John had left his shoes on and, saying nothing, jumped up onto the top bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Then, while Crazy-D moved around the room, laughing and high-fiving the brothers, John quietly pulled the heavy, leather-soled brogans off his feet. When the lights were turned out, he waited.
"Get your ass down here," Crazy-D whispered from the bunk below. "I got a instrument needs playing." And then he kicked the mattress above him, where John was lying.
Without saying a word, John Lockwood dropped down and, with his leather shoe in his right hand, he started to pound the larger boy in the face. He broke Dwight's nose with the first blow. The second filled his eyes with blood. Before the startled eighteen-year-old could even sit up, it was almost over. Then, with both hands laced together, John swung with all his might at Dwight's jawline. Gold teeth flew out of Crazy-D's mouth, hitting the floor and bouncing like ejected brass. In seconds, Dwight was screaming in pain. When the lights went on and guards ran in, John Lockwood was standing triumphantly over his huge opponent.
"No motherfucker in this place ever lays a hand on me!" John yelled, spewing out rage and unused adrenaline. The guards dragged him out of the dormitory. He did three weeks in lation and three years in St. Charles, but nobody ever tried to molest him again.
One week after being released from St. Charles, John was busted in a G-ride. Rather than go to the Big House for Grand Theft Auto, he chose the Marine Corps. The Marines were his third parental substitute. He ended up, strangely enough, as an MP. He found it more than a little weird to be wearing a badge instead of looking at one, but five years later, when he mustered out, he had achieved his GED and the rank of Tech Sergeant. Some buddies had signed applications for U. S. Customs, and he had more or less gone along with them because he didn't have anything better to do. That had been ten years ago.
"You have to look at the reason all of this is happening to you, John," Smythe said, slogging on. "You pretty much do things the way you want. I think you should take a look at why that is… why you seem to relish breaking the rules."
Lockwood nodded. "Okay." His sinuses were beginning to ache, so he pulled out a small nasal inhaler he'd bought at the drugstore, clamped it over his nose, and inhaled the vapor, immediately clearing his sinuses. "Allergic to something," he explained.
The little alarm clock on Smythe's desk rang. The session was over. "How about two o'clock Tuesday?" the doctor said, looking over his half-glasses at the calendar.
"Sounds good," Lockwood chirped.
He left by the side door and found himself standing in the chilly marble-floored corridor. He was cold, and it wasn't just the frigid office building. John Lockwood could hear his own blood pumping and feel his heart sinking, and he wasn't sure why.
His beeper went off. It was the DOAO's office. He found a pay phone in the lobby and called in.
Laurence Heath was one of the old breed of Customs officers, a no-nonsense commander who wanted the good guys to win. He'd worked his way up from a field office in Hays, Kansas, to become Special Agent in Charge for Arizona. Any supervr running operations in a border state like Arizona, where the smuggling action was constant, was generally considered to be a hot shoe. The border was no place for fuck-ups. After ten years in Arizona, Heath had recently been promoted to Director of All Operations, which made him the second highest officer in the Service. He had also been John Lockwood's boss in D. C. on Operation Girlfriend.
That operation was one of the biggest drug busts in Southern Florida's history. Lockwood had been the Special Agent in Charge and had quarterbacked the case from the time an ex-baggage handler named Ray Gonzales had wandered into the Southern District office. Ray told him that he'd quit his job at Global Airlines because a lot of the baggage handlers at Miami International Airport had been opening targeted luggage from Central American flights and removing drugs or cash before they got to the Customs shed. Lockwood had convinced Gonzales to become the key informant on the bust. Drug dealers had their own universal code words when talking on open phone lines, and since airplanes were often called "girlfriends," Lockwood named his sting "Operation Girlfriend," and had proceeded to work it for almost eighteen months.
