by C R Trolson
“Is it information you want or an alibi?”
“I doubt if you come up with either, Mr. Rasmussen.”
Ajax, still having a good time, leaned back in the chair and pointed to the painting. “Gentileschi’s work. Judith Slaying Holoferness,” he said. “One similar hangs in the Uffizi in Florence. Been there? I think not. They now suspect theirs is a copy.” He touched his chest. “Myself, I do not know. What is a copy? What is an original? Nothing is new under the sun, No? The only real difference is time. Getting back to Father Ramon…I saw nothing. Was there something else you wanted?”
“Who might have killed Ramon? Any ideas?”
“Consider this, Ramon was killed in a room several hundred years old. What secrets does that room hold? Let us delve further. If there had been no room, there would have been no killing. Simplistic, perhaps, but if there were no mission, there would be no Father Ramon. There would be no reason for you to be here. It’s all very ontological, of course.”
“There’s Cheevy.”
“Cheevy?”
“He was killed yesterday. Right after I watched him ride his moped through your gate. The Chief didn’t tell you?” Reese asked. “I thought you two were buddies.”
“The Chief doesn’t tell me everything.”
“I’ll bet he doesn’t,” Reese said. “So, you’re saying you don’t know Malcolm Cheevy? You’re not business partners? He told me he was helping you develop a computer game. He made it sound like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. He said you were the hero, a vampire. An advanced parasite, your words.”
“Did he, now?” Ajax asked primly. “A computer game? I have no idea what you’re talking about. As for you seeing a person named ‘Cheevy’ ride through the gate, well, the guards often hire people, usually transients, to clean weeds from the security cameras and the perimeter fence. I’ll check with them. You have no idea how many people claim to know me. There’s always a second cousin or some such trying to borrow money.”
“And you still feel misunderstood?”
Ajax smiled. “Exactly.”
“Maybe the guards hired Homer?”
“Homer?” Ajax seemed amused. “So many questions, sir. I’m having trouble keeping up. Who is Homer? Is there a connection between him and me?”
“You might say that,” Reese said. “Homer Wermels and Richard Lamb were the same person. Homer worked for you. This was right before he went to Los Angeles. This was right before he started mutilating young women.”
“Thousands work for me, and, unless you’re speaking of the poet, I don’t know a Homer. And I’m hardly on a first name basis with my employees. Not that it wouldn’t be charming.”
“You’re denying you knew Homer Wermels?”
“Emphatically,” Ajax said. “100 percent, yes. I thought you were worried about Father Ramon? But you seem to have come armed with a bag full of questions. I only wish I had more answers.”
“I’m thinking Cheevy made a last minute donation,” Reese said. “He came to see you. He came to tell you how his meeting went with me.”
“I killed him, too?”
“That’s your business.”
“Killing people?”
“Let’s just say you’re not doing anybody any favors when you buy their blood for the price of a bottle of cheap wine and sell it for enough money to buy a case of good scotch.”
“I admire your sense of imagery,” Ajax said. “But your depiction is naive, you see, times have changed. I’m in the business of saving lives, improving lives. My donor complex in downtown Trinidad, the Hemo Caribbean, is the area’s largest employer. Compensation that the donors receive feeds their families. What used to be a slum is now a lower-middle-class neighborhood. Do you have any idea what my expenses are? My overhead? I have to collect the blood. Test it. Separate the blood into its myriad components. I have to package it in a sterile environment. Label it. Ship it.” Ajax smiled and stroked his nose. “You have no idea. My overhead. I barely break even.”
“Like tending a herd of milk cows.”
“Touche’. Wonderfully put. You can’t kill your milk cows. You’d go out of business.”
“Your own words, again. You talk about a donor complex and donors, but you’re paying the donors. Isn’t that a contradiction?”
Ajax shrugged. “It’s a matter of semantics, Reese, only that. The farmer, after all, feeds his cows.”
He’d been looking at the speck on the corner of the desk for ten seconds before deciding it was blood. He touched it with his index finger and turned the finger so Ajax could see the red smear. “Did one of your cows get loose?”
