Mean Business on North Ganson Street

by S. Craig Zahler

  Tears filled Dave Stanley’s eyes, and the world glared red and blue.

  “That one’s still goin’,” somebody said from within the brown cargo van.

  Dave Stanley reached for his weapon.

  A shotgun boomed.

  Buckshot pierced the young officer’s head, and he collapsed to the pavement. Ice-cold pellets sat in the very center of his skull.

  “Get his badge,” said a hoarse voice.

  Footfalls sounded, grew louder, and stopped.

  Immobile and near death, Dave Stanley felt a hand tear the badge from his chest.

  “This asshole pissed himself.”

  “You get his badge?”

  “I got it.”

  “Okay. Now pull down his pants and cut off his dick.”

  XIX

  Executed

  Bettinger reclined in his chair, yawned, and glanced at the clock on the wall. If he went to bed right now, he would get four hours of sleep before he had to wake up for work.

  “Junk.”

  The detective looked at the two folders that lay on the right side of his desk, isolated from the tall majority. Both cases had gone cold many months earlier, but it seemed possible that either or both of these slain prostitutes had been killed by whoever had murdered Elaine James. Tomorrow, Bettinger would visit the locations in which the women had been discovered—an abandoned apartment building and a sewer access tunnel.

  A plaintive gurgle sounded within his stomach, telling him to eat before he relaxed the overworked gray mechanism that sat in his brainpan. Irked by the demands of his body, the detective fitted oversized rubber bands around the documents and opened his file cabinet.

  Something buzzed.

  Bettinger looked to the far corner of the desk, where lay his cell phone. The alarm was set for two thirty (which was not for another twenty minutes), and its remonstrations confused him. Picking up the device, he looked at its display and saw the name “Williams, Dominic.”

  The detective unfolded the cell phone and placed the receiver to his ear. “What happened?”

  “Two cops got it.”

  “Dead?”

  “Executed.”

  Wide awake, Bettinger reopened his notepad and coerced graphite from his mechanical pencil. “Where?”

  “Worth and Leonora.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The line went dead.

  Bettinger wrote the address and scribbled a vague explanation on the next page, which he tore off and placed on the nightstand for Alyssa to discover in the morning. After a scalding ninety-second shower, he dressed himself in a brown suit and backed his yellow car out of the garage, unsure whether he was continuing his second day of work or beginning a third.

  Negligible traffic and heavy acceleration allowed him to collapse the sixty-five-minute drive up the interstate to a mere three quarters of an hour. Throughout the duration of the high-speed ride, the word “executed” sat beside him like a spectral passenger.

  Bettinger snagged the off-ramp and entered the tunnel, startling the trolls, who were smoking something that had an impressive diameter. As he zoomed past the duo, they waved puffy limbs.

  Nine careening minutes brought him to Leonora, a street with which he was already familiar, and soon, he descried the red-and-blue disco. There, he landed beside four patrol cars, yanked the stick, and zipped up his parka.

  The detective exited his hatchback and strode toward the neon tape, behind which stood Inspector Zwolinski and nine officers, two of whom were female. Dominic was not amongst those gathered.

  “Bettinger.”

  “Inspector.” The detective ducked underneath the line and approached his superior. “What happened?”

  “There were reports of shots fired in the area. Gianetto and Stanley went to investigate.” The inspector pointed at a patrol car that looked like it had blasphemed in the Middle East on a holy day.

  “Christ.”

  “My guess is that the people responsible for this are the same ones who cut off their dicks.”

  Bettinger wondered exactly when he had died and gone to Hell. “This sort of thing ever happen before?”

  “Not even here.”

  The detective was momentarily at a loss for words.

  “Goddamn fucking animals,” said a stocky female officer as she wiped tears from her eyes.

  Standing beside the woman was Langford, the handsome young recruit who was often mistaken for an actor, although currently he looked like a man who had just expelled a lot of vegetables through his mouth.

  “Thought you lived in Stonesburg,” said Zwolinski.

  “I do.”

  “That hatchback’s got wings?”

  “Detachable.” Bettinger gestured at the sundered patrol car. “Has the scene been documented?”

  “The guys’re on their way.”

  “May I look?”

  “Just eyeballs.”

  The detective walked toward the rear of the blasted cruiser, the lights of which were somehow still functioning. Exhaling a plume of steam that shone alternately red and blue, he circled to the passenger side of the car and saw the prone body of Dave Stanley. The young man’s face looked like offal, and a swatch of pale skin glowed where his pants had been yanked down. A nub of crimson ice sat below his pubic hair.

  Bettinger leaned forward, closely inspecting the wound. One thick line of blood ran from the emasculating amputation, down the victim’s scrotum, and to the pavement, telling the detective that the officer was either dead or unconscious when his phallus had been removed. Upon his notepad, he wrote, Stanley. Shotgun blast, close range. Penectomy after.

  Bettinger turned away and approached the vehicle, wherein sat something that had once been a human being. The smells of burnt hair and charcoal filled the detective’s head as he reached the open door, looked through, and descried the posthumous excavation that had occurred between the dead corporal’s legs. Embedded in the body and throughout the interior of the car were numerous pieces of shrapnel.

  Upon the notepad, Bettinger wrote, Gianetto. U.S. Military Hand Grenade. Penectomy postmortem.

  Heavy