by Ty Patterson
He looked around.
Chang, shouting, badge in one hand, gun in another, Pizaka sprinting, the twins circling them wide.
Zeb released his gun, stepped back and his body relaxed.
The city sprang back to life, in color and with all its aural intensity.
An ambulance wheeled up and the old man was attended to. Cruisers rushed and turned the night into flashing red and blue. The assailant was cuffed, his rights read out, other cops took witness statements, Chang took Zeb’s.
He strolled back to Zeb and the twins an hour later. ‘Not our man. Domestic dispute. He’s her ex and the two have been at war over their children’s custody.’
‘The mask - so that she wouldn’t recognize him?’
Chang nodded and followed Zeb’s eyes as the man was escorted to a patrol car and when he turned back there was a smile on his face.
‘Next time give us a heads up will ya, before pulling the Flash act.’
He blinked as a camera went off and left them to head the press off.
‘Betcha the Flayer will get a kick out of this,’ Beth breathed beside Zeb.
The Flayer couldn’t stop chuckling in the silence of his home. He had stayed up to finalize his plans for Teresa Stark. The news on TV had kept him up longer. He watched in fascination at the inevitable video captured on someone’s mobile phone.
A masked man grappling with the woman.
Another figure appearing at the edge of the video, launching itself at the masked man and in a few blurry seconds, the masked man down and out of the equation.
The video ended, the presenter came back and breathlessly announced that it was not the Flayer but a violent brawl between a divorced couple.
The Flayer’s grin grew wider as he watched the rest of the bulletin and heard the witnesses the presenter interviewed. The scene changed, another mobile video came up and showed a departing SUV. Zeb Carter’s ride, the presenter announced with great importance.
He alone is a genuine threat. The cops are clowns.
He dug out the thought he had buried and examined it from all angles.
If I go after him, the whole force will be after me.
Dude, they’re already after you.
It doesn’t feel right. Making it personal has never paid.
Betcha Diaz’s husband and all the others have only a professional interest in catching you.
He drummed his fingers and looked at Diaz for an answer. Her eyes looked back at him accusingly.
Buddy, Carter will ruin your game if he’s not taken out.
Hmmm.
Maybe I don’t need to go after him.
He called up an internet phone application and dialed a number from memory. A hoarse voice came over his speakers, thickened with years of smoke and alcohol.
‘Yeah?’
No greetings, no pleasantries, but then the man was not in the pleasantness business. His job was to deliver hurt and damage. The Flayer had used him before to dispose of Saunders. The man had never failed.
‘I want a man killed.’
When he had finished, The Flayer thought about the other headline and pulled out his laptop. He searched the internet for the HOF’s presence, found their propaganda site, thought for long moments and drafted a message and saved it.
He would later access a wireless hotspot and send the email.
Nothing like adding chaos to panic.
Zeb and the twins worked the phones next day as they chased down army personnel who fit the gender and height of the Flayer and who had retired or left service with a slight disability and a disfigurement.
Six hours of fruitless calls later, Meghan broke away and went to the pantry and brewed mugs of coffee on Broker’s Jura. It was his pride and joy, but the twins had commandeered it, much to his apparent disgust and secret joy.
‘They brew a darned sight better than I do,’ he had confided to Zeb.
She handed a mug over to Zeb. ‘What if he got the limp after he left the service?’
‘Then we are S.C.R.E.W.E.D.’ her sister made a face in reply.
‘Check out clinics, hospitals, doctors, for any such patients who fit the age and height stats.’ Zeb suggested.
She made a face. ‘That’ll be a humongous job.’
‘So quit wasting time and get to it.’ Beth snarked.
Zeb and the sisters rode along with two detectives from the task force for the next two days as they crossed out various shipping addresses for the Formalin and the instruments.
They were down to twenty addresses; all the others tracked down and ruled out. The remaining ones were mostly storage service providers, a few business centers among them. Pizaka called Zeb during a coffee break in the morning when they had ten more to check out.
The two cops, a young neatly turned out one, along with his older, heavyset partner, disappeared inside a café on the Hudson and joined a long line. There were several cruisers parked outside, a cop hang out.
Beth mouthed coffee at Zeb. He shook his head and took the call in their SUV.
‘We have got some more images, this time from the café from where he uploaded the video. They have just two cameras inside and seating for fifty, but they don’t have computers. He must have brought his own.’
Zeb looked away at the New Jersey skyline across the river, at a barge as it made its slow way. Its world didn’t stop revolving just for a serial killer.
‘I think he has two laptops. One which never leaves his home and one that he uses for making contact from the outside world.’
Pizaka was curious. ‘How do you figure that?’
‘His home computer is likely to have stuff that’s related to the killings. Would he risk taking that outside? What if he got mugged? What if it got stolen?’
Pizaka’s silence was agreement.
‘It’s worth checking out laptop sales that day. He might have bought a cheap one just to upload that video. He might have used a credit card and there might be video too.’ Meghan chimed.
