by Ryan Sayles
“Probably ’cuz his mom...Bob picked all the lookers but not a one of ’em had any substance to her. Not a damn one. Ursa’s mom was gorgeous when she wasn’t drunk and trying to cut Bob with his shaving razor. Crazy bitch. Messed that boy up for life when she killed herself on the boy’s birthday. Yeah. Crazy bitch did it on purpose, I just know it. Bob always ran Ursa around like he was his pet or somethin’, for sure. He loved that boy, but he was weird about him, too. The whole thing was weird. But I blame the mom.”
Joe smokes for a minute. “Ursa’d steal from me, I know that. Just sneaky enough to be a pain in the ass. He waddn’t so good he’d be a world-class criminal; he was just such an annoyance that the only reason why I never beat his ass once real good was Bob. I could never take Bob. And I needed Bob. So I put up with his perv boy.”
“Sounds like a deviant in the making,” I say, putting together the profile in my head.
“Yeah. Like I says, he was two-faced. Either he was the best guy ever, or he was a damned animal. And a cruel one. I had this niece from my older brother’s side. Her name was Cassy and she wound up posin’ nude in some skin magazine. Ursa knew I wasn’t proud of it so he went and got that magazine, tore out her pictures. Then the bastard would leave them a few at a time around the shop for all my customers to see. Little stuff like that. Little stuff. That’s all.”
But that’s how it starts. When God makes a new baby, they’re a clean slate. Ready to be directed. Molded. And then unstable women get pregnant by morally ambiguous men, and you get a little boy who loves his mother for what he wants her to be, hates her for what she is, gets a power-complex from his controlling father and eventually sees his mother in every woman he meets. Ta-da.
“Did he have any siblings? What happened to Bob?”
“Ah, hell. Bob was with another woman a few weeks after Ursa’s mom died. I think he married her. She had kids, he had a kid. They had some kids together. Two mutts tryin’ to be the Brady Bunch if you ask me. Bob’s dead now. Heart attack or a stroke. Somethin’. His wife’s dead, too. I never kept a bead on the kids. Hell, I don’t even think Bob called the boy Ursa. He called him somethin’ else entirely. The world knew the kid as Ursa, though. Look for Ursa Hanchett. As far as where he is now, I dunno. I quit carin’ ’bout Bob when he quit workin’ for me, if I’m bein’ honest.”
“Joe, thank you. I appreciate your help. Ursa has killed another man. The husband of the woman he raped.”
“This Mickey fella?”
“I think he killed Mickey, yes. But the guy Mickey met in prison and made the deal with, I know Ursa killed that guy.”
“Oh. I see it now. Well, go get ’em. Set fire to ’em.”
“I’m going to try,” I say.
The courtyard door opens and Chunk from behind the desk is standing there, hands on her hips. Looking like a penguin. “No smoking, Joe and Joe’s friend. Joe, you figure you know better with your ailment.”
“My cancer’s goin’ kill me whether I smoke or not,” Joe grumbles, flicks his butt out into the grass. “So suck it.”
Penguin huffs and turns around. I stand.
“Thank you for the help.” I drop the rest of my pack and the lighter on the bench next to him.
Joe looks up. “I just bought TVs, jewelry and guitars. Somebody had somethin’ to sell, and I bought it. That’s all.”
“I know.” He never looked for the blood, so it must not have ever been there to begin with.
We shake hands and I leave. Call 4-1-1, ask for the Yellow Pages. Ask for an address for a Mister Ursa Hanchett. Get it; he’s the only one in the book. Go there.
Help myself inside.
35
I have been inside the lairs of monsters before and they’re never quite what you’d expect.
In 1988 I worked on the Metro Squad to round up Dennis Mangeala, a serial killer with four corpses to his name. He lived in his mom’s basement, toys from the 1970s and onward still in their packages, dusted and neatly arranged on display. Interspersed between original Star Wars figures, GI Joes, Transformers and cereal box collectibles were bones from the elderly women he attacked and dismantled. Torture-erotica magazines were filed with his comic books. Superman and Wolverine adorning covers neatly cataloged alongside others featuring a man taking a blow torch to his crank, and other such scenes.