Ajax shrugged. “Yes. I suspect the cleaning service. I believe they were here this morning. One of them must have cut himself.”
“Yes,” he said. “I can smell the bleach.” He figured Ajax had probably slapped the butler hard enough to throw blood and the poor bastard had missed the speck when Ajax made him clean it up. He almost felt sorry for both of them. And then again, it might be left over from Cheevy. He wiped his finger off under the desk. He stared at Ajax.
“More cognac?” the billionaire asked.
“Whiskey would be better.” He had not seen whiskey on the sidebar. “Cognac’s too weak to start the day on. Even L’esprit.” Get Ajax out of the room. Search it. “Did Napoleon start the day with cognac?”
“Milk and toast, I believe.”
“Graveyard stew,” Reese said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Milk toast. You eat it when you’re sick. When you have one foot in the grave. Graveyard stew is what my grandmother used to call it.”
“That is funny,” Ajax said. “Would you like some? My chef should have no trouble. He’s French. A little milk toast should be no trouble at all.”
“I’m not sick.”
Ajax wagged a finger at him. “One never knows. You may have your foot closer to the grave than you think and all it takes is one slip.”
“The whiskey’s fine.”
“Coming right up,” Ajax said with some finality. “Cognac is no foundation.” Like a ghost, he disappeared through the hidden door.
Mindful of the camera, Reese sidestepped to the large cardboard box. From: Cirrus Industries. To: Unicorn Medical. HUMAN BLOOD PRODUCT. A postage strip across the top read $41.50. The camera reversed directions. There seemed to be blood everywhere.
He stood in front of the painting, faking interest, certain Ajax was watching. The lady in the painting, brawny white arms matched to a studied glare, was sawing off the head of a man who, oddly enough, resembled Ajax. More blood. The lady, her hair jet black, also looked familiar.
The camera swept past him.
Inside the box, plates of cardboard crisscrossed, cutting the box into a hundred squares. He palmed a lipstick sized vial and marked the side of the box with his fingernail.
The camera was on him. If Ajax caught him snooping, there might be some excitement. On the other hand, Ajax might be enjoying the show. If the giant butler got involved, so much the better. He was a lot tougher than Cheevy. He doubted that Cheevy or Ramon had hit the butler, had put the marks on his face, no evidence that either had put up a fight. Maybe Ajax and the butler were involved with each other, a case of domestic abuse. Maybe Ajax liked to serve up a good beating on occasion, to keep the help in line and relieve tension. That would explain the blood on the desk.
Keeping an eye on the hidden door, he opened the desk’s top drawer, saw a large gold-plated cross with chain. Next to the cross was a small box. He shook the box, something rattled. Without thinking, he put the box in his pocket.
In the top drawer, he rifled through a bulging folder containing newspaper articles. One, dated August 1975, showed him leaning against a brown stucco wall in Watts, his blood appearing black in the picture. In the background, the shooter’s feet stuck awkwardly from an anonymous doorway. Headline: ROOKIE COP BLASTS ROBBER.
More articles, more killings, more mayhem. An article of him pulling t
hree kids out of a burning apartment. He recalled that the mom, who’d started the blaze with her crack pipe, hadn’t made it.
The last clipping detailed the short but prolific homicidal run of Richard Lamb, filled with vampire speculation, plus a paragraph about Reese Tarrant, rogue cop, possible killer, possible whack job.
He heard the door click, too late. His hand slipped on the drawer before he could shut it, costing him seconds. Caught. He turned.
But Ajax was casually backing into the room carrying something.
He was already back in his chair when Ajax finally turned, fumbling with a silver tray loaded with a bottle of Jack Daniels and two large tumblers, acting as if he hadn’t wanted a confrontation, but had wanted Reese to search, wanted his attention. Reese said calmly, “You didn’t have to go to so much trouble.”
“You enjoyed the view?”
“There’s a lot to see.”
“I spend hours alone here,” Ajax said, “looking at the ocean. Looking at eternity. It fortifies me. It relaxes me.”
