“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think I could find you?”
“Nah, I don’t think there’s much chance of that, at least not before your girl has hemorrhaged from taking a pool cue up the butthole. You want that to happen?”
Jim didn’t say anything. He stood trembling.
“If you weren’t such an asshole, you’d know I couldn’t make a deal with you.” Raze paused for a long moment before going on. “After you ripping me off? I’d be finished in my business if I did, especially after you killing one my men. You want your girl back in one piece you got to pay for her, and a hell of a lot more than what you took from me.”
“How much more?”
“You ain’t fucking with me about killing my other three men?”
“They’re all dead.”
Jim listened intently for a response, heard nothing, and after a while asked, “Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. You killed four of my men. That’s going to cost you. Let’s say a million dollars.”
It got very quiet, so quiet that Jim could hear the blood pounding in his skull. “How am I supposed to get that kind of money?” he asked.
“If you’re resourceful enough to kill four of my men, then you’re resourceful enough to come up with that money. I’m giving you twenty-four hours. After that your girl’s gone, but only after we have our fun with her.”
“I could’ve killed you and your two bodyguards in that bathroom last night,” Jim said. “But I didn’t.”
“Your mistake, asshole.”
“You really don’t think I’ll be coming after you?”
“I’ll take my chances. And don’t bother calling me on this phone again. Think of it as already tossed away. I’ll be watching the news the next twenty-four hours. As long as I hear about an armored car heist or a bank job, I’ll be calling you back on Ash’s phone so we can work out a trade. If I don’t hear anything like that, we’re done. Wait a minute. For some extra incentive.”
Raze disappeared. Jim stood frozen, pressing the cell phone hard against his ear trying to hear anything that could give him a clue where Raze was. He heard some voices off in the distance, then the creaking of footsteps on a hardwood floor, a door being opened, and Raze’s voice telling someone that her boyfriend was on the phone.
“Hon?” It was Carol. Her voice was weak. Jim had the sense that she’d been crying, but was trying hard not to let him know that.
“I’m here,” Jim said. A freezing coldness slid over him, numbing him. “Are you okay? Have they hurt you?”
“I wouldn’t tell them anything,” she said, her voice breaking. He knew she was trying hard to keep from sobbing, and knowing that made the tears well up in his own eyes, made him swallow hard to keep from sobbing also.
“Have they hurt you?”
Very softly he heard her say yes. The connection was cut off. He stood frozen as he listened to the dead silence. After a minute or so he was able to move. He tried redialing Raze’s number that showed in the Caller Id, but no one answered. Again, he stood frozen, his muscles tensing. He tried to think of how he was going to get Carol back, but his mind just wouldn’t work. All he knew was he had to get moving. A homeless man wandered into the alleyway pushing a shopping cart. The man spotted Jim sitting on the Harley, still holding a samurai sword in one hand and a .45 in the other. The homeless man turned his shopping cart around. Jim’s mind started working. At least he had an idea of what he was going to do next. He gunned the Harley’s engine and drove away.
Chapter 9
Hayes sat in his rented Dodge Neon and tried to think things through. What he now had went past purely hypothetical and circumstantial. This was hard evidence for a murder investigation, or more accurately, a double-murder. He could no longer kid himself about Jim’s involvement.
He looked up and counted six police cars and two ambulances parked outside the Cineplex’s front entrance. Two older model sedans had also been left out front, and he guessed that those were being driven by the detectives on the case. A middle-aged man had been taken by stretcher onto one of the ambulances, and Hayes found out from talking to a nineteen year-old girl who worked selling tickets at the Cineplex that the man had passed out after seeing the dead body, at least that’s what she heard. The rumor going around the other Cineplex workers was that a man had been hacked to pieces and his body left in the back row, and that there was blood everywhere. Hayes showed her the drawing he had of Jim, but she popped her gum and stared blankly at it, saying she didn’t think she saw him. When he showed her the drawing of Jim’s girlfriend, she nodded.
