Forgive Me, Alex

by Lane Diamond

  He shuffled around again but finally shut up. This was my chance.

  "What's that? Did you hear that? Hey bitch, are you awake? Did you hear that? Shit!"

  A brief pause. I continued scratching the base of the shed.

  "Fuck! You know, it's probably some little vermin drawn by the smell of your piss. Or it could be all the blood that, despite my best efforts, is awful-fuckin'-hard to clean up."

  Another pause.

  "Maybe I'll feed it a little piece of you when I'm done. How does that sound? Hey bitch, are you listening?"

  Damn it, shut the fuck up and come out here, you asshole! I scratch some more.

  "Well shit, I have just the thing for that little vermin. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty, come and get yourself a nice big piece of my knife right down your fuckin' throat."

  He stormed out and stalked around the side of the shed. As he did so, I slipped around the other side.

  "Come and get it, kitty," he said.

  He reached the rear of the shed, and I stepped lightly to the front and entered through the door. A woman lay crumpled on the floor to my left, bound and gagged, naked with her legs tied apart.

  Sonuvabitch!

  A bloody rag tied around her arm appeared to cover some kind of wound. She remained still and unresponsive, oblivious to my entry.

  Dear God, help her.

  I could barely tell, given her filthy state and matted hair, but it was definitely my Diana. Dried blood splatter covered much of the shed, and the smell of urine nearly made me gag.

  You're a fucking dead man, Norton!

  I heard him approach, and slid silently behind the door.

  "Jesus-H.-fucking-Christ-on-a-raft," he yelled, "there's nothin' out there that I can see. Wake up! Hey, bitch, let's have some fun, you fuckin'—"

  I eased a blade against his throat. "If you so much as breathe too hard, I'll cut you from one ear to the other, you rat fucker."

  "Well now," he said calmly, "but ain't that a big-ass knife. Where can I get me one of those?"

  "That," I said, pressing it to his throat, "is called a ninjaken, and it will end you with the slightest movement."

  "Shit, I'd better be still."

  His laugh gnawed at me.

  "By the by," he said. "Your voice sounds awfully familiar."

  I stood behind him with one hand on his left shoulder, my other hand draped over his right shoulder and holding the ninjaken. He hadn't seen my face yet, and would only see my eyes through the sanjaku-tenugui. Of course, he knew who I was—no hiding that—yet instinct told me that he should not see my face.

  "Carefully," I said, "and real slow, drop the knife."

  He hesitated, and his shoulders tensed up.

  "Are you that stupid, Norton? It will take me about one second to kill you and.... You know what? I'll enjoy it immensely."

  "Fuck a rubber duck, Hooper. Looks like you got me dead-to-rights. Here you go."

  He dropped the knife. Still Diana hadn't moved. I'd thought she'd respond to my voice, but she'd given no indication that she'd recognized it.

  I pushed him against the corner. "What have you done to her?"

  "Shit, I didn't do anything—yet. You sort of interrupted things, if you must know. Too bad, because I had a hard-on to make a porn star blush. I think she wigged-out or something."

  I found a pressure point midway between his arm and neck, and burrowed my thumb deep.

  "Ahhhhh!" His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor.

  "Any more shit out of you and it will get much worse. You hear me?"

  He snickered. "Fine!"

  I leaned in and in a near-whisper said, "Put your hands behind your head and lock your fingers. You've seen the ninjaken. Pray you don't see the katana. If that happens, your head goes bye-bye. Got it?"

  "Roger and out, general!" He did as instructed, and his laughter grated at my soul.

  Why is he still alive? You need to kill him. I looked at Diana, and back to Norton. Damn it!

  I jumped over to Diana, and reached down to pull her tangled, dirty hair away from her face. A dark bruise the size of a tennis ball marred one side. I raised the edge of the rag to examine the deep, filthy cut on her arm. She stared at me without blinking or any sign of comprehension.

  "Diana, do you hear me? Sweetie, I'm here to rescue you. Everything will be okay."

  She remained perfectly still.

  I cut the ties from her hands and legs, but they flopped back to the floor.

