Caraway gave Fulton an incredulous look. “The hell I can’t. I know for a fact Wayland is on guard duty and he owes me more favors than I can count,” he grunted in reply, opening up the thick manila folder.
“You know the evidence is all in the file right there,” Fulton said nodding to the manila folder, his walrus mustache wagging.
Caraway raised his eyebrows. “You don’t say!” Caraway clapped the folder shut and took a long, calming breath in. “Twelve victims, Jeff. That’s one short of a baker’s dozen in a few short weeks… Look, it’s not like I’m gonna go in there and start pressing my fingerprints onto every surface. I just need to get my eyes on it and see if it fits the pattern so I can report it back to Green Sleeves.”
Crevier placed a conciliatory hand on Caraway’s shoulder. “Look, John, it ain’t that we’re tying to be difficult—hell, we need you. Outside of your Buddhist buddy, there’s no one in this goddamn city with as much experience with the kinda shit we’ve been dealing with. But Woods didn’t give you back your badge, so right now you’re here hush hush, in every way in an unofficial capacity,” he said, risking a glance at the frosted office door. “That means we can tell you everything we know and let you rifle through our reports. But do you have any idea the shit we all took after that very public spectacle you and the Lama made getting into the Brooklyn scene? Woods was on a rampage and he was the one who let you in! The moment any of us just walks you onto an active crime scene, we’ll all be out on our asses and in the dark. Then who’s gonna solve this goddamn thing?”
Fulton groaned and rubbed the bristles of his mustache. “So, are you gonna help us, John, or are you just gonna keep being a jackass?” he asked as he flopped back down into his chair. “I’ve got a buck on jackass.”
Caraway dug his wallet from his pocket, pulled out a one-dollar bill, and tossed it on the table. Fulton fished out two fifty-cent coins and tossed them on top of the bill. The two men glowered at each other before Caraway waved his hand, beckoning them on. “Let’s start with what we know.”
“Our first known victims were Beatrice Ramon and her son, Hector,” Crevier said.
“Which is why,” Fulton added, “her husband George Ramon remains our prime suspect.”
“But what do we know?” Caraway tapped his finger against his lips thoughtfully. “All of the victims were split in half and eaten alive. All the bodies were covered in our mysterious ‘growing black substance.’” He walked over to the small map pinpricked with the locations of the victims. “What’s also been consistent is that all the murders occurred in immigrant neighborhoods.”
Fulton shrugged. “So? Immigrants and vagrants get killed every day.”
“Right,” Caraway said, shaking a finger. “If you’re going to go around killing people and eating them, go after the population that won’t stand out.”
“So much for melting pot,” Crevier said under his breath.
“So George Ramon is going after what’s convenient. He’s just another spic wandering around the ghettos,” Fulton said with a shrug.
Caraway leaned up against the map and drummed his fingers between the small red pins. “But they’re not convenient. His wife and son, sure, but look at the rest. Red Hook was last night. The victim before that was up in the Bronx. The victim before that was down in Sheepshead Bay, and before that was over in Ridgewood. It’s all over the city. It would be one thing if these were done over a matter of days, but several of these, like Hell’s Kitchen and Astoria, were committed within hours of each other.”
“You’re thinking there’s more than one killer?” Crevier asked skeptically.
Fulton crossed his arms. “We’ve considered that, but what, a cannibal population just suddenly appeared in New York? It has to be Ramon. Some kind of even more fucked up Jack the Ripper.”
“Well, if it is one killer, then he’s really good at picking his targets, because not one of the murder scenes showed any sign of forced entry. Whoever the killer is, everyone’s eager to let him in.” Caraway let that sit between them before he continued. “Pete, is there anything else connecting the victims?
Crevier walked over to his desk and quickly rifled through his notes. “Yeah… Eight out of eleven had reported missing family members in recent weeks.” He scratched at the scar on his cheek. “Dunno about number twelve—”
“But I wouldn’t be surprised,” Caraway finished. He looked to Fulton. “That connection is too hard to ignore.”