“Yeah, she bought tickets from me. I think it was for The Notebook, Part 3. She wasn’t a blonde, though. She had dark brown hair.”
“How many tickets did you sell her?”
The girl thought about it, popped her gum some more. “I’m pretty sure she bought two tickets. Maybe the guy in that other drawing you showed me was with her, but I didn’t see him.”
That was twenty minutes ago. Since then a corpse had been removed from the Cineplex via a body bag. Hayes was still trying to decide what to do when a pair of hard knuckles rapped on the outside of his window. Detective Joe Colvin was leaning against the car peering in at him. Hayes had the engine running for the air conditioner. He turned it off and manually rolled down the window.
“What are you doing here?” Colvin asked. “And don’t tell me you’re researching a book for some asshole novelist. I know bullshit when I smell it and I sure as fuck know verbal diarrhea when I hear it.”
Hayes nodded. “Why don’t I get out of the car and we’ll talk.”
Colvin backed away so Hayes could join him. The homicide detective’s cheap suit that earlier had looked wrinkled now gave the appearance of having been slept in. Colvin looked equally rumpled and worn out.
“What’s your interest in this?” Colvin said, his eyes hooded and tired as he stared at the PI. Hayes rubbed the back of neck. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it.
“I know you used to be a cop,” Colvin added. “New York’s PI licensing office put me in touch with your old precinct in Brooklyn. I talked to your old boss, Captain Hartlaub. He told me you used to be a damn good cop, and that you were a good guy and you’d do the right thing if asked. So I’m asking. Help me out if you know anything about these killings.”
Hayes nodded to himself as he came to a decision. His chest sunk a bit accepting what he was going to do. He knew Serena wasn’t going to be happy.
“I think these were done by the same guy,” he said. “The drug dealer killed in the alley last night and whoever it was in the movie theatre.”
“Yeah? What can you tell me I don’t know?”
“So you think so also?”
Colvin didn’t bother saying anything. His eyes held steady on Hayes. Hayes took out a handkerchief and wiped his neck. He could see the thought in Colvin’s eyes as the homicide detective suppressed a crack about how Hayes seemed to sweat a lot for a guy with a clear conscience.
“I’ve been trying to find this missing person for the past year,” Hayes said. “I don’t know anything about him other than a sketch my client gave me and that his first name is Jim, but I’ve been tracking him across the country. I have no real evidence, just a lot of bizarre circumstantial stuff, but I think he did both these killings, maybe some others.”
“Yeah? What do you have?”
Hayes made a pained face. “Jim’s girlfriend was at a bar near the murder scene last night. I think she was here also.”
Colvin looked more interested. “What bar?”
Hayes consulted a notepad and gave the detective the name and address. He told him how the bartender claimed he hadn’t seen her, but his reaction was a dead giveaway.
“Okay. Let’s say this mystery girlfriend was near the murder scene last night. How do you know she was here?”
“I talked with one of the cashiers working the tickets. She recognized a dra
wing I have of the girlfriend.”
“That’s funny,” Colvin muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Witnesses inside the movie theatre saw the victim with two other guys. No one said anything about seeing a girl with him.” His eyes shifted to meet Hayes’. “Why don’t you show me this drawing of yours.”
Hayes shook his head. “I have to talk to my client first.”
“Uh uh. Unless you want me to arrest you as a material witness, let’s see it.”
Hayes was still holding his handkerchief. It had gotten damp, but he wiped it again over his forehead and along his neck.
“It would help if I knew what happened in there,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“It just would.” Hayes ran a hand through his hair, felt the dampness of it. “I heard the guy was hacked to death. And that it was bloody.”
Colvin looked around to see if anyone else was standing nearby, or at least close enough to hear them. No one was. He licked his lips.
“It was bloody, but the victim wasn’t hacked to death. According to the medical examiner his arm was ripped out of its socket, then while he was bleeding out, his throat was crushed.”
“What do you mean his arm was ripped out of the socket?”
“Just what I said.”
