by Blackie Noir
REQUIEM FOR THE WIDOWMAKER
by
Blackie Noir
* * * *
Copyright © 2006 by Greg Horbay
# # #
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
. . . . W. B. Yeats
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Epilogue
Chapter One
Blyth, California
1985
The last sound Tessa heard was the flat low rumble of her lover’s stroked ’62 Harley panhead. When the chopper came to a halt in front of her trailer, a brief spark of hope flickered through her oxygen starved brain, then died. Tessa’s death followed.
If Ralph heard the motorcycle’s arrival he ignored it. Staring down at what was left of his wife, he removed his hands from her throat. Taking grim satisfaction from Tessa’s bloodied and battered features, he rose from the floor. Gaining his feet, Ralph turned, looked across a battleground of broken furniture and glass. His gaze found the girl.
Five years old, diminutive and trembling. Standing stock-still, eyes wide, vacant. Shell-shocked. Traumatized, on the brink of catatonia. His daughter. Nadine.
His daughter? Yeah, right. Tessa’s daughter, but not by him. No fuckin way. Not with that weird eye. Bright green, jade flecked with gold. Not like the other one: plain brown. Shit, he didn’t have no eye like that. But, he knew who did. The Iceman.
All these years, Ralph had never seen the motherfucker without his black Ray-Bans on. Yesterday, first time. And as luck, bad luck, would have it, one of the rare times Ralph wasn’t strapped. He wasn’t about to take on that particular back-door piece of scooter-trash shit unarmed, but his day would come. Soon. Meantime, he’d already settled-up with Tessa.
Yeah, Tessa had been dealt with. Being Ralph would soon be in the wind, he might as well deal with the kid too. Little snot was not only a witness to his strangling of her mother, but her very existence bore evidence to Ralph’s status as a cuckold. Glass crunching under his boots, he moved toward the cornered child.
Nadine, unmoving, held her unblinking stare as Ralph’s hand reached out for her throat.
The sound of the arriving motorcycle hadn’t broken Ralph’s reverie during Tessa’s death throes.
The ratcheting of a revolver’s hammer being cocked did.
Perhaps the close proximity of the weapon made the difference. The .357’s barrel had been placed in Ralph’s ear.
Even with one ear obstructed, Ralph had no problem hearing through the other one. The Iceman’s voice: harsh, rasping, a cigarettes and whiskey whisper. Granite hard. Cold. Hollow. Empty as the desert night spreading black over the barren miles beyond the trailer’s open door.
“Shit, Ralph. You fucked up. Big time. Irrevocable. Now, you’re gonna pay.”
When the handgun’s barrel left his ear, Ralph was able to turn and face his executioner.
Their eyes met, Ralph’s glacier-blue, the other man’s mixed. One dark brown. One bright green, jade flecked with gold.
#
The receding blare of the Harley’s pipes reverberated through the aluminum box, rattling the cheap plexi-glass windows in their frames. Old, oxidized and opaque, the trailer’s windows were incapable of granting the brilliant moonlight entry. Equally impotent, unable to provide its originally intended function, was the trailer itself. Once, years ago in its infancy, a happy home, the trailer now was nothing more than a repository for death, pain, heartbreak, and fear.
As the roar of the chopper faded, the trailer was engulfed by a silence unique to the desert night. Moonlight streamed through the broken-hinged door, spotlighting both the end of one grim overture, and the beginning of a new mad flamenco, one to be danced, in years to come, to the music of chaos and mayhem.
Tessa: beaten and bloodied, a stringless marionette discarded, broken, on the filthy glass strewn floor. Her nemesis: Ralph, lying on the couch, a small hole in his temple, engaged in death’s timeless siesta. Seated on the floor next to the couch: Nadine, her mottled eye shining, staring at the hole in Ralph’s head. Staring, as if expecting some small creature to emerge at any moment.