Fulton mollusked his lower lip over his mustache in thought. “All right, let’s say you’re right. Let’s say it’s multiple murderers, missing people wandering home to what? Kill their families? What’s the motive? Some weird cult? Bunch of crazies running around sacrificing their family members?”
Caraway’s body turned to stone. His vision tunneled and his hearing dropped out. A familiar sensation ran up his back, like a hand reaching around his spine. For a moment he saw a woman standing in front of him, her eyes black, the skin shredded from her face in long red strips.
“John!” Crevier said, placing a hand of Caraway’s shoulder. “John, you okay?”
Caraway jumped and blinked out of his reverie. He cleared his throat. “Yeah… Yeah. I’m fine… You boys no doubt remember the Bartlett last year?”
“You’d have to knock us on the head pretty hard to make us forget that,” Fulton scoffed. “The way that bitch tore up—”
“Her name was Desdemona. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that about any of them. They all had names. They were all people,” Caraway cut in, his voice breaking. For a moment the name hung in the air while Fulton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Caraway glanced away and ran his finger and thumb over the sides of his mustache. “Before Desdemona was…taken over,” Caraway began, choosing not to elaborate on the term, “she told us that everyone aboard the Bartlett complained about hearing whispers at night, voices that spoke to them when no one else was around. Then the fights began. Ordinary folks, from prim and proper gentlemen to waif-thin dowagers, broke out into violent brawls. The whole ship devolved into madness. Families, murdering each other in cold blood. The poor girl saw her own mother ram a damn comb through her father’s head. It was their eyes though, they filled up with some kind of black substance…”
Crevier narrowed his eyes in shocked disbelief. “What’re you trying to say, John? That this black goo is somehow the cause of these murders?”
Caraway licked his lips. “I think it’s worth exploring. Because if this is anything like the Bartlett, I don’t think we’re dealing with a killer.” He looked back at the map. “We’re dealing with a virus.”
He then reached onto the table and snatched up his two dollars.
• • •
GARY’S LIPS were chapped, his throat dry. He tried to move his head, forgetting it had been strapped down, along with his arms and legs. Somewhere beneath the mountains of pain and driving exhaustion, his body felt numb like he had slept wrong. But that was just his imagination, a kind of mild delirium brought on by the near constant torture, stripping his nerves of any understanding of pain. He had long since given up screaming, crying and begging; there was simply no point. They would keep at it until he gave them the answers they wanted or he was dead.
And Gary had no intention of cooperating.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a familiar voice said from the darkness, the shadowed man. He was always so calm, so goddamn pleasant. But something was always missing behind that even tone, a detachment that still sent shivers down Gary’s spine; it reminded him of the Green Lama’s voice. The man called himself Omega. The last name I’ll ever know, Gary thought, something he found morbidly humorous. It felt so oddly appropriate.
“We’re gonna try again today?” Gary managed, his tongue rasping against the roof of his mouth. He tried to open his eyes, but he had forgotten his eyelids had swollen shut yesterday. Or was that this morning? Either way, it would be more darkness and pain today, just like yesterday, and the day before that.
“Yes, Mr. Brown, we’re going to try again,” Omega replied pleasantly. There was a ting-ting-ting of metal against metal. What would it be, Gary wondered? Pliers? Knives? Hooks? Omega never liked to repeat himself, never the same man twice. “Unless, of course, you would like to tell me what I want to know.”
“Remind me, what was that again?” Gary asked, playing along with Omega’s affable demeanor.
Omega chuckled. Like we’re old friends talking over a beer. His footsteps clopped closer. “You’re a funny man, Mr. Brown. I can see how a girl like Evangl fell for you.”
“You’re saying it wasn’t my looks?” Gary gave Omega a diminished grin; two of his teeth had been pulled, the vacant gums still bleeding. “If you’re trying to flirt with me, remember I am already spoken for.”
“Are you, Mr. Brown?” Omega retorted pleasantly. “Last I checked you’re missing a wedding band on your ring finger.”
“No, just missing a ring finger,” Gary somberly admitted.
“The bleeding stopped,” Omega observed with sympathy.
