by Jamal Shakur
He stared at me and simply said with a wide smirk on his face, “Yes.”
Detective Miles entered the room, she had a pleasing look on her face, she whispered into my ear, “Room 1 is ready to give him up.” That’s all I wanted to hear.
Carol Cortez stomach and head felt a bit woozy and upset as she watches her man abandon her to the police. It was literally every man or woman for themselves. He didn’t care anymore for her than any dog in the street. She knew that she could spend the rest of life in prison while he walked away
Scott free. Detective Miles and I stared at her for a moment sensing that she was about to break and corroborate everything we knew about Cortez’s activities.
She took a deep breath and said, “I have known Juan for a long time back home in Columbia, he was the one who always looked after me and the rest of the girls but with a price, if I would have betrayed him he would use the threat of killing my family as a way of keeping me in line and that above everything was my main thing for keeping my mouth shut.” She went on, “He has many who answer to him in the police force, the streets as well as some officials in the government. The drugs are supplied by the forty ninth street boys, the zombie drug and cocaine flowed like a river stream, we sold the drugs but discovered we could make more money doping Johns and stealing their moneys.”
It was obvious that it was the 49th street gang who attacked the cars before we left, I didn’t know if their reach or influence stretched this far but I would put some extra men on detail to watch the perp while we have him in custody. We researched the FBI data base and found a plethora of info on the 49th streeters. There wasn’t any real proof but the gang was heavily involved in drugs but their expertise was contract killing. It was estimated that over a ten year period they were connected to over two hundred killings. There was daily surveillance on this group but short of deporting the lot of them there wasn’t anything law enforcement could do. I wasn’t psychic but I had a foreboding feeling of something bad was about to happen and it certainly did. A lone figure came into the office with FBI credentials pinned onto his vest. “I am SSA James Jones from Quantico and would like to speak to your prisoner Juan Cortez,” he announced. I gave him a suspicious stare and asked, “So what does the FBI want with my prisoner, we haven’t heard anything from your agency before this.”
“Look you can call headquarters and they can tell you everything you want to know, matter of fact read this information,” he said. He reached into his coat as if to show me his information but suddenly instead of an envelope or piece of paper he came out with a Glock 44. He grabbed my arm and pointed the weapon at my head. “All right sucker take me to Juan.”
He marched me to the back as if he knew where he was going, Juan was still sitting in room 2, his eyes lit up with recognition as the fake FBI agent entered the room and said “Cómo estás amigo, I see I didn’t come none too soon. Juan let a loud howl as he stared at me with a smirk and said “My very best compañero, I see that you are here to save me from this outrage.” Hey Lomax this is my main amigo Giorgio.” The man handed Juan a gun that he had in his opposite pocket, it was another Glock. I was real curious as to how he had gotten two guns into the police station. It was obvious that someone within the station house helped him out. He seemed to know the layout of the PD and had phony credentials to go along with his disguise. Suddenly and miraculously, Detective Miles entered the room undetected, she drew her service revolver which was also a Glock but bigger it was a 50 magnum, and pointed the weapon at Giorgio, and said, “All right motha fucka, dropped the weapon.” I was surprised at the lingo but it sounded like it fitted her. Juan swung around and fired at Denise; I fell to the ground and quickly reached for my extra revolver in my ankle holster that went undetected from the perp. I swung my arm around like a helicopter in flight and place two shots between the eyes of Giorgio; he fell instantly to the ground with two large holes in his forehead that sprouted a large spraying of blood on the floor, wall and ceiling. Juan remained standing and sprinted for the door, I leaped up to pursue him. He ran also like he knew the layout of the place, he headed for the exit. The exit led to a flight of steps which led to one door to the outside alleyway. He was running at a good klip and had about ten steps ahead of me. Juan took the steps three at time crashed right through the glass window, he was bleeding from head to toe, this wasn’t the cinema, this was real life, and only in the movies could you go through a plate glass door and come out unscathed. He jumped up with a second wind and began to run up the street, I look out the door and could see why he had that extra energy; there was a car waiting and idling in the anticipation of his escape.
Ch 16
I ran as fast as I could towards the car, the driver took off I ran after him for a half a block, I must have looked comical trying to catch up to a car on foot. I suddenly heard a horn honking in the direction behind me. It was detective Omar. “Hey you need a ride,” he said. I jumped in the car beside him. We drove closely behind Juan and his driver for five blocks but suddenly a car blocked our path and he slip along into the rush hour traffic. I was frustrated this was supposed to be the end of this whole sordid affair but there I was like a crazy rookie running in the middle down town Philly.
Got him I seen him turn the corner on Vine Street heading for Broad Street, he thought he was home free but we followed closely on his tail. He did something I didn’t expect him to do; he rolled his window down and proceeded to fire his gun at us. I don’t know why I was surprised he was desperate. He discharged three shots the first went whizzing by the car but the second and third shot hit the wind shield dead on. I did him one better I hung out the passenger side window and discharged my weapon the first shot was a lucky one, it hit his tire which caused him to slide wide to the left on the crowded expressway. The car flipped over three times and went up in a blaze of fire. The blaze turned into an inferno and exploded. Omar looked at me and said, “I guess that’s it.”
I concurred with his statement for most of us wouldn’t admit to it but it made you feel at ease to have a perp obtain instant justice without the worry of him getting off on a technicality, this was as instant as it could get.