When the bust went down, Customs agents rounded up almost a hundred airport baggage handlers and skycaps, as well as two dirty Customs agents. At the last minute, Lockwood's long-awaited airport sting was kangarooed by an Internal Affairs SAC named Victor Kulack. Ku-lack had moved too soon and tried to arrest the two Customs agents. One of them got away and made a phone call. The bust climaxed in a deadly shoot-out. Ray Gonzales, who had become Lockwood's good friend, ended up in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Dade County, Florida. Lockwood filed a complaint against Kulack for jumping the bust, and before they left Florida, he ran into him in a bar. When Kulack called Ray Gonzales "just another Cuban grease stain," Lockwood lost it and swung at him, knocking him out with one punch.
Now Kulack was upstairs, seething, on the Internal Affairs floor of the Washington, D. C., Customs building. Lockwood had been wondering what Kulack would do and figured the call from the Director of All Operations was the other shoe dropping.
He got off the elevator on the third floor and moved along the green-carpeted corridor. The offices were all spacious and decorated with oak furniture; very nice for civil servants. All of the men and women on this floor were in the Senior Executive Service (SES), Assistant Commissioners or above, and made their living passing paper and begging the appropriate Congressional committees to improve funding. The furniture had been purloined from a Senate office building after its renovation two years ago. As far as Lockwood could see, oak furniture and a full dental package were the best perks in SES.
Lockwood could hear Heath before he saw him.
"Where the fuck is he? I said forthwith!"
Heath's assistant, Bob Tilly, was seated at an oversized secretarial desk outside of Heath's office. He shot Lockwood a smile weak as Oriental tea and waved him in.
Laurence Heath looked like the commander of a tank division. He had a bull neck, with rolls of fat and muscle coming off the back of his shaved skull. He was popular in the Customs Service, because he was willing to downfield-block for his men. Through the large window behind him, Lockwood could see across Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. A cloud-drenched April sun was struggling to get through. The sky looked like oatmeal.
"Are you ever gonna stop wearing your balls outside your trousers?" Health said, without preamble. His bright-blue eyes and huge shoulders glowered.
"Larry, I don't know what Victor Kulack told you, but you can bet there's another side to it."
"He's upstairs, about to paper you for failure to correctly supervise an informant."
"That's bullshit."
"Shut up, John." Silence hung like a velvet curtain. "He says there's five thousand dollars missing from Operation Girlfriend's petty cash account." Heath held up a Customs Internal Affairs folder and waved it at Lockwood like a booking sheet. "He says you and your informant, Ray Gonzales, were dipping into that account to buy drugs, and that you put those drugs on the street to build your pedigree with the river scum down there."
"That's a lie. The money went to buy information. We were trying-" "I said shut up. I'm not through. Stop talking for a change." "Okay.."
"Then I get it in the halls that you knocked this asshole through a wall in a bar fight in South Beach before you came back up here."
"Kulack tried to steal the bust, sir. He jumped the gun. Got two guys shot."
"So you hit him?"
"Accounts vary. There was undoubtedly some kind of struggle-" "You fuckin' amaze me."
"He tried to hijack the bust to get those two dirty counter agents. There were over a hundred baggage handlers and skycaps involved in that smuggle. Those two Customs guys were less than five percent of the bust. Internal Affairs is supposed to investigate bad police work, not cowboy investigations to get headlines. We ended up in a dick-dragging shoot-out becau
se Kulack jumped early and the cat got loose."
"So you hit him?" Heath asked again.
Lockwood didn't answer. He could tell by the red that was working its way up from under Heath's collar onto his neck that he was probably going to come out better by holding his silence. Larry Heath leaned forward, snapping out his words. "Vic Kulack is shit on Melba toast, but he is also an Internal Affairs SAC. Internal Affairs, in case you haven't read your organization manual lately, is a couple of limbs higher on the tree than Operations. Technically, that makes Kulack your boss. Kulack says you fucked up the bust. He says five thousand dollars is missing. The hint implicit here-in case you missed it-is you and Gonzales were dealing drugs with Federal money and keeping the proceeds. I know it's bullshit, but if he files that paper and it gets into court, Operation Girlfriend develops a dose of the clap."