Jorge Ramirez-Sanchez, back in 1990, I think. Used a cordless drill on his wife and mother-in-law. Mailed pictures of them to family and his church. His place was a quaint bungalow, lots of sunlight filtering in through the blinds. Plush carpet. Empty refrigerator with the exception of a carton of strawberry yogurt.
Camille Dobey, her studio apartment divided in half. She painted the north side entirely black and filled the walls with heavy metal posters and all poser-Goth, vampires and werewolves shit. The south half was drenched in white with every imaginable religious symbol from around the world. Yin and yang, I guess. She would walk by people in the streets, slashing with razors she’d dip in Drano. We had her surrounded on 4th and 10th Avenue when she slit her own throat. Most women go for something cleaner, but not her. Blood everywhere.
Ursa Hanchett. The air in the place is oily and cool as it slithers along my skin. No sound. A faint bleach smell teases the air. Carpet, a living room that flows into a dining room and kitchen. I see two doors, no doubt one a bedroom and one a bath. The doors are opposite each other, both slightly ajar. I walk up and open the left door first. Bedroom. No Ursa. Bath. No Ursa.
He has an old black and white photo on his kitchen counter, turned to face the living room. It’s a woman. I’m guessing his mother. Her clothes smack of the late sixties or early seventies. Same with the hair. Good looking, but even in the picture I can see what Joe was talking about. Gorgeous when she wasn’t drunk and trying to cut Bob with his shaving razor. Crazy bitch. She just has an aura.
And what’s even more unsettling is how much she looks like Carla Gabler. If Mickey had gotten her involved in Petticoat’s burglary I bet there would have been two rape victims that night.
The sink in the bathroom has blood droplets on it. Used cotton balls stained a reddish brown. Peel-apart bandage wrappers scatter on the floor like errant snowflakes from a light dusting. Tweezers. Hair clippers still plugged into the wall and patches of shaved hair settled everywhere. A bloody thumbprint on the mirror.
Good. I fucked this guy up.
I open his linen closet, which apparently doubles as a medicine cabinet. He’s got prescription bottles lined up along one shelf. All opiates. They all have names on them, but none of them are his. Stolen, then, or bought off the street. Junkie. I count eight bags of cotton balls, plus the one in the bathroom he used on his wounds.
For such a small space, Ursa has lots of very expensive electronics. Top notch everything. HDTV, bluetooth-connected surround sound system. An awe-inspiring computer system. Wireless everything. Little gadgets galore. Video cameras, tablets, remotes to things I don’t even know where they are.
If I had all the time in the world I’d have Clevenger run the serial numbers through NCIC. I imagine most of this stuff is hot. But I don’t have the time.
Bedroom closet, then. He has so little space to hide things here; this is the obvious choice. And, bingo.
Immediately I start to flash to my closet where I keep my wife’s things.
The strange hot and cold of basking in the aura of my wife’s radiance, snap out of it and be here, in this reptile’s hidey-hole. In my mind’s eye my wife’s pictures are along the left-hand wall. Ursa has women’s panties nailed to it. Nine pairs.
“Did he take a trophy from your wife? A memento of the rape?”
“Yes. Her panties.”
Something to remember. Stash it. Relive the thrill.
Ursa must not bring women home. If one nosy broad were to open his closet door while he was in the shower or fixing a midnight snack, she’d lose her marbles. Just looking for a man’s T-shirt to wear to bed, the afterglow of sex still intoxicating
, and then seeing rape trophies on display. He’d kill her. If he wasn’t planning on it anyways. He’d have to.
On the right hand wall of my wife’s closet there are some of her trinkets. Her elephant collection, some photographs. Her last pack of gum. Her lotion. My mouth fills with the ghostly taste of her after she’d chew that damned peppermint gum. Her favorite. Or how her skin was always a mixture of coconut and ginger. The softness of her lips. Her exhales along my cheek.