Ajax poured full glasses. Reese drank half. “You have any other ideas about Father Ramon? Besides your time warp theory?”
Ajax moved to the windows, holding his glass in front of him without drinking. “When the Spanish came they disrupted a culture that had flourished without incident for fifty centuries. The Spanish married the Indians and formed families, Catholic families, the plan being to swell Church ranks through assimilation. The Spanish wanted gold, the Church wanted souls. The Protestants, the English and Americans, did not believe in assimilation. They simply killed the Indians and took their land. Manifest destiny was the term.
“The Spanish, though kinder and gentler conquerors than the English, could be harsh. If the natives did not take to their doctrine, they were done away with. That is, if the various European diseases did not kill them first. Am I boring you?”
“Miss Webber has already filled my head with local history.”
“Miss Webber.” Ajax licked his lips and inhaled slightly. “A sublime creature. Very special. A lovely girl. And so alive.” To underscore his admiration, Ajax threw a kiss from his lips to the room with enough flourish to make Reese sick.
“I’m not here to discuss Rusty Webber,” he said, knowing he sounded strangely jealous, regretting it immediately when Ajax looked at him, eyebrows raised slightly, sensing there was something between him and the archeologist.
“Would it surprise you to know,” Ajax purred, “that she possesses the capacity to kill? The loveliest things are like that, they seduce and then they kill. Danger is their most delicious attraction. You throw yourself on the rocks of their beauty.”
He was sick of Ajax’s poetry. “Anyone can kill.”
“Even me?”
“You confessing?”
Ajax laughed and shook his head. He seemed to think himself a real card, a regular madcap. “May I finish? The Coastal tribes were simple, and like most simple people their beliefs were strong. They believed in any number of spirits, demons, minor gods. When the Indians were killed off by the Spanish it was said that one of these demons would resurrect itself and take revenge.”
Reese finished off the glass. “Demons?”
“On the other hand, Father Ramon was a catamite. Perhaps his death was more a temporal matter. You mentioned a whip was involved?”
“Catamite?”
“I’ve stretched the definition, I suppose. The whip was his way of punishing himself. Let’s say that Ramon was a student of buggerism.”
“There’s a word you don’t hear everyday.” He’d said nothing about the whip. Ajax had probably received the entire case history from the Chief. Then again Ajax might be tipping his hand, bragging that he’d killed Ramon and there was damn little that he could do about it. “You think Ramon was killed having sex?” He’d thought about it, the sex angle, but disregarded it as too pat. He wasn’t even sure that Ramon had been penetrated or if any semen had been found. And then there was the logistics of hefting a three hundred pound man, a little too much work when you were having fun.
“The man was a priest.”
“So, in your opinion, Ramon was either killed by demons or perverts.” He got up. So much for the billionaire. He hadn’t rattled him and he was tired of listening to him. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
Ajax nodded serenely. “Don’t believe everything you hear about me.” The voice floated over him as he walked to the door. “When you pass the painting, notice the female with the sword. It is Gentileschi herself, a painter’s self-portrait. A feminist of her time, she brought rape charges against the man in the painting. He was a fellow painter, a well known womanizer, but never a rapist. No one knows what happened at the trial, lost to the ages, but of the man, well, the painting speaks for itself.”
He studied the painting. The face could have been Ajax. The face of Gentileschi, the woman, he’d seen not too long ago. “It’s you,” he turned and said. “The rapist.”
“I would like to think I’m better looking. And he was no rapist.”
“Richard Lamb’s victims were raven haired.” He looked back at the painter, Gentileschi, sword held high, it looked a lot like Melissa Cunningham, the last victim, her eyes burning, urging him on.
“Like Gentileschi?” Ajax said.
“You hated her.”
“The fellow painter, the man depicted as Holoferness, was ruined by her charges.” Ajax’s face screwed in a notch. His voice rose. The most emotion Reese had seen from him. “He was tortured - they broke his bones with rocks - and if he had not escaped from jail, he would have been killed.”
“And you’re still mad about it?”