‘Got that,’ Pizaka replied. ‘I’ll get some shoes on it. No great luck with the video in the café. There are quite a few guys wearing coats using laptops. No faces though.’
A man came out on the barge, jumped up and down and waved at them. Beth waved back and got a scornful look and a nudge from her sister.
Zeb ignored them, pictured the café in his mind. ‘Is there seating outside the café?
Silence at the other end, Pizaka relaying the query to someone, an unintelligible reply.
‘Nope,’ Pizaka came back. ‘I know where you are going. I’ll get the baristas questioned to identify the regulars, and also check out card receipts. Warrants are not a problem. The commissioner has greased the wheels.’
The two cops came out and they rolled to the first address, a large storage facility that had rows of containers lined up by the side of the river.
‘You can rent a container; dump anything and everything there, no questions asked.’ The younger, clean-cut cop said as they approached another container which turned out to be the office.
‘We once found a container filled with bodies,’ his partner rumbled. ‘Stowaways, illegal immigrants. The container lay in the port for a few days in a remote corner. It was only when the stench carried that the bodies were found.
A pimply faced teenager manned the office, a laptop in front of him, a printer to a side, headphones at full blast, his head unconsciously rocking to the beat.
Old cop rapped the glass window that separated the teenager’s world from the outside.
No reaction. He had his eyes closed.
A harder rap, his eyes flew open and fifteen minutes of to-ing and fro-ing got them nowhere.
‘I need a warrant, man. My boss will toss me out if I shared anything with you guys.’
‘Let me,’ murmured Beth, pushed to the front and smiled at the youth.
Fifteen minutes later they got a container number.
The older cop called it in and followed the rest of t
hem as the teenager took them to a brown container. The teenager reluctantly cut the lock at the cops’ forceful nods and swung the door open.
It was empty.
Zeb scanned the area. No cameras.
‘Nope.’ The teenager gave an ‘are you real’ look when Zeb asked him.
‘Don’t need them. Folks come here to dump stuff they don’t want others to see.’
‘You ever see the renter?’
Zeb got another get-real look from the teenager. ‘Dude, there are three hundred containers here. People come and go as they choose. I just see vehicles going in or out.’
The older cop shrugged, trudged away and they followed him.
A thought struck Zeb and he whirled back at the young man. ‘How long has it been rented out?’
The boy consulted a pad. ‘Two years.’
‘Same guy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Prints,’ Zeb looked at the two cops and the younger one made more calls.
They didn’t have better luck at the other addresses.
No storage bin with a Flayer sign board on it. No one saw anyone. The storage world didn’t seem to involve human contact. Some of the bins were empty, many others had unused furniture, mattresses, bikes. One had a boat in it. Some bins had markings in the dust that could have been plastic tanks. Tanks that could have stored Formalin.
The task force’s call center got working on the renters’ addresses, forensics teams rolled out to each site for prints.
They hit the business centers last.
At the very last one, on Katonah Avenue in the Bronx, when weariness was creeping on the cops and the twins, they got a warm smile from a middle-aged woman.
Shayna Rogers, her name plate read.
She was alone behind a yellow counter, rows of pigeon hole racks stretched behind her.
‘Cops, right?’ she beamed at them even before they introduced themselves. ‘My husband is with the 52nd Precinct. He works in the gang outreach program. I know the look.’
Her brown face radiated good humor and when she heard the older detective’s request, she smiled in assent. ‘Sure. I know how you guys work. I am not allowed to share such information, but if you don’t tell, I won’t.’
She winked at them broadly, disappeared and came back with a folder.
She squinted at the address the detective presented and flipped pages till she got the right one.
‘I remember him. Martin Hendricks.’ She turned the page over so that they could read it. ‘He comes once a month or so and has been renting with us for six years.’
The detectives noted the Bronx address Hendricks had given and the younger one moved away to call, to track it down.
‘Is that usual?’ Beth asked her.
‘For sure. Some folks have been with us for ten years. It’s not unusual at all.’
‘How many boxes do you have here?’
‘Two thousand,’ she said proudly. ‘Many people use us as their address, get bills, stuff that they don’t want get at home.’
‘Why do you remember Hendricks?’ Zeb asked her curiously. ‘You will have thousands of customers. Why him?’
She laughed delightedly. ‘I am a big people watcher. I spend all day behind this counter and trying to figure out what people do. That’s my entertainment. I observe how they walk, talk, what they wear, and spin stories about their lives.’
‘Hendricks – he’s always dressed in a long coat, dark shades, a low cap and gloves, whatever the weather.’
‘One summer I joked that he must be well done inside that get up. He looked at me blankly and went away.’
Zeb felt the others gaze at him, felt them come to life. ‘You remember anything about what he receives?’
She frowned, thought hard and shook her head in disappointment. ‘I can’t help you there. The day is just a blur for me, of stuff coming in and going to the lockers.’
‘Can we look at his locker?’
She bit her lips, looked nervous.