Ursa has a single shelf, a short piece of unattractive wood. On top of it, trinkets. A mishmash of bizarre items, probably taken in a fleeting moment of opportunity where he’d have to steal what was in front of him or nothing at all. A piece of costume jewelry. A wooden clothespin. A hair tie. The pink ceramic elephant I made my wife in my junior year art class.
Every electronic I can get torn from their cords and wires and dropped in the tub.
Stopper in the drain. Water turned on, slow. Knife to his space foam mattress. Gutted like it was a soldier standing next to a Bouncing Betty. Closet door torn off the hinges. Fat Sharpie marker drawing arrows along the wall to lead the authorities to the closet. And just because I’m a furious juvenile, I also draw huge dicks everywhere. Spurting and numerous, up and down the walls.
I check thoroughly through all his drawers and cabinets for other things of my wife’s. I tear through his hallway closet, his clothes. Dump out every container in his kitchen. Root through his fridge; pull up his carpet in huge tears. Turn over the furniture. Cut open pillows and cushions. Smash glasses and plates. I don’t find anything else.
Sit down at his computer and surf his bookmarks. Find his bank account. He’s auto-saved his login information and I open his account. He’s only got three thousand dollars in the bank. He must still have thousands from the blackmailing money somewhere else. Cash. I take his information to a toy store’s website. Order three grand in dolls. Guy dolls. Rush delivery.
Yank the computer out. Drop it in the tub.
Search the sides of his mattress, find a slit. I pull it apart; see wads of money right next to a cigar box. Grab the money, count it. Not nearly enough to add up to what he’s blackmailed. The cigar box. Grab it. Drop it on the bed. Burnt spoon, a package of needles a diabetic can buy for a few bucks at the corner drug store. A wad of heroin in a baggie. Cotton balls and sterile water. It’s all coming together now. He’s used the money to feed his addiction. So simple.
I pocket the money. Ursa doesn’t need it and Petticoat isn’t going to pay me now.
Take Ursa’s cordless phone in hand and before I leave I dial a number.
“Vincenti’s Pizza, home of the Taste Bud Burster, will this be delivery or carry-out?”
“Delivery.”
“Okay, what can I get for you?”
“Anchovie Taste Bud Burster. And put one of your dessert pizzas on it. Not separate. On it.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously. I’m crazy like that.”
“Okay. What else?”
“That’s it.”
“May I have your telephone number?”
“No.”
“Well...I need to get that and an email address, so—”
“Just deliver it here and tell the driver I tip well.” I give him the address and hang up. Phone goes in the tub.
I leave, apartment door open. Elephant in my pocket, going back to my place to put it back with its friends. Then I will find him and peel him apart for days.
For days.
36
“Hello, Dick,” his slithering queer says.
I whip the car into a parking lot. Some frozen yogurt hole in the wall. A neon clown waves at me from the window and the image is not lost on me.
“How have you been?” I ask, smiling. “Healing well?”
“I have been a busy bee, Dick. A busy, busy bee.”
“You don’t say? Come home yet?” The elephant in my palm, turning slowly.
“I’ve been to a few homes, yes.”
“Boyfriends? Scared to sleep alone at night now?”
“So funny, Dick. I remember you sleeping—”
“Let’s finish this. You and me. Name the place.”
“So high school freshman of you, Dick. I bet the cheerleaders loved you.”
“Of course they did. Have you seen me? When I came around, those girls ovulated and couldn’t concentrate on anything else.” He coughs a horse laugh at that. “But I bet all the KY in the world wouldn’t help them when you came prowling. You seem to have that effect, Ursa.”
“Ahhh...so we are on a first name basis, now.”
“Indeed. Back to my original proposal. Let’s finish this.”
“I have another idea I’d like to bounce off of you: I’m gone.”
“Well, first impression is you’re a big smelly pussy.”
“Sticks and stones, Dick. My childhood in Saint Ansgar was vile, to say the least. You try staying in a town where your mom committed suicide on your first birthday and your dad spent his days putting out his cigarettes on your stomach and his nights getting drunk and making you take her place. You have no earthly fucking clue. I’m done.”