Tuesday 2:00 am
Phansigar’s plan was simple, kill as many women of ill repute as he possibly could, that was a colossal goal but his major goal was to kill more than anyone has with a dash of flamboyance.
His next assignment as he called it would be in Camden New Jersey just across the bridge from Philadelphia. No one would expect him here because his entire previous tryst had been the home base of Philly. He felt accelerated, not only was he in a different environment but it felt like he was reborn. This was what he was born to do; wash the evil from mans civilization. He staked out a corner where hookers plied their wares. It was easy; he approached the corner in his vehicle. One scantily dressed woman dressed only in her panties and bra approached his car and leaned in, and said “You need some company tonight poppy?”
“Yea come on inside,” he said.
This was delightful he was thinking to himself. “Just for my own edification put on this blindfold,” he purred. He didn’t have time to go through his whole ritual; this was taking place around the corner from the Camden Police department. He quickly took out his scalpel and sliced her neck, blood spurted to the ceiling of the car and accidently into his mouth, he felt an instant acceleration and began to drink more blood from her neck, it was delicious. It was something he never experienced before.
I was contacted by the Camden County PD; it seems that our perp had expanded to their fair city. The crime scene had already been thoroughly examined and the murdered body taken to the morgue, it was a shame any evidence that I could have picked up at the crime scene was gone. It wasn’t anyone’s fault because they didn’t recognize the serial nature of the killing because it wasn’t something that was happening in their venue.
I was given Cart Blanche in the morgue and thoroughly examined the body. There was a new wrinkle, there was a
special depravity. Human mucus was found on the vic’s neck. The perp had ingested at least close to an ounce of blood from her. This was different , there was a set pattern and his signature method of his killing was singular, the garrote. This was something garish and bloody even for him. There didn’t seemed to be any hesitation about his new remedy, it was simply cut slice and drink. I needed more help on this; this was a little bit above my pay grade and something I hadn’t seen before. I enlisted the aid of a criminal psychologist from Quantico; he was pretty good and experienced with the bizarre. I had worked on a few murder cases with Doctor John Brown so it wouldn’t be hard to make him a part of my investigative team. As far as I knew he was all business, he came into the office and gave me a nod of the head, there wasn’t any verbal niceties, only all business. “I looked over your report thoroughly and came to the conclusion that the perp had tasted the blood of the vic and it turned on a delight in him that instantly triggered his obsession for vampirism,” he said. “It is clear cut with all the blood that he has drawn it was easy for him to subsequently move to the next stage of ingesting it.”
Ch 17
The major newspapers in Philly blurred the news; Vampire Killer sucks the blood of victim. Little did they know that the Camden killer was actually the City of Brotherly Love’s main serial murder suspect? There wasn’t much left of the body of the last vic to exam it was just a quick slicing of the throat which followed by long drag of sucking of the blood. I was just sitting at my desk contemplating the new fork in the road of this case and as usual when I’m in this mood , the other shoe is about to fall. The big man Omar was walking towards me in a fast klip looking very frantic. He said, “We have another one, and this time about five blocks from where you live.”
Omar drove to the scene of the crime as fast as he could; I guess he took a clue by the look of desperation on my face. We arrive on the scene in about half an hour. Caution tape was wrapped around the exterior of the home. For a quiet block like this you wouldn’t expect the number of looky-lu’s that were present. But here they were, it didn’t look any different than any other crime scene whether in the grimy inner city or in the suburbs; crime scenes had an irresistible allure to them that was compulsive, live and scary. I noticed right off the bat the door wasn’t forced in, evidently the victim let them in to the dwelling, and there wasn’t any force entry to the abode. The body was still on the floor, a female spread eagle with blood still flowing from her neck. The condition of the body gave a clue that this act happened not too long ago. John Clarks from the ME office was there; he gave me a slight nod and said, “We have something very weird; the body is missing about a quart of blood.” I’ll examine it further once I get her on the table.
I guess this is the perp’s new signature, blood confiscation a taste of vampirism. This was counted as number two? But it was the same guy but different MO. He was coming into his own. Across the room I could see that Omar had a perplexed scowl on his face, the big man very rarely showed his feelings outwardly. It had to be pretty grim to get a spark from him. I slid across the floor where he was standing. He was looking pretty intensely into a laptop that was left open on the table. “So what’s got your attention perked up,” I said with jovial lilt to my voice.
He said, “Look at the screen, the perp is on a vampire site.” He wasn’t just on the site that was an understatement. He had the latest vic dead body displayed for all to see.
It was curious because the web site was one of those crazy web pages that propagated vampirism and the drinking of blood, some would think it was tongue in cheek but it claimed to be a real lifestyle. They used the language of the homosexual community, verbiage such as ‘coming out of the closet’ , it was weird but it was so odd that it kept my attention to go from link to link , it was amazing to think that we have people in the modern world who thought processes are so screwed up. It would seem that the unsub is moving in an entirely different direction. The only thing that will remain the same is the murders themselves. I had the latest vic on the table on the morgue, I was going back and forth to her body, I was back at homicide shuffling papers and thinking about the vic at the same time. I donned my attire to give a once over to the wounds. There wasn’t anything unusual; the slashing of the throat was done without any effort or passion. The passion was left for the draining and drinking of the blood. The perp sharpens his canine teeth with a file and prepares all of his weapons of war. All of the sluts of the streets beware, he is on the prow, stalking and desiring the next flow of blood that will feed his inner decrepit soul.