Nadine, unique amid the trio in that she alone remained among the quick. Visible proof being the short, shallow breaths she drew between rapid licks of her dry, cracked lips. An occasional mewl sounded from her throat as she rocked, over and again, back and forth.
Clutched tightly, knuckles ice-white in contrast to baby-pink flesh, in her hands is a small handgun. A double-barreled derringer, both of its .22 caliber rounds spent. Nadine’s intermittent tears ended their downward journey, spattering the blue of the derringer’s barrels.
As if in response to the child’s whimpers, the doleful yips and yowls of a nearby den of coyotes broke the silence, their mournful tone emphasizing the malevolence of this most dreadful night.
Chapter Two
Long Beach, CA.
Present
Call me Widowmaker.
That was how he began the note. He’d left it on the first body. He no longer left notes. After the first body it wasn’t necessary. The police had his MO down pat. Not good enough to catch him, but good enough to recognize his work. No more notes. Still, he had to admit, that first message had struck a chord.
Call me Widowmaker.
Tormented, battered, and besieged
these women pray for widowhood.
I am the answer to their prayers.
He’d been drunk when he wrote it. Drunk when he decided to kill Bertram Teir. He’d been sober when he did the deed. Sober that night, sober most of the week leading up to it. It wasn’t part of his plan to get caught, and he didn’t. But, he sure had started something.
It was only fitting that the newspapers had picked-up on the story of Bertram Teir’s death and ran with it. Not only was the story, with its ‘Widowmaker’ angle, a natural, but his own first knowledge of Teir had come through a newspaper article. In a particularly vicious episode of his ongoing rage Teir, a chronic wife-beater, had taken a baseball bat to the family Labrador, beating the dog to death in front of his horrified wife and their two children.
Luckily, Teir had abandoned his Louisville Slugger when he went after his wife. Still, the episode had cost the wife, Barbara, a broken nose and two teeth. Realizing that the damage done to the children, by them witnessing their beloved pet’s death at
the hands of their father, could well prove irreversible, Barbara finally gathered enough courage to gather the kids and split. But not before she called in the law, a first for her. She pressed charges, and filed for a restraining order.
The law picked Teir up at one of the dives he frequented. Still drunk, Teir offered no resistance. The Teirs were a clannish, tightly knit family. An older brother not only made Teir’s bail, Bertram hit the bricks 12 hours after his bust, but saw to it that ‘the kid’, his usual reference to Bertram, was well represented. Ben Spiro, the attorney hired by the Teirs, was as brutal to his female adversaries in the courtroom, as the men he defended were to their spouses at home.
Under Spiro’s cutting cross-examination Barbara Teir appeared as an ignorant, vindictive, shrew. The two kids as robotic wind-up toys, whose testimony had obviously been programmed by the DA. Poor Bertram was presented as an emotionally overextended working stiff, who, on an extraordinary evening of alcohol induced madness had momentarily lost control. His courtroom remorse knew no bounds.
Like the general public, who followed the case in the Press Telegram, both judge and jury were more appalled by Bertram’s beating of the Labrador, than by his assault on Barbara Teir. When all the gnashing of teeth and breast-beating was done, the crocodile tears ceasing their flow; Bertram got one year, county, (suspended) for the Lab. Six months, county, (suspended) for Barbara, and one year probation. Ben Spiro knew his shit.
The Widowmaker, watching on the local news, hadn’t liked the smirk Bertram wore as he skipped down the court house steps. He didn’t know Bertram, but he didn’t like dog-killers, and he sure as shit didn’t like wife-beaters. Consequently, he’d developed a real hardon for old Bertram.
Languishing in the depths of a monumental depression, the Widowmaker figured taking out a piece of trash like Bertram might be just the thing to bring him back. From reading the paper he knew what low-rent dives Bertram frequented. He’d spend a little time, shoot some pool, check the mutt out.