“So you had a bad childhood. Get in line. Does that give you carte blanche to rape women?”
“You’ll never understand.”
“Don’t care. This is all too little, too late. You’re a fucking rapist and murderer. Your life is forfeit. I tell you what; meet me and I will make it swift and painless. Release you from this horrible life.”
“This is a courtesy call to let you know you’ll never see me again.”
“Ursa, when you attack a woman, do you fantasize that she is your mother?” Silence. So much silence, heavy as the sun’s gravitational pull. “Your mother, the woman who chose suicide over you? Who killed herself on your birthday and allowed you to be molested and—”
“Goodbye, Dick.”
“I’ll find you. You know that, right?”
“It’s not my fault, Dick. It’s how I was made.” Click.
No caller ID. I hang up. I have the urge to walk over to that neon clown and slug him. It’s a nice fantasy and I entertain it for a moment before my phone rings again, bursting that bubble like a drain backing up.
“Glad you called back, pussy. Reconsider?” I ask.
“Rrr—Richard?” Graham says through molasses. “I—I thought this was...this was...9-1...”
“Graham? Graham what’s wrong?”
I have been a busy bee, Dick. A busy, busy bee.
I hear Graham’s dog mewl in the background.
I’ve been to a few homes, yes.
37
My brakes screech to a halt and all I see are emergency vehicles.
Two black and whites aimed at Graham’s house like their grills were going to zero in and open fire; driver side doors left wide open. An ambulance waiting off to the side, the crew poised at the rear of their truck, waiting for the all-clear.
“Whoa, mister, this is—” one of the medics says as I step out of my car and approach the house.
“Crime scene. I know. I called it in. This is my old partner’s house. I’m former Saint Ansgar PD. What’s the status? There should be a man and woman in there. What—”
“Okay. Okay. Just wait until the police clear it and we can go—”
I draw my .44 and the crew all stare like I pulled out my junk and flopped it on a nun’s desk. I look at the lone female, say, “Honey, you’re gawking at this like it’s the first time you’ve laid eyes on nine inches.”
“Your wife is kind if she told you that’s what nine inches looks like.”
I turn to the house and start walking. “I’m told this is nine inches, you’re told you’re pretty. Same difference.”
No response to that. “Have the cops brought out anyone? Anyone at all?”
“Mister, if we had a patient we’d be working on them.”
I look back to the house. The crime scene is cold. Ursa is long gone. The cops inside must be clearing
it and wasting valuable seconds. I wave the gun. “We’re going in.”
They follow.
“Police! Coming in with EMS!” I shout through the front door. Graham is on the living room carpet. Face down. Cell phone still in his hand. Blood caked to the side of his head. Jumped. Motherfucker. Clocked over the noggin and now—
“Show me your hands!” A uniform comes around the corner, sees me among the EMS. They move away from me and tend to Graham. EMS are crazy. The things they ignore to do what they do.
I hold my hands up, ID in one and the gun in the other.
The EMS chick looks to the uniform, says, “Jenkins, right? This dude claims to be PD. Came in with us.”
One of the EMS guys says over his shoulder, “Said he was the RP.”
The uniform comes over, takes my ID. Retired PD credentials. Examines them, takes a deep breath and holsters. Gives me the ID.
“You found the woman?”
The uniform raises an eyebrow. “You need to get out to the driveway and wait. We’ve got this.”
Oh, if this kid worked for me back in the day. “I asked you a question, rookie. Where is this man’s wife?”
“I don’t know, now get the fuck outta our crime scene and wait like any other RP at the end of the drive.”
EMS stabilizes Graham’s neck and rolls him onto his back, onto a spine board. His phone slips out of his hand. The female picks it up and I snap, flex open and close my hand. She slaps it in my palm with enough attitude to turn me on if this were any other crime scene. Graham groans and tries to move. EMS holds him down. His eyes flutter, his lips curl like he’s going to vomit. Or cry Molly’s name.