Hayes felt dizzy at the thought of that. He put a hand out on his rented Neon to steady himself.
“That mean something to you?” Colvin asked, an eyebrow arched.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m just trying to get a handle on this. Was the guy small? Someone frail with a degenerative bone disease you could do something like that to?”
“Nope, a big beefy guy. Bigger than me.”
“You know anything about him?”
“Yeah. We knew about him. He was a pretty bad character. Worked as an enforcer for a drug gang we have here in Cleveland called the Blood Dragons. Not a nice group.”
“His arm was pulled out of the socket…how would someone do something like that?”
“You tell me. About those drawings…?”
Hayes nodded. He went back into his car, got a folder and took two drawings out of it that he handed to Colvin.
“I’ve got other copies,” Hayes said. “You can keep those.”
“Thanks.”
While Colvin studied the drawings, he took out a half-smoked stogie from an inside suit jacket pocket, chomped down on it, then fished out an ancient-looking Zippo lighter from his pants pocket. He turned an eye suspiciously towards Hayes. “You’re not one of them smoking Nazis, are you?” he asked.
Hayes shook his head. “Feel free to light up.”
Colvin flicked the lighter, got a flame burning, then puffed on the cigar until he had the end glowing red. His large ruddy face relaxed as he breathed in a lungful of smoke. “You’d be surprised all the smoking Nazis out there who’d call my precinct to complain about my cigar smoke invading their personal space. Christ.” He held out the drawing of Jim’s girlfriend at arms length, studied it. “A good-looking girl,” he observed. “The guy looks like a freak, though. I need the name of your client.”
“I can’t give you that right now. I have to talk to her first.”
“Uh uh, you know better than that. I need her name.”
“I know, but I’m going to have to talk to her first. I’m sorry.”
Colvin looked like he was going to argue the point, but instead his face deflated as he exhaled out a small cloud of acrid smoke.
“Why’s she looking for this guy?”
“Beats me. She never told me.”
Colvin let out another small cloud of cigar smoke, nodded to himself. “You can talk to her first, but afterwards I’m going to need her name and phone number. Show me who recognized this mystery girlfriend.”
Hayes pointed out the cashier who was standing huddled with other Cineplex employees. Colvin took his cigar from his lips and gave it one last longing look before tapping out the lit end and placing it back in his inside jacket pocket. He had Hayes join him while he questioned the girl, then the other employees. When he was done, he told Hayes to stand off to the side while he showed Jim’s picture to the other witnesses. Afterwards he walked back to Hayes looking dejected.
“No one recognized your guy,” he said. “And none of them remembered seeing the girl.”
“It was probably too dark in there.”
Colvin nodded slowly, thinking about it. He told Hayes he wanted him to come with him to the bar where Jim’s girlfriend was seen the other night.
“I’m going to need you to point out the joker who saw her,” Colvin said. “You can follow in your own car. It will give you a chance to call your client in private.”
Hayes agreed and took several steps towards his car. He stopped when Colvin received a call on his cell. The homicide detective stood quietly listening. Hayes gave him a questioning look after Colvin put his cell phone away.
“We’ve got another one,” Colvin said incredulously, his large face falling slack. “Another dead Blood Dragon enforcer.” He closed his mouth as if he were trying to decide how much to trust this one-time cop and now private investigator. He made up his mind, and with his voice a low rumble, went on, “This one had his head torn off from his body. According to the medical examiner who’s with the body now, it was torn off, not cut off. The body was left inside a motel room near the Brook Park area. The head was found a couple of hundred feet outside the room. From the way it was scraped up and dented, the medical examiner thinks it was thrown.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
Colvin shook his head. His face had paled, giving it a washed out look. He lowered his voice into a conspiratorial-type whisper, said, “A lot of bullets were fired inside the motel room, and while a lot of casings were found, not enough bullet holes were. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I want you to follow me there. Maybe something will make sense to you. And when we get there you’re giving me the name of your client.”
