“Tragic, isn’t it?” Stevens asked. He held his notepad in his hand but didn’t read from it yet. “From what I’m hearing, the truck crashed into the Geminnel building, and then a few seconds later, both the truck and the Lejirri building across the way exploded simultaneously.”
Etelson suggested, “Sounds like they were rigged to the same triggering device.”
Stevens went on, “And this Geminnel building.” He pointed to it. “When the people inside were trying to get out, they felt the building buckle and tilt, like it was about to collapse. Witnesses outside corroborate it. They thought it was going to fall, but the building held up and people were able to get out through the stairwell exits.” He added, “Now something strange here…numerous witnesses outside say that, just before the fire in the building went out, the whole outside of the building was quote,” he glanced at his notes, “glowing all around. Then, a few seconds later, the fires went out. Unquote. What do ya make of that?”
Etelson frowned and slightly shook her head. “…the windows were reflecting the fire?”
Stevens continued, “Well, consider this. The emergency sprinkler system hadn’t engaged - the police are gonna look into that. And no fire trucks had arrived yet. So, people outside see the building all a-glowin‘ then, soon, the flames go out all by themselves.’
Stevens glanced down at his notes again, and then looked back up. “And here’s another. There was a guy that many people witnessed. Who went into the west stairwell and helped those people get outside. He even asked people if there was anyone left trapped inside or needed help to get out. What a guy, huh? Anyway, when everyone got out, they saw this guy suddenly run out through the stairwell door, turn the corner, and run into the front of the building. A few seconds later, the east end of the building explodes, and the whole building collapses.”
“He didn’t make it out?”
“Police don’t know. They still gotta ID the remains of the people in the lobby. But you’ll never guess the description of this guy.”
“Can’t be Mr. Jarhead, right?”
“Nope.”
“Well, who then?”
“Five-ten or five-eleven. No taller than six feet. Slim. Long black hair and…” Stevens paused for dramatic effect. “Dumm-dumm-dummmmmm…a goatee. Anyone we know?”
“Whoa.”
“Way…”
Etelson stopped and waved her hand. “Stop. I didn’t say, ‘No way.’ I said, ‘Whoa.’ So, you shouldn’t be responding with ‘way’.”
Stevens raised his eyebrows and protested, “We’ll that’s how I wanted to respond.”
“Fine. Be that way. Well, let’s start over.” Etelson made a circular motion with her hand, coaxing him, saying, “Ok, say that last thing you said again.”
Stevens prepared himself, and then said, “Dumm-dumm-dummmmmm…a goatee. Anyone we know?”
“No way!”
“Way.” And without a pause, Stevens continued. “Mr. Goatee himself, right? But if it were him, he could be crispy crunchy already.”
Etelson curled a corner of her mouth, “Crispy crunchy? Now that’s just uncalled for.”
Stevens continued, again without pausing, “Do you think he could have gotten another note and came up here?” Stevens slapped his notepad down on his free hand. “And here’s another: there’s a woman.”
Etelson blurted sarcastically, “Oh my God! There’s always a woman. These women!”
Stevens stopped, as he turned to his side. While a paramedic approached, he said, “I think this is what I was waiting for.”
“Agent Stevens,” the paramedic said, “we’re about to take off to the hospital.”
“Great. Thanks,” Stevens said, “I’ll be there in a minute.” He turned to Etelson and said, “These guys said that a woman turned up inside one of the first ambulances to the scene. They didn’t know how she got in, but a few seconds after they arrived - after the last blast - they opened the rear door and saw her lying down in there, unconscious. And wait…she’s got the tattoos on her wrists.”
“Hmm.” Etelson crossed her arms in front of her.
“Yeah, way,” Stevens grinned. “They were able to wake her up and start treating her. But they said she’s in bad shape.”
“Ok…”
“These guys said they’ll give me a ride to the hospital where they took the woman. I’ll see if I can get some info from her.”