"Sir, if you're suggesting that I turn this over to Kulack because he filed this bullshit charge against me-"
"He hasn't technically filed it yet. He said he'd consider sitting on it to protect the integrity of the case."
"Isn't that against the law? If he's got something on me, let's do the dance."
"Shut up…"
Lockwood stood in front of the desk and watched the red line finish its climb up the side of Heath's neck and begin to turn his shaved head a nice watermelon-pink.
"My job here is to manage the flow of arrests and convictions. Internal Affairs is not my favorite division, but the Customs Service has to guard against illegal action in the ranks, just like every other law enforcement agency."
"Sir… may I speak, sir?"
Heath didn't answer but lifted his chin slightly, indicating this better be great.
"This case was in my jacket for almost eighteen months," Lockwood began. "I developed Gonzales as an informant. I talked him into going back to Miami Airport and getting his old job back. Gonzales is a stand-up player. He risked his life for us. He solicited every one of those dirty baggage handlers without regard for his own personal safety. And then, at the last minute, Kulack moves in and jumps all over the take-down. Fucks it up. Gonzales gets a bullet in his kidney and damn near dies. He's still hung up in a Dade County hospital."
"I got all of this from the newspaper."
"Don't turn Operation Girlfriend over to Kulack."
"Why not?"
"The guy's a moron. He can't put spaghetti on a plate without a diagram. The A. A. G. is green and the case still needs a lot of evidentiary investigation. Kulack's gonna fuck it up."
"If he files this mismanagement charge against you and implies you were dealing drugs, it's gonna be in the court record and you're gonna be an anchor at the trial."
"That's blackmail."
"That's government service. He's also demanding a hearing for hitting him in Florida. It's scheduled at nine on Monday morning. The IA conference room on five. Be there. Personally, I think he's got a shot at getting you cashiered. I think I can get him to scotch the mismanagement complaint if we give him Girlfriend, but you're turning into your own worst enemy. What the hell's happened to you, John?"
Lockwood said nothing. He had no answer.
"I'll have Bob Tilly supervise Kulack and the greenie in the A. G.'s office. Tilly's got plenty of field and court experience. You can fill the prosecutor in but, as of now, you're outta Operation Girlfriend."
Lockwood stood there and felt the blood going up into his own head. But he had a thick shock of black hair and a swarthy complexion, so, unlike Heath, whose blush made him look angry, on Lockwood, it just made him look darker. Finally, he nodded and turned to leave.
"Lockwood."
He was almost out the door, but he turned and looked back at Heath. "Yes?"
"Agents like you are good for the Service, because they remind everybody else there's a creative way to do the job, a way that may not be printed in the manual. But agents like you are also an administrative nightmare, because you strain my ability to cover your ass. Whether you know it or not, son, I'm doing you a huge favor here."
"Right."
"In the meantime, I understand that Dr. Karen Dawson could use some help updating the sex offenders computer program. Since you're on desk leave, you're assigned to work with her. She's in B-16. You start down there tomorrow."
Lockwood didn't respond. He nodded his understanding and left. This run of bad luck seemed unending. He had just lost a case he had spent a year and a half working on, to a man he despised. And, if that wasn't enough, he'd been assigned to go down to the basement tomorrow morning and work on some dry-biscuit computer program with "Awesome Dawson."