Hayes agreed, and Colvin gave him the address. That same dizziness from before hit him as he walked back to his car. Somehow he stayed on his feet and the dizziness faded. Neither of these killings made any sense for Jim. They were too public and they offered to much risk for exposure. But as much as they didn’t make sense, Hayes knew it was Jim. He also knew something had gone seriously wrong, and a lot more of these killings were going to happen. There was something else about them, something buried deep in the recesses of his subconscious that tied it all together, and made sense of it. He just couldn’t pull out what it was.
When he returned back to his car he checked the name of the motel against the leads Annie had given him, and found that it was the next motel on his list. The one desk clerk Annie had spoken to who wasn’t full of shit. That had to be where Jim and his girlfriend were staying. If he hadn’t let himself get sidetracked by checking out this last murder, he would’ve been at the motel an hour ago, maybe even been there while Jim was ripping that gang members head off. Fuck. What lousy timing turning on the radio and hearing about the ‘most vicious and depraved murders in recent Cleveland history’. He had a feeling the one at the motel might end up topping it—or if not that one, one of the others that were coming. He tried to piece together what he knew and come up with some idea of what had happened. The Cineplex murder was first. Jim and his girlfriend were out minding their own business and enjoying a movie when that gang member showed up. Later another gang member ended up in Jim’s motel room and was killed. Jim must’ve been one of the men that the witnesses saw with that dead gang member. Maybe they were confused and thought Jim’s girlfriend was also a guy. But how was that possible? From the drawing and every description he had of her, she was a tiny thing and as feminine looking as any woman has ever been. How could anyone confuse her as a guy? It just wasn’t possible. It must’ve been two guys inside that theatre with Jim, maybe the other gang member who was killed later in Jim’s motel room. So where was his girlfriend? Something had happened…fuck that, something was
happening. He could almost see it, could almost put the jigsaw puzzle pieces together…
Hayes had been following a single car length behind Colvin’s older model Buick Regal, maintaining the same forty mile-per-hour clip the homicide detective was staying at. Things changed quickly. Colvin’s window was rolled down and a blue light placed on the roof, and then the car took a hard U-turn leaving Hayes stuck. He pulled over, thought about trying to follow Colvin. His cell phone rang. It was Serena. He considered letting it ring to his answering service, instead decided to just get it over with and rip that band aid off with one clean pull.
“Serena—”
“Donald,” she said, cutting him off, her voice harder and more shrill than he had heard from her before, “I’m in Cleveland right now. Please tell me that you’re still in Cleveland also?”
“Yeah, I am, but what are you doing here—”
“Seriously?” She laughed a glass-crackling type laugh. “Donald, you should know why I came here. To talk with you, of course. It is so very important. But right now we’re having engine trouble. I was so hoping you could help us out.”
His head was swimming as he tried to get a handle on her being in Cleveland at that moment.
“I don’t understand—”
“It’s very simple. Please drive by and pick up me and my companions. We so much need to talk.”
She gave him an intersection for him to go to and hung up. He cursed himself for answering the phone. It would’ve been hard enough telling her long distance how he had to go to the police with what he had, but with all the bizarre shit he was already stuck in the middle of the thought of having to tell Serena in person made him sick to his stomach. For a long moment he considered driving back to New York and saying the hell with it all, but instead let out a disgusted sigh and picked up his map of downtown Cleveland. He located the intersection Serena had given him. It was only five or six miles away and he memorized the turns he was going to have to make. For whatever reason he wanted to see this through, and more than that, find Jim and figure out what the fuck was going on with him. As he drove the streets became more desolate and more of the storefronts were boarded up, and then it was as if were entering a ghost town—what used to be an old warehouse district, but now looked deserted. It seemed like an odd place for Serena to end up at. He found the intersection. She stepped out of a doorway and waved to him. Her lips looked unnaturally large and red as if she had smeared too many layers of makeup over them. Something about the way they looked gave him the willies. He drove over to her, and tried not to look again at her lips.
Blood Crimes: Book One Page 15