A rueful smirk touched the corner of Gary’s lips. “Ain’t that grand.”
“The identity of the Green Lama, Mr. Brown,” Omega said, his voice instantly losing its warmth. “A simple name is all I’m asking for. Doesn’t have to be the whole name, either. First or last; I can do with either.”
Gary chuckled. “What makes you think today will be any different than yesterday, or the day before, or the day before?”
“How long do you think you’ve been here, Mr. Brown?” Omega asked. When Gary didn’t reply, he continued: “Three days? Two? A week? A month? When was the last time you remember really sleeping, Mr. Brown? Hm? You are a strong man, Mr. Brown. I will not deny that. Everyone else I’ve subjected to this treatment broke within a short span of time, but you continue on. It is impressive. The Green Lama prepared you for this, didn’t he?”
“‘Prepared’ is a strong word. Let’s just say the Lama chooses his friends wisely,” Gary shrugged. “See, my dad liked to beat me. When he got drunk he used to put cigarettes out on my arm, before beating me silly. So this has all been just a walk in the park.”
Omega sighed. “I grow tired of this game, Mr. Brown.”
“Yeah, I’m getting pretty tired of it myself,” Gary replied.
“Let us get straight to business, then,” Omega said, his voice once again warm and friendly. “Where shall we begin today? Right or left?”
“Can’t really feel my left, you might want to start on my right.”
“Very good.”
Gary couldn’t see it, but he knew Omega smiled pleasantly as he gently took Gary’s right forearm and snapped it into a “V.”
• • •
“WHERE THE HELL is Farrell?” Jason Fluegge screamed as he rushed through the dressing room, forcefully shoving aside crew and actors alike. He was sweating again, that drenching cascade of perspiration that began at his brow dripped over his eyebrows, down his cheeks, off his chin and pooled in the pits of his underarms. It was twenty minutes to show time and the lead was nowhere to be seen… again. He stuck his head in Farrell’s shared dressing room. “Erin, please, tell me you’ve seen Jean in the last five minutes.”
Erin gave him a bewildered look through the mirror and shrugged as she powdered her face. “Don’t ask me, boss man. I didn’t even know she was missing.” Erin paused in consideration. “You think she was eaten by the Cannibal Killer? Though I doubt it considering I saw her take down some drunk in a back alley…”
“Good Lord,” Fluegge groaned, not believing a single word Erin had said. He massaged his eyes in frustration. “Dumont probably took her on another European tour. Never work with actresses with rich boyfriends, you hear me, Erin? Never. They’re a goddamn plague. You never know when they’re gonna go gallivanting on some kind of stupid adventure halfway across the universe... Courtney!” Fluegge hollered.
A beautiful young blonde girl poked her head out from around the corner. “Yes, Mr. Fluegge?”
“You better have remembered your lines, ’cause you’re on tonight,” he said to the understudy. “Get into wardrobe five minutes ago. And I want you to make that audience weep,” he shouted as the actress gracefully ran past him toward the wardrobe department. “You hear me?! I want there to be a tissue shortage in New York. If they’re not crying, we didn’t do our job.” And then, to the rest of the cast: “That goes for all of you. Weeping. Remember everyone, this is a tragedy.”
• • •
THE WIND whipped up the side of the building, full of frost and water. The streetlamps sent long shadows down the alleyway. Rats scampered back and forth, chased by raggedy cats intent on a meal. In the windows, silhouettes did their dances of the evening, men and women cooking, eating, undressing, copulating, fighting, their songs blurring with the horns and engines of late night buses and taxis into a general cacophony of the city. Jean rested her head against the concrete balustrade, finding the cool stone oddly refreshing. They had been out on the roof for the better part of the afternoon, straight on through evening and now into the encroaching dead of night. Despite the pangs of exhaustion beating behind her eyes, Jean kept her gaze on the alleyway, waiting for the shadows to move and the monsters to reveal themselves.