“Alright. Tattoos on wrists: sounds like victim number four. But a live one,” Etelson responded. “Give me a call when you get there. I’ll pick you up. By the way, the detective told me that they interviewed the driver whose truck blew up at the 101. He confessed that both trucks are registered to him. They’re holding him, and I wanna talk to him. He better be able to tell me who drove the second fuel truck.”
“Ok, see ya there.”
Etelson gave a slight wave of her hand, saying, “Later.” Then, she turned to walk down Kenmore Street. But something bothered her. She mumbled, “…building glowing. Fire going out by itself.” She stopped, turned, and called out to Stevens with a loud voice, “Hey, Rye!” Stevens turned around. She continued, “If we start getting all paranormal here, I’m gonna ask for a new assignment or a new partner or a new straight jacket. So, don’t be jumpin’ out of reality on me! Alright?”
Stevens chuckled and shook his head.
Etelson turned back around, shook her head, and began to briskly walk.
Her flats clicked a rhythmic pace over the sidewalk. With each step, she could hear the sound of dust and dirt being crushed over concrete. As her slender figure, in her pantsuit stretched, its shadow on the pavement ahead, her ponytail swayed left and right, casting its shadow.
She began to mumble again. “Icicles on a window at the Montreme Hotel…a guy wearing a hooded coat, at the top of a building on a hot D.C. day. Over here: a glowing building on fire. And people showing up in the back of ambulances uninvited with weird tattoos. Over there: mysteriously existing red pearls with encoded genes. And strange human, but not-human, blood in tattoo ink.”
She waved her hand in disgust.
Taking a few more steps, she continued, “Just give me a straight kidnapping and murder…that I can figure out.”
* * * * * * *
Later that night, Etelson’s brisk walk in her flats could be clearly heard over the hard bare hallway of the second floor of the hospital. She had let her hair down, from its ponytail, when she got into her car, on her way to the hospital. Now, her hands were up, about to finish tightly braiding her hair once again.
While Stevens waited for Etelson to make her way to him, he stood just outside the room of the woman found in the ambulance, with circular tattoos on her wrists.
As Etelson reached Stevens, she finished braiding, stopped, crossed her arms, and asked, “So, Rye, what do we got?”
“Well, they weren’t lying. She’s in bad shape. Fractures in arms and legs, slight concussion. Difficulty breathing, fractured ribs. They just finished the x-rays - she was awake during those - but the pain’s getting to her and they gave her some more meds.”
“Ok…”
“Well, I got to talk to her for a while, before she started getting dreamy. Let’s start from the beginning.” Stevens lifted his notes up and read a few lines. “Her name is Ms. Tamara Mitsuko Kaneko, twenty-eight years old. Someone attacked her from behind, as she was getting into her hotel room.”
Etelson nodded, “Alright, just like the Montreme. I bet the first two women were attacked the same way.”
Stevens agreed, “I second that. Well, she was able to see her assailant. While she tried to fight him off, she saw most of him from the reflection on a mirror, in the room.”
“Description?”
“Fits our Mr. Kessian: male, white, about six feet tall. Short, cropped, blond hair. Muscular, gray t-shirt…”
Etelson thought for a moment, then said, “That’s four women. Victim one was found in a motel, ground level, in Israel, South Caroli
na. Victim two: in a stairwell of the second floor of a two-bit hotel in New York City. Woman three was attacked from behind, in her room, on the third floor of the Montreme in D.C…” Etelson paused. “Kessian can count floors, huh?” She smiled. “I bet ya the woman in there,” she pointed at the hospital room, “had a room in the fourth floor of some hotel in L.A.”
Stevens nodded, “Hotel in L.A., yeah. But I didn’t ask about the floor.”
Etelson continued, “I’m not sure what the significance is about Mr. Jarhead’s numbering system. But there’s an obvious pattern, and we gotta look at that more. Anyway, does she know how she got her injuries or got in the ambulance?”
“No on both counts. She’s got no memory of anything between her attack and when she woke up in the ambulance. Apparently, she was drugged.”