  Norton snickered from the corner. "It's the brave boyfriend to the rescue, huh? Well la-di-fucking-da! What do you think of that? How the fuck did you find me?"

  "Shut up, asshole!"

  I grabbed what looked like a reasonably clean rag off the bench, and replaced the filthy one on Diana's arm. The bleeding had stopped, but the swelling and discoloration were like something out of a war movie. "I'm just going to clean this up a bit," I said, "and then I'll get you to a hospital. Okay?"

  She was conscious, her eyes open and her breathing light but steady, yet she responded to nothing.

  I turned my head toward Norton. "What did you do to her? Tell me the truth."

  He twisted until he could see me. "What the fuck are you supposed to be, some kind of bad-ass ninja motherfucker?"

  I gently laid Diana's arm down and brushed some dirt from her face.

  Then, in a series of swift motions, I leapt up, pulled both ninjaken, spun and launched a kick over Norton's head, and brought the ninjaken to bear against his throat in a crossed pattern, poised as scissors to slice off his head.

  I didn't know why I'd felt the need for this display, but it pleased me to see his eyes wide with terror. Still, for some reason I couldn't quite understand, I didn't kill him.

  "Perhaps it's time to show you," I said.

  "Whoa, no need for that! You made a believer out of me."

  I pressed the blades deeper. I needed to find out what the sonuvabitch did to Diana before putting him out of his misery. And fast! "Last time I'm gonna ask, rat fucker. What did you do to Diana?"

  "I told you the truth. Nothing. She wigged-out."

  "Why did she wig-out? What caused her to do that?"

  "Let's see, I did promise that I would do to her what I did to Danny-Boy and Jacque-Baby. She saw my work in those cases. I was spectacular, if I do say so myself."

  I kept the questions going in rapid-fire succession. "Jacque Fuller?"

  "You knew her?"

  "Knew? You killed her?"

  "Oh yeah, baby, but I did much more than that. I'm an artist, you see, and—"

  "What does that have to do with Diana?"

  "I made her watch it all, and I was magnificent!"

  "You sick sonuvabitch! Where's Bobby Keller, Jacque's boyfriend?"

  "Bobby-the-Stud? You know I caught him fingering Jacque?"

  "Where is he?"

  He laughed. "He's in his car."

  "And where's his car?"

  "At the bottom of the lake, in the gravel pit." He laughed again.

  "And where's Jacque? And that other guy, Dan?"

  "They're in a place where they'll never be found. I cut them up nice and tiny and fed them to the Beast. I'm pretty sure he was hungry."

  Oh God. "What's the beast?"

  He shook his head and broke into uproarious laughter again, and I'd had quite enough. The rest would wait for the authorities.

  "Don't move or I'll cut your damned head off."

  "Yes sir, General Ninja, sir!" The certifiable sonuvabitch saluted the corner.

  I returned to Diana, suddenly aware that I'd allowed Norton to distract me from her for precious moments. "I'm so sorry, Sweetie."

  I raised her into my arms, and checked her pulse. Norton might have told the truth; I had no way of knowing. With a raging fever, she might have suffered from dehydration and an infected arm. I needed to get her to a hospital immediately. Then I'd hand the crazier-than-batshit Norton to the police.

  I wrapped her in one of the
blankets, the cleaner and drier of the two, but before lifting her up, I needed to do something about Norton.

  The bastard still knelt in the corner, bent upon himself like a warped little doll, giggling and swaying.

  I stood, thought about it a moment, and stepped behind him.

  "Goodnight, Norton."

  "Yes sir, General Ninja, si—"

  I struck him on the back of the neck, the shobo ring digging deep into a pressure point. He dropped like the sack of shit he was, which didn't bother me in the least, except that I must now carry him as well. I grabbed some rope from the bench and cut off two lengths to tie his hands and feet.

  Diana remained perfectly still.

  I left them both for a couple minutes to run back and get the car. Frank's Caddy managed the rough terrain without too much difficulty, and I parked close to the shed.

  I carried Diana to the car, laid her gently in the back seat, and kissed her lightly.

  That didn't leave much room for Norton.