All of the twelve victims—including one child, Jean made sure she never forgot that—had been immigrants or homeless. The thought unsettled her. She knew killers kept to a pattern, but this seemed oddly specific while remaining wholly random. None of the murders were in the same location twice, scattered across each of the five boroughs like buckshot, but the murders were all consistent, the bodies ripped in half, the insides eaten, black ooze spotting the remains. At first, she and Jethro thought the killer to be the first victim’s husband; but after the second murder, then the third, and then the tenth, the facts stopped lining up. The victims were Hispanic, Oriental, European, and Indian, all ranging in age and sex. It was like the killer was taking a gastronomic tour of the world through the tenements and alleyways. It was also the reason why she and Ken had set up surveillance in the Lower East Side. If the killer was stalking immigrant neighborhoods, he would end up down there, if for nothing else, by the simple law of averages.
“The Cannibal Killer,” Ken mused, recalling the headline from the morning and evening editions. He sat on the roof beside her, legs crossed, enjoying a cigarette. “Who came up with that? Hearst probably, slimy bastard. Remind me to talk to Betty about that. The Cannibal Killer…” He took another drag of his cigarette and shook his head. “The money they’re making with these headlines. You should’ve seen the swarm surrounding the newsboy this morning. Kid couldn’t keep up so they just started throwing nickels at his feet. Couple of guys even got into a fistfight over a half-ripped copy. And it’s not like any of them really cared about the victims. It’s all about the spectacle, the distant horror of it… Trust me, Hearst is probably rolling his liver spots in dollar bills like he was printing ’em.”
“At least they’re not talking about me,” Jean murmured, suddenly feeling very selfish.
“Oh, they still are,” Ken assured her. “You’re just not reading far enough. Apparently, you—well, Jean Parker—and Jethro are getting married in two weeks in Hollywood… They just don’t know which one.”
Jean allowed herself a smile. “Knowing us, it’ll be Florida.”
“Probably while we’re fighting off the Fifth Column or some new kind of horror from the deep. We always keep it classy, don’t we? Or at least we keep it interesting.” He paused to take a drag of his cigarette and smirked. “Just as long as it’s not Cleveland.”
“Oh, you know Jethro and Cleveland. I’m still surprised we don’t have a place out there already.” There was a rush of movement behind one of the windows on the third floor of the opposite building and the hint of a scream. Jean’s throat tightened and she squinted in hopes it would resolve her vision. A small gust of wind pushed the curtains aside. A father tickling his young
daughter. Relief washed over her and she returned to her vigil.
Several minutes passed. Ken shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “You couldn’t have chosen a warmer place for us to stake out? I’m beginning to lose feeling in my fingers.”
Jean looked over at Ken and arched her eyebrow. “Did anyone ever tell you that you whine too much?”
Ken shrugged. “I’ve heard the criticism and have chosen to ignore it. Don’t worry, Red, I’m cognizant of my flaws.” He finished his cigarette and flicked it over the side of the building, the orange embers a comet’s tail behind the tumbling stub. Ken looked up at the dark cloudy sky and sighed, the last of his cigarette smoke billowing out from his mouth. He cleared his throat and turned to Jean, but didn’t risk looking her in the eyes and quietly said: “Look, I know you don’t want to talk about Theodor—”
“That’s right,” Jean cut in, turning back to the alleyway.
Ken frowned. “But, you probably should.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
Ken rubbed his eyes in frustration. “I’m not gonna say ‘it wasn’t your fault,’ or something cliché like that. The hole he fell into was his own—”
“It’s not that, Clayton.” Jean got to her feet, drew her revolver and began checking the chambers. All six were loaded, just as they had been a half hour ago, and a half hour before that. Slamming the cylinder back in place, she holstered the gun and walked over the edge to watch the father play with his daughter in the third floor window. They seemed so happy; why did that make her so sad? “No matter how deep the pit he tumbled into was, it wasn’t deep enough for him to get murdered like that.”
Ken found another cigarette, while Jean’s breath frosted in the air. The moon, a blot of light behind the clouds, inched further across the sky, ignorant of anything beside itself.
“That’s true of most anyone,” Ken said as his waved out his match. “Theodor. The twelve people from the last two weeks…”
The Green Lama: Crimson Circle Page 15