“But she was awake in the ambulance? Does she know how she got there?”
“Technically, no,” Stevens smiled, “But while popping in and out of consciousness, she realized she was already lying down in the ambulance, and she saw someone at her side. The last thing she saw was that the guy was looking down at her, and then turned around, because he heard the ambulance back door begin to open up. After that, she blacked out. Later, a paramedic woke her up.”
“Description of the guy?”
“You’re gonna guess this one.”
Etelson blurted, “Mr. Goatee? He made it out of the explosion?”
“Yeah, way.”
“Oh, my God.” Etelson was incredulous. She took a half step back and put her hands on her hips. She shook her head, saying, “No, she’s gotta be hallucinating. Or she saw somebody like him.”
“Well, I can’t currently disprove that. But I’m getting a sketch artist down here tomorrow, to make a composite of both the man in the hotel and the man in the ambulance.”
“Or what if Mr. Goatee set off the explosion, and already had an escape plan?”
Stevens wasn’t sold on the idea, “And he saved this woman, helped others, but still wanted to explode people to bits nonetheless? It doesn’t make sense.”
Etelson glanced at the door of the hospital room, looked back at Stevens, and then asked, “Ok…so, the tatts? Are they like the others?”
Stevens nodded, “Same as.”
They stood for a moment and didn’t say anything - just thinking about the circumstances. Then Etelson said, “Anyway, back at the 101, the registered owner of the trucks said the other driver is named ‘Sik,’ that is, S-I-K. Or A.K.A, Samuel Ian Kessian, in our vernacular. Fits Kessian’s description too. He said that he and Kessian were just gonna drive a few miles up Kenmore Street to make deliveries. He claims he didn’t know the explosions were part of the day’s agenda.”
“You believe him?”
Etelson casually shrugged, “I don’t know…but the police don’t believe it. They’re holding him on conspiracy charges and other fun stuff.”
“Did you ask him where we could find Kessian?” Stevens asked.
“Said that he only sees Mr. Jarhead when he shows up at the Alleyway pool hall. They drink a few beers, play pool, and yuk it up. LAPD is gonna drill him a bit more.”
“I guess we’ll be visiting the Alleyway.”
Etelson wanted to leave and said, “Yeah. Well, let’s get outta here. I’m hungry. And let’s go there after.” She motioned her head toward the elevators.
They began to walk down the hall.
She started again, “So, no red pearl on her?”
“None…yet. If you know what I mean.”
“Yup. I’ll set up a couple of LA’s finest to be on guard in front of Ms. Kaneko’s room. I have a strong feeling Kessian is gonna be back for her like for Mrs. Ackerman.”
“Sounds good,” Stevens replied.
“I didn’t find anyone at the scene of the explosions that saw an out-of-place shadowy, hooded guy. How about you?”
“No. But then again, I didn’t ask.”
Etelson said, “Well, I asked Mr. Fuel Trucker. He says he’s only seen Mr. Hoodie twice. Both times with Mr. Jarhead. But he’s never seen Mr. Hoodie’s face.”
They reached the elevator and Stevens pressed the Down button.
As the elevator doors opened, Etelson asked, “So, have you formulated any possible dynamic between these three?”
They both walked into the elevator, and then Etelson pressed a button.
Stevens grinned and asked, “Who three? Mr. Hoodie, Mr. Jarhead, and Mr. Trucker or Mr. Hoodie, Mr. Jarhead, and Mr. Goatee?”
“Yeah. The latter.” She gazed straight ahead, with a serious contemplative look on her face.
“Well, I’m a little stuck,” he said with a sly grin, “I just can’t get over how impressed I am with the names their parents gave them.”
The elevator door closed.
And from behind it escaped the abrupt sound of Etelson’s quick slap on his shoulder.
Later in the evening, the hospital elevator door opened, and Agent Stevens exited.
As he did earlier, when he first arrived, he walked over the hard, bare hallway of the hospital’s second floor, in his dark suit, with his hands in his pockets, and his back slightly slouched.