Meghan stepped forward and smiled warmly. ‘No one will know, Shayna. We wouldn’t be here it if wasn’t important. If you get in trouble at all, these guys will smooth it out.’
Shayna’s eyes flickered over the cops, rested on Zeb for seconds and then she swept a hand down, grabbed a bunch of keys and gestured.
Follow me.
Twists and turns past several racks, she led them to an end-of-rack box.
‘He specifically asked for this box. I guess he wanted his privacy.’
Shayna spread the keys open, peered at the lock’s number, searched and found the right key.
She twisted the key and swung the cubbyhole’s door open. The cops and the twins peered down.
It was empty.
‘You remember when he last came?’ Zeb queried her.
The frowning and faraway look came again.
‘Nope,’ she said resignedly. ‘He comes once a month, I remember that much.’
She locked up and led them to the front, watched silently as Zeb took a picture of Hendricks’ page.
‘What do you require for proof of address?’
‘Anything really. A driver’s license usually, but it can be a passport, a utility bill, an insurance receipt.’
‘How did Hendricks pay?’
She checked more records. ‘Cash, paid each year in advance. We make it as simple as possible for our customers. They can pay in any form.’
Beth took out her tablet from her bag and turned it over to Shayna. She flipped through a screen and brought up the Flayer’s images from the discount store.
‘Could this be him?’
Shayna looked at it carefully and at the other images Beth swiped through.
‘Hard to say. His face is always covered when he comes here, but the height looks right, that coat looks familiar.’
Electricity surged through the cops as the older one requested Shayna’s time with a forensic artist.
She beamed. ‘No problem. I’m a cop wife. I know the drill. If you give me a number, I’ll even call you when he visits next.’
She added a caution. ‘Remember I don’t know what he looks like inside.’
Zeb had a last question for her. ‘What do you think he does?’
She laughed. ‘I thought he was in the intelligence business. A spy or some kind of secret agent. You guys are interested in him, so he’s definitely into something clandestine.’
One way of putting it.
‘Mr. Carter.’
She halted him as they were leaving.
Humor had left her face as she locked eyes with him. ‘Now you – I would want you beside me in a dark alley.’
Zeb left silently, nodded once when young cop told them Hendrick’s address was false. He looked up and down the street and pointed at a lamp post, and other pieces of furniture on the street that faced the business center.
The senior detective grunted in acknowledgement. He knew what Zeb was pointing at.
The old days of staking out had given way to video surveillance. Miniature cameras mounted on everyday devices monitored perpetrators round the clock.
Cameras didn’t take comfort or coffee breaks.
The Flayer followed Teresa Stark for two evenings to make sure her routine hadn’t changed from all those years since he knew her.
It hadn’t.
As he drove up Lower Manhattan behind her Suburban, he glanced once in the direction of the NYPD headquarters.
I wonder how they’re getting along.
Chasing shadows no doubt.
He frowned as he considered their consultant, Carter.
Now him, he could ruin my run.
The Flayer had read all that he could find on Carter. He had gone to veterans’ forums and inquired. Many had suspiciously asked about his interest, some had come back with the same bland information in the public domain.
His involvement with the NYPD was well known and he had been responsible for their apprehending at least two serial killers. There were ru
mors rife in the internet that he had brought down a vicious Russian gang.
The Flayer knew he would have to stop killing one day or it was inevitable that he would make mistakes.
Mistakes get killers caught.
But he wasn’t ready to quit yet.
Too much fun.
Riding in the sunset is still a while away.
More blood to be shed.
Carter cropped up in his thoughts again.
He was uneasy for the first time.
He had called Boris Korulev, the Ukrainian gangster who he had contracted to go after Carter and told him about his misgivings.
Korulev was impatient. ‘So you wanna off him or not?’
None of the ‘second thoughts’ business for the Ukrainian. He was one of the most sought after go-to gangsters in the city. If a problem arose, he took care of it.
Regret and doubt weren’t in his vocabulary.
‘Yeah, go ahead.’ The Flayer told him, but his voice was weak.
He shook his head and focused on the vehicle ahead.
My next victim
My Christmas present to myself.
Chapter 13
November 12th – 18th
Mark Feinberg collected Beth from her office and drove her to lunch and a full hour later, when they had filled each other with the minutiae in each other’s lives the way young lovers do, he dropped her back.
He waved at her and when she disappeared inside the blue chrome building, he floored it.
He felt the draft first, the presence later.
Startled he stamped on the brake, turned on the intruder, one hand snaking toward his holstered gun.
His hand stilled when he saw dark eyes boring into him. Flat, hard, cold.
Snake eyes, he thought irrelevantly. They held his attention like a magnet.
Mark licked his lips as Zeb stared at him silently, as if those eyes could read inside him; know everything about him, what made him tick.
‘Hey, Zeb, that was one smooth move,’ he laughed nervously.
No response. Those eyes didn’t even blink.
The minutes became longer; the weight became harder to bear.
‘Umm, gotta go, Zeb. My shift starts shortly.’
Not even a muscle twitched.
A phone rang, Mark’s.