  ***

  Having a change of clothes at the ready had been one of Master Komura's first lessons, and a valuable one. I couldn't enter the hospital or deal with the police looking like a ninja movie reject.

  I stashed my equipment in what I assumed would be a safe place, inside a duffel bag and under a shrub in a field off Highway 31. I'd pick them up tomorrow night. In my blue jeans and tennis shoes and with my hair straightened out, I looked almost presentable again.

  I then broke every speed limit between Crystal Lake and the McHenry County Hospital in Woodstock.

  The next half-hour was a mad blur. I rushed Diana into the emergency room, asked the doctor to check her for dehydration first, then the cut on her arm and a possible infection, before a more thorough examination. He asked several questions as he began working on her, but I had to leave most of them unanswered, and he eventually booted me out so he could tend to Diana.

  Almost an hour later, I slumped in a chair in the waiting room, about to face another barrage of questions.

  A tired, unhappy face burst through the doors of the ER and strode directly toward me. His disheveled hair, wrinkled uniform and dark circles under his eyes made him the perfect new actor in this sad, sick play.

  I'd hated like hell to call him at home at two o'clock in the morning, especially after learning that he'd been asleep for only an hour after working late on the case. No choice, really. "Good morning, Chief."

  "Tony, what have you done now, for God's sake?"

  "Diana is in with the doctors."

  His jaw relaxed and he stared at me for a few seconds. "Are you serious?"

  I nodded.

  "Tell me."

  "I know I was supposed to stay out of it, Chief. Special Agent Jackson said some things last night that made real sense, and I was happy about it. Mostly."

  "And yet you still managed to interfere with a police investigation."

  "That's right. I had to do it. I saw a surveillance car, I think, and I would have let it be if they'd seen Norton when he left his house, but they didn't."

  I told him the whole story, starting with watching Norton's house from the woods and ending with confronting him at the shed by the gravel pits. I said nothing of the special garb or weapons.

  He listened without emotion, his face cut from stone, concealing every thought.

  When I finished the tale, he said, "So if you hadn't done what you did, Diana would be dead."

  "Yes."

  "You're lucky he didn't kill you along with her, you know."

  I shrugged.

  "And what's this beast? Is it a dog or something?"

  "He didn't say. He just said that Dan and Jacque would never be found, and somehow I believed him."

  "Damn. And you say Bobby is at the bottom of the lake in the quarry?"

  "Yeah, in his car."

  "All right, I suppose that leaves us with the obvious question. Where's Norton? Did you kill him?"

  "Let's take a little walk."

  I led him through the front doors and into the parking lot. As we approached the rear of Frank's Cadillac, Norton's muffled voice shouted and cursed. I pulled the keys from my pocket and popped the trunk.

  "Get me out of this fuckin' trunk! Are you trying to suffocate me, Hooper? Shit! It's not as though I cut your girlfriend up, for Christ's sake. I don't see— Oh, howdy Chief, and how are you doing?"

  Chief Radlon looked at me, shook his head and sighed, and turned back to Norton. "Super. You want to tell me what you've done?"

  "Hey, hey, hey, wait a minute. I just did what the Reaper and his buddy demons told me to. If you want to blame someone, blame them."

  "Great."

  "Will you get me out of here, Chief? I've been— Hey, Hooper, what happened to your spiffy ninja stuff?"

  "Ninja stuff?" The chief turned to me with a quizzical, almost comical look.

  I shrugged. "Beats me. I can't make out half of what he's saying. Maybe you'll have better luck. I'm going back inside to check on Diana. Here you go." I handed Frank's keys to him and turned to leave.

  "By the way, Tony, Special Agent Jackson walked into the hospital a few seconds ago. Send him out, will you?"

  I approached the doors as another car pulled up and stopper right out front. Two hysterical parents emerged and rushed in.

  "Where is she?" Mr. Gregario's voice dripped with anger, but also a hint of relief. "Where is my daughter?"

  "Mr. and Mrs. G., come on, I'll show you."

  Mrs. G. grabbed my arm gently. "Tony, did you do this? Did you find Diana? You didn't quite make that clear on the phone."

  I nodded and looked down at my feet.

  She reached out and lifted up my chin. "Thank you, Honey. Thank you."