As he reached the nurses’ station, he lifted his right hand to fix his short, drooping hair, sweeping his fingers from left to right. Casually, he smiled to greet the receptionist and nurse behind the counter.
They smiled and nodded back at him.
With his hands back in his pockets, he continued to walk ahead, to Ms. Kaneko’s room. When he reached the room, he raised his hand and momentarily rested it on the cold metal handle. He gazed in front of him, and then behind. No one approached. Then, cautiously, he opened the door and peered in.
The young woman was asleep. Her eyes rested closed and her long, straight, jet-black hair lay on her shoulders.
Stevens’ eyes began his search. He followed her hair past her shoulder and down the arm that rested over the white bed sheet. After glancing over the bend of her elbow, he moved his eyes to the top of her hand. There, the needle of an IV pierced the skin and punctured a blue vein. A strip of pale white tape kept the needle in place.
Her hand was at an angle that allowed his eyes to slide down, to examine the inside of her wrist.
Seeing his mark, he closed his eyes, slightly tilted his head up, and deeply breathed in the room’s air.
As he released his breath, a glint of contentment appeared on his face.
In quiet motion, he retreated from the threshold and silently closed the door.
* * * * * * *
That night, Agent Etelson parked their sedan in the small parking lot of the Alleyway. It was just after midnight, when she and Agent Stevens exited the car.
With the bright neon light shining atop the entrance and the sufficient yet dim light coming from a lamppost in the distance, Etelson could see the overall form of the building, the texture of the wood of the roof, and of the exterior walls. Before entering the building, she remarked, “Huh, compared to the rest of the neighborhood, this puppy is really out of place.”
As they came in, they saw that the pool hall was alive with patrons, and the drunken energy had just begun, with the strike of midnight. The bar teemed with laughing and talking people. The three crowded pool tables popped and cracked, with the sound of colliding solid pool balls. In their ears, they heard the high-energy old-school rock and roll piped through the large speakers that hung from the four corners of the ceiling.
No one paid attention to them as they entered.
With Etelson behind him, Stevens walked past the pictures that hung from the wall. Looking at them, one black and white photo caught his attention. He stopped and examined it. “Huh. Strange,” he mumbled.
“What was that?” Etelson asked above the music, “What did you say?”
“Ah…nothing. Nothing, really.” Stevens turned his head and began to walk again. And then, he mumbled again, “…just looks familiar.”
Turning left, they rounded th
e corner. Spotting the bartender, they headed his way so that they could ask him some questions.
Etelson’s eyes swept and scanned through the faces of each person either standing or sitting at the bar. Then, she turned her attention to the pool tables. From the closest table to the farthest table, she eyed each face among them. Her eyes stopped and focused on one person. Quickly, she pulled on Stevens’ suit jacket.
Stevens turned around.
Without losing the subject in her sights, Etelson whispered, “Kessian.”
“No way,” he whispered back, as his eyes attempted to follow her gaze.
She whispered again, “Yeah. The cajones on this guy. He just blows up a couple buildings, and later, he comes back and grabs a beer and shoots some pool.”
The two split up and walked separate paths toward Sik.
Sik, after taking his turn, raised his pool stick and backed away from the table. From the wooden shelf on the wall next to him, he picked up his bottle of beer and raised it against the florescent lights above the table. The bottle was empty. He set the beer back down and turned his attention to the bar. As Sik shifted his eyes, he immediately caught the image of the out-of-place man, in a suit, walking in between people and headed his direction.
Confidently though, Sik lowered his head in thought. I just wanted to blow off some steam and clear my head. But it looks like I should’ve laid low for a little longer and stayed away. Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed another person dressed in black, at the opposite side, walking towards him. Without raising his head, Sik breathed in deep, and then exhaled. “Ok,” he said quietly, “Gotta make my exit.” Then casually, he walked toward the bathroom that was just a few steps away. Thinking of the hooded man he said, Good thing he’s around, because I need a way out. Like now.
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