confirmed. ‘Calm down,’ he told her. ‘You have to stay cool. There’s nothing that can involve you.’
‘You can involve me!’
‘And incriminate myself? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the last person you have to worry about. Now listen,’ he continued, fighting not to lose control, ‘do not call me again. The police might put a trace on your phone.’ He thought for a moment, his brain racing. ‘Go to Radio Shack and buy some pre-paid phones. I’ll get some, too. We’ll use them to communicate. You use it one time and dump it, go on to the next one. That way, our calls can’t be traced.’
He didn’t know if that was true, but he had to settle her down. She was a loose cannon, firing blindly.
‘All right,’ she groaned. ‘When am I going to see you?’
‘Not for a few days. We have to let this cool down. You go about your normal routine, don’t change anything. I’ll get word to you about how to get in touch with me. Until then, we do not communicate, do you understand that? That is absolutely crucial.’
‘Yes,’ she told him. She sounded scared out of her mind. ‘I understand.’
An hour later, Charlotte called. He panicked when he saw who it was. Had she somehow connected him to the murders? She had wormed herself inside his mind. Had he sent some brain-wave signal to her?
She didn’t have a clue about that. She was calling to find out when he could meet with John Cummings. She had talked to John, and he was excited about helping Wycliff.
‘Isn’t that wonderful, darling?’ she cooed. ‘I’m so happy this is going to happen.’
‘Me, too,’ he replied, almost choking on his words. ‘Listen, though. I’ve got to be here. I can’t be leaving, not even for an hour.’
He could hear an intake of breath. ‘Is he …?’
‘It could be any time now.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ She sounded sincere.
‘Thanks. I can’t talk now. But I do want to see you.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
‘I’ll call you when I can.’
‘I’ll be here. I’ll be praying for him. And you.’
Amelia showed up late in the afternoon. ‘What happened?’ she exclaimed in alarm when she saw the scratches on his arms.
The lies kept coming. ‘This goes under the heading of no good deed goes unpunished. Some lady’s cat was up in a tree and I volunteered to get it down for her. The cat didn’t want to come down.’
She laughed. ‘That’s why you call the fire department, dummy. Does it hurt?’
‘It stung like hell when I put alcohol on, but it’s okay now.’
‘Good. I don’t want anything to hurt you.’
He didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Oh, baby, if you only knew.
The doctor came by at dinner-time. He was downcast after he examined Billy, who by now was barely breathing. ‘Nothing more I can do now,’ he told Wycliff mournfully. ‘His systems are failing, one after the other. If there are final plans to be made, now’s the time.’
Amelia left and the brothers were alone again. Billy didn’t wake up. Wycliff watched the murder story unfold on television. It was the only thing the talking heads could talk about. A pack of vultures.
Before he went to bed he cleaned Billy up, changed his pajamas, shaved his hollowed-out cheeks. Billy knew none of this; he was unconscious, asleep, drifting further and further away. He was so thin now every bone in his body showed through, as if his skin was nothing more than a covering of his skeleton. They shoot horses, don’t they? Animals are shown more mercy when it’s their time to die than is given to humans. What was the point of his brother living any longer? Thank God for pain medication; otherwise, this would be unbearable. Let go, he begged his brother silently, just let it go.
He had already been involved in two deaths today. Two horrible, brutal, unnecessary deaths, a role he should not have been allowed to take on. But this one, the one he desperately wanted to do, he couldn’t.
He went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He was up all night, checking on Billy, going outside for a drink and a smoke, coming back to bed and writhing in emotional agony over what he had done. Even if he wound up pulling it off, getting away scot-free, he would never escape it. He would carry what he had done to his grave and maybe beyond, if there really was a god.
A few of Billy’s old friends, including Stanley the loser, dropped by in the morning to say their last good-byes. Wycliff, physically exhausted and emotionally strung-out, stayed in the background. They didn’t want him there, especially Stanley, who shook with indignation and fear when he and Wycliff locked eyes. Fuck you all, Wycliff thought with powerful bitterness. Where have you been these past weeks, when his brother could have used some company to cheer him up? He doesn’t even know you’re here now. I’ve been the one to keep him going. Me and me alone. If I wasn’t here, Billy wouldn’t be, either. He’d be rotting away in a hospital bed. Probably dead already. Coming home had raised his brother’s spirits and given him an extension on his life. He had nothing to apologize for on that score.
The friends left, and the house was quiet again.
They sat together all day long. Billy was barely conscious, and when he was, it was only for a few minutes at a time. Wycliff made sure his brother knew he was there. When Billy was asleep, he watched the news. No breaks in the case so far. The police we
re pursuing leads. When they had something more definitive, they would say so. What that meant was, so far they didn’t know shit. Fingers crossed that they never would.
Three things to worry about. First, that someone had gotten a better look at him fleeing the scene than the woman in the alley. He had been running blind, he didn’t remember anything about his flight, it had all been a blur. The hat and shades should have been decent camouflage, but it was a possibility. It was amazing how good a picture you could take from a cell phone.
Nothing he could do about that.
Second complication: the possibility of scrapings from his arms under the woman’s fingernails. That was his main concern. He couldn’t do anything about it, either the cops would tie them to him or they wouldn’t. If the police were able to connect the dots he would deal with it, by taking off and starting a new life.
The third potential problem, Laurie, was of a much higher level. She could fry him, but then she’d be jumping in the pan, too. It was a delicate situation, but if he played it smart, he could control her. Time was their ally. The longer they were able to sit chilly and hold on, the better their chance of beating it. They had one last critical piece of business to take care of, and then it would be over between them. She would want to stay away from him as much as he did from her.
But who was he kidding? It would never be over between them. They were tied together forever. Even when he got the rest of his money and never saw her again they were two bastard twins from the same malignant womb.
Night fell. He cooked himself bacon and eggs for dinner, washed down with shots of Jack Daniels and several Coronas. He and Billy watched How I Met Your Mother, Law and Order, the local news. Billy slept through it all. The murder story still led off, but the coverage wasn’t as hysterical as it had been. Life, as always, was moving on.
Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles Page 18