Chapter 3
THE WIND MINSTREL
He slept all day Friday and woke up without an alarm at six, Friday evening. His skin was on fire. Glowing. He had transformed. He was The Wind Minstrel, glorious and alive. He dressed in silk pajamas, gathered his autopsy saw and scalpels. The last tool The Wind Minstrel packed in his large suitcase was The Rat's computer. He had left The Rat behind, but he was following the cunning rodent's careful plan. Every inch of his body was sore now, even the bottoms of his feet. It was as if his skin couldn't contain his glory and had been stretched, painfully, to accommodate him. He left the Marriott and approached his pickup. Earlier, he had stolen a Georgia license plate and now he attached it to the plate holder. He put on his CD headphones and played Baby Killer's new album, Chant to the Dead. He drove back across town toward Hoyt Tower while the music filled his head with its destructive beauty. He parked across from the building on Lee Street. Using his cellphone, attached to his laptop, he placed a call to the building security computer. On his screen, the computer answered his call:
hoyt login:
He typed "root" and pressed Enter. The system responded:
Password:
He typed in a password for root, which was GOD. The Rat had downloaded all of this from the building computer using the elevator phone the day before. Immediately he was logged in to the computer:
WELCOME TO HOYT TOWER.
You are logged in to host hoyt as root. Good evening, root.
"Root" was the name a lot of computers used to identify the computer system's main user. GOD was often used as the root password because root was the "God" of the system. If you logged in and were accepted as root you could do anything you wanted. You could reprogram, delete, or change the entire system. Since the main function of the building's computer was to run the building, root controlled the brains of the building.
He accessed the building's security panel, and up on his laptop came a computer graphic of the ten-story structure. He scrolled his way down to the first-floor fire door on Center Street. Working carefully, he shut off the alarm on that door by deleting it from the program. He watched the building's "police telephone module," listed on the bottom of the screen, to see if the system sensed his tampering and if the automatic dialer would place a call to the Atlanta police. It didn't.
It was a sign. He knew that now he was completely transformed. Now he could possess.
She never saw him come through the glass door into the office. By the time she sensed his presence and began to turn, it was already too late. He grabbed her head from behind and brought a surgical knife down over her shoulder and plunged it deep into her chest. He felt the warm blood flow over his latex-gloved hand. He held his forearm tight against her Adam's apple. He had studied anatomy and could feel the cricoid cartilage break, collapsing the vocal ligament into her rima glottidis, rendering her mute.
He held her in a strangulation embrace, with the knife buried deep in her chest, until he felt a death shiver. Moments later she went limp. He laid her on the floor and moved quickly out into the hall, where he had left his large suitcase. He felt her dead eyes watching him. He returned with the suitcase, grabbed her sweater from the back of her chair, and put it across her staring dead eyes… eyes that mocked his ugliness.
He undressed her… removing her dress, her slip, bra, and panties. His nostrils flared as he smelled her
blood. He put on his headset and punched a button on his CD player. As the music started, he pulled down his silk pajama pants and grabbed his semi-erection. Slowly, he worked himself to climax as he swayed over her. The music screamed in his ears:
I slaughtered the whore, Skinned her alive.
I did it for the thrill. It was so nice to kill.
His erection was soft, but he ejaculated onto her body… Anger flared. The bitch had scorned him with her stare, spoiling his erection. He grabbed the scissors off her desk and jammed them up her vagina. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he grunted as he plunged them in repeatedly. Then he left them there. The song finished, and he removed the headset. He always possessed without music so he could hear the sounds of his work, the cutting, the rending of tissue. He picked up the saw and attached the round 10004 blade with the crosscut teeth. It was the best for medium and small bones.
He plugged the saw into a wall socket and tested it. The blade oscillated and vibrated in his hand. Then he switched it off and laid it next to the body.
"If, as you told me, fire cleanses," he said to the dead girl whose body he had just defiled, "then why does fire leave such a dirty ash?"
Using the scalpel, he started to sever the right arm, working with surgical precision. He made the incision below the shoulder, finding the brachial artery under the anterior humeral circumflex. He cut through it first. His gloved fingers pinched it off with surgical clamps; then he clamped the auxiliary artery and vein.
"If it's true that Satan is only the author of sin, then why, dear Shirley, in the fires of the last day, was he not reduced to a state of nonexistence?"
The woman, whose desk plate read CANDICE WILCOX, lay silent before him. The Wind Minstrel was lost in ritual fantasy. "You told me he would perish, but he hasn't. Would you explain that, please?" he demanded.
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