He spent a few nights playing gumshoe, observing his target. Didn’t learn anything special, just enough to confirm Bertram as a bona-fide asshole. It was the little things; like Bertram twisting a reluctant woman’s arm up between her shoulder-blades, walking her to a booth in the bar’s dimly lit rear, then, still maintaining the hammerlock, forcing her to blow him.
True, the woman had the look of one familiar with unorthodox back-booth behavior, but, far as the Widowmaker was concerned, that didn’t negate her right to say no. Bertram was definitely living up to the low opinion the Widowmaker had formed. Good.
The clincher was a conversation Bertram had with a couple of shit-bags whose chief function seemed to be buying drinks for ‘Ol Bert’, laughing at his jokes, and licking his boots. The conversation was about, “that fuckin skank Barbara,” and what he had planned for her.
Bert’s toadies especially liked his description of what he going to do with Barbara’s restraining order: Where he was going to ram it. How far up he would ram it. And, what he planned to use for a ramrod.
Wasn’t much you could do with a dude like that. The Widowmaker could think of only one thing. He went home, wrote and printed-out his note, hit the sack. Time to sober up. Get straight. He slept well. The sleep of the righteous.
Three nights later, early AM, the Widowmaker walked up to Bertram, sitting in his Camero smoking, and put two .22 slugs behind his ear. Double tap.
Wearing latex gloves, he dropped his note in Bertram’s lap. The Widowmaker was born. Re-born, a phoenix risen from the ashes. Resurrected from the mire of despair, a man whole once more. A man whose life now had purpose.
Call me Widowmaker.
Chapter Three
By the time her car’s radio had crackled out its order, “All LBPD units, do not, repeat, do not, engage in high speed pursuit of GTA suspect headed East on Artesia Blvd. CHP is on it,” Nadine was already riding the carjacker’s rear bumper.
Resisting the urge, to just ram the asshole and be done with it, Nadine ignored the command.
Highway Patrol was on it. Really? Granted, the CHP might be hot shit out on the open freeways in their souped-up cruisers, running down speeders. But, here on the streets of Long Beach; which ran the gamut from residential, to commercial, to industrial, the Chips couldn’t find their ass, much less run down a speeding perp.
Well, Nadine knew where her ass was. Planted firmly in the seat of her LBPD Saleen Mustang. As for her chasing the fleeing felon? Her biggest problem had been avoiding the slow to react Highway Patrol cars as they tried to keep up with the suspect. Her speed ever escalating, she wound her way through what to her seemed like an obstacle course formed by slower moving CHP cruisers.
Shit. Where were these guys when reflexes were given out? So badly were these CHP lames impeding her progress, Nadine felt they should be charged with aiding and abetting.
Nadine figured if anybody was gonna be brought up on charges it would be her. There were a lot of furious dudes behind all those headlights she was leaving in her wake. She was pissing on a lot of macho tonight. Too bad. Not her fault they couldn’t drive. Not her fault her CO had deferred to the CHP either. Far as she was concerned she never heard his command.
Still, she knew she was already in deep shit. Deep, and sinking ever deeper. Two ways Nadine could get out of said shit without retaining its stench: She could bust the perp, make a righteous collar. Or, the perp could kill her. The latter was most definitely not an option. If anybody was going down, it was the scumbag she was chasing.
Now, her quarry? He could drive. Sucker knew his stuff. Very good behind the wheel. Extremely good. But, nowhere near as good as Nadine. Then, who was? Roy. He could outdrive her. “Rapid Roy,” her brother. It had been Roy who taught her.
Good pupil that she’d been, Nadine had no trouble sticking with the suspect. Didn’t matter when the dude mounted the sidewalks to circumnavigate stalled traffic. She hung tight. The fool couldn’t lose her by driving on the wrong side of the road either. He’d tried, but everything was cool. Nadine was glue. All over the mutt’s bumper.
Her only concern, the involvement of an innocent, whether pedestrian, or driver of an oncoming vehicle. While this concern flashed through her mind, the suspect hit an on-ramp for the 91 freeway. Instant relief sharpened her concentration. There would be no pedestrians to fear for, and hopefully, the low concrete dividing wall would keep her quarry on the right side of the road.
The vehicle being pursued was a Lexus SUV. Nimble and quick as the Lexus was, it couldn’t match the sheer brute power of the Saleen’s big V8. Holding third gear, Nadine accelerated, riding the stolen Lexus’ ass up the ramp and onto the freeway.
The Lexus shot a quick angle across four lanes of traffic, making it into the car-pool lane, accelerating all the way. Nadine, hanging, gaining. Nadine a cheetah, the perp a panicked gazelle.
If she’d bothered to look, she’d have seen her speedo’s needle edge past 90. She neither saw the speedometer, nor heard the chorus of blaring horns and screeching brakes in the background. Driving. Focused. Amped!
Looked like maybe a half mile or more, before Nadine and her quarry would catch the next cluster of traffic. Pulling alongside the Lexus, she looked over at the perp, bared her teeth. Not smiling. The suspect returned her snarl.
Easing off the accelerator, Nadine swung in behind the Lexus. Both vehicles were now bathed in the powerful floodlight of a helicopter that had joined the chase. Whether the copter’s affiliation was law enforcement or local news, Nadine had no idea. Didn’t matter. What mattered now was if her prey was smart enough to realize that, with aerial pursuit now in the mix, further flight was futile.
Nadine could only pray that the asshole didn’t harbor a death wish. The staccato flashing of the Lexus’ brake lights seemed to indicate that her prayer had been answered. Gradually reducing speed, the driver had enough sense not to get rear-ended by Nadine, the Lexus came to a halt.
Stopping the Saleen fifteen feet from the
Lexus, Nadine pulled her Berretta, and pushing her door open exited the car. Squatting behind the door she waited on the suspect. His move. If he stayed put Nadine was content to wait for back-up to arrive. Wouldn’t take long and, adding to the odds in her favor, the Lexus remained bathed in the bright white beam of the hovering copter’s floodlight.
Sweat trickling into her eyes, her trapezius muscles cramping, traffic zooming by her, far faster than the posted 65 mph limit, Nadine kept her Berretta steady, sighted on the Lexus. Scared? Bet your ass. Scared but unwavering, a fucking rock, Nadine viewed the driver door of the Lexus over the notch and blade of her pistol’s sights.
Slowly the door swung open. One arm, empty handed, in view. Then, a shoulder, followed by the head. Nadine shouted, “Other hand motherfucker! Show your other hand. Now!”
Compliance. Nadine could see both hands now, empty. The man slowly straightened as he exited the Lexus, turned, and hands at shoulder height, began walking toward her. Tall, lean, and dark, possibly Latino. Young. Not a teen, but maybe early twenties. Slight swagger to his walk. Confident. Walking a little faster now.
Nadine, throat dry, voice cracking, “Freeze! Right fucking there. That’s it, stop.”
The man stopped, smiled. Placing the edge of his left hand over his brow against the glare of the copter’s spotlight. Squinting, he made eye-contact with her, said, “OK. OK lady. You da boss. Now, just chill out, huh?”
Nadine worked up enough saliva to swallow, ease her throat, yelled, “Down! On your belly. Get down. Now!”
The guy, still cool. Still smiling, “Hey lil’ sis, whatchoo gonna do baby? Choot me?”
Nothing wrong with Nadine’s voice now. Loud and clear, “Fuckin-A right I’ll ‘choot’ you, pendejo. Right in the cajones. Now, get the fuck down!”
Seconds passed, dragging, freeze-framing the two character drama being played out in the middle of a major freeway. The guy was taking too long. Where the fuck was the Highway Patrol? Nadine was cramping all over. Neck, shoulders, arms. She could see a slight tremor vibrating her pistol’s no longer steady sights. She had to do something. Make some kind of a move.