  "Yeah, yeah," Mr. G. practically spit. "We wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if not for him."

  He charged in ahead of us while Mrs. G. smiled sadly and silently mouthed the words again—thank you—before rushing in after him.

  I stayed a few feet behind and listened as they spoke to the doctor. I didn't know what else to do, until the doctor came to me again with his questions. This time I must tell him everything if he was to help Diana. The full story devastated the now silent Gregarios.

  The doctor said he understood, and explained his thoughts to us, quick to call them preliminary and to remind us that he still had much more to do.

  When he finished, I returned to Frank's car and two weary cops. Norton yammered on and on about some reaper, about being the king of pain and misery, about the realm of pure delight, and about plenty of other nonsensical stuff, all of which about drove the chief right over the edge.

  Jackson led me a few yards away. "The chief has filled me in, and Norton won't shut the hell up. He claims you're a ninja assassin, by the way. What's that about?"

  I smirk—the best I can manage given the circumstances. "The guy is nuts. What can I say?"

  "Yeah, he's already confessed to killing all four people, and he's rambling incessantly and incoherently. That could be a problem, but at least we know the killer is in custody. And your girlfriend is still alive. Amazing. How's she doing, by the way?"

  "She's in some sort of shock according to the doctor, and dehydrated. Her arm needed stitching and she needed antibiotics for the infection, but otherwise she'll be all right. He thinks the damage is more psychological than physical. No wonder, given what that monster made her witness."

  "I gathered that much from his ranting. She saw him torture two people to death. Dear God, he made her watch. That will be difficult to overcome. You know that, right? You must give her some time."

  "Yeah, I can wait. Whatever it takes."

  "You know, officially speaking, I have some real problems with what you did."

  I said nothing, and a smile snuck to his face.

  "But, off the record—and I'll deny this if you ever mention it—you did one hell of a job."

  I shook the hand he extended. "Thanks."

  "However, next
time I'll arrest you." He smiled.

  Agent Monroe pulled up in another car, with a local cop in the passenger side. She gave me a frustrated glance as she walked toward the Cadillac. She exchanged a few words with the chief, and then walked over and told Jackson that the chief needed to see him. She stayed behind and looked at me without her customary smile, and her sharp emerald eyes glistened in the moonlight.

  "I'm sorry, Agent Monroe, but I have to ask you a question." I laughed a little nervously. "Do you ever speak?"

  Slow to respond, she gradually chuckled right along with me.

  "Occasionally I do, when I must." Her voice dripped with Boston, or somewhere in the Northeast. "Since I'm the rookie around here, I usually shut up and listen, but I make the necessary contributions when called upon."

  She paused and sized me up as though deciding whether she should be upset with me. She had a right to be, since she'd been on surveillance at Norton's house and missed him.

  "I think we'll probably be talking a lot," she continued, "over the next few days. There are reports to be drawn up, a case to be made, that sort of thing. You've done the hard stuff, since you beat us to the punch, but now we get to handle the boring stuff."

  She loosened up and smiled again, and I found it contagious.

  The stress rolled off me and fatigue hit me like a sledgehammer, but with my nerves still tightly wound, sleep would be difficult. "I think I'll go back in and see how Diana's doing."

  "Good idea. You know, she's lucky. Few girls find their knight-in-shining-armor."

  "Yeah, right. Maybe you could tell that to her father."

  She raised her eyebrows.

  "Never mind, it's nothing. Thanks."

  I headed back inside with the desperate hope that I'd be able to speak with Diana. All I'd have to do was get through Mr. G.

  Chapter 57 – June 2, 1978: Tony Hooper

  Friday morning arrived with a reversal of circumstances for me, back in the police station for yet another round of questions. At least I wouldn't be a suspect this time. Chief Radlon, Special Agent Jackson and Agent Monroe appeared rested and refreshed, whereas I could barely stand up.

  "Tony, you look terrible," the chief said. "Have you slept?"

  "About an hour. Maybe. Too stressed-out. Too scared."

  "Why would you be scared? Norton's in custody and Diana is.... Oh no, is it Diana? What's happened? I haven't had any updates."