“She accuses a fellow painter of rape and then cuts his head off for everyone to see?” Ajax folded his hands, calm again. “That was many lifetimes ago. Why should I care?”
“Maybe you thought it was ironical or witty to have Homer Wermels kill Gentileschi look-a-likes, again and again?”
“A stunning hypothesis, but implausible,” Ajax said and shook his finger in his direction, chiding him. “If you wait by the river long enough, Reese, things will float by twice. You may think that the water is different, but it is not.”
He walked out the door and down the hall, wondering why it bothered him so much that Ajax seemed desperately in love with Rusty. It bothered him even more than the possibility that Ajax might be a lot older than he looked.
Ajax opened the desk drawer and removed the cross. The small box containing his toy was gone. He slipped the chain over his neck. He saw his reflection in the slanting panes of glass, larger than life, his specter widening over the ground below. That was it, exactly. His spirit covered the land. He was everywhere. He moved, his reflection covered the earth. He twirled. The cross rose from his chest. He was pure. He was energy. He was life. He glided to the cardboard box, saw the slight nail mark, the missing vial, and smiled. Cummings’ words flashed through his mind - How do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mr. Death?
16
After Reese drove back to his apartment and parked, he saw the young and earnest officer Thomkins sitting on the front bumper of a dilapidated black and white Ford parked at the curb. Thomkins was maybe old enough to vote, he thought. His uniform was a size too large. He was growing a wisp of a red mustache for authority.
Thomkins walked up and told him the Chief had okayed his request to witness the autopsies of Cheevy and Father Ramon. Thomkins was to drive him.
While Thomkins waited, he went inside and checked his answering machine. Two messages. Carsabi wanted him to call. Rusty wanted him to meet her in her room at five. Her voice was throaty and sexy. He wanted to jump.
He understood Ajax’s obsession with her. He was a little obsessed with the archeologist himself. And why had Ajax lectured him on her killing abilities? Was he accusing her of murdering Ramon? She was a ready-made patsy. Her arguing with Ramon. Her sickle at the murder scene. He was sure it was hers, just as he was sure that the Chief would
try to hang the murder on her. But she did not have much to worry about. Not with Ajax in her corner.
He went over the last part of his meeting with Ajax and his bizarre rambling about a long dead painter. Did Ajax believe that the Richard Lamb killings were tied to a medieval painter or was Ajax jerking his chain? And why had he referred to the Gentileschi incident as being many lifetimes ago instead of many years? And the speck of blood. Had that been a mistake or chum to rouse his interest? And for what reason?
He dialed the familiar number. Carsabi answered on the second ring. After the initial greetings, Reese said, half-jokingly, “I’m not coming back, if that’s why you called.”
“It’s about Hernandez.”
“He finally flipped out and killed someone?” Reese opened the small box he’d stolen. He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to deal with Hernandez for a few days.
“He’s missing,” Carsabi said.
“Why tell me? I haven’t seen him.” The hollow finger was made from a tough, flesh-colored plastic, meant to slip over a real finger. A curved steel talon, razor sharp, and spring loaded, was tucked into the fingertip. From five feet, it would look like a real finger.
“You might. He told his squad commander he had hard evidence you murdered Richard Lamb in cold blood, and he was heading for Santa Marina to see you about it.”
“To arrest me?” He put the phone between his ear and shoulder. He slipped the plastic finger over his index finger. The plastic was flexible and fit tightly. He whipped his finger down, flicking it, causing the talon to whip out. Nasty.
“Not that. He thinks your next victim might be Ajax Rasmussen, the governor’s buddy who just happens to live in Santa Marina. He’s big-time connected, politically, and Hernandez wants to make points saving Rasmussen’s ass from you is what I heard.”
“I forgot,” Reese said. “Why am I killing Rasmussen?”
“Hernandez claims you think Rasmussen had something to do with the Anaheim Vampire, with Richard Lamb. Hernandez has been reading your old files, been having regular brainstorms, telling everyone you’re obsessed with proving Rasmussen was telling Richard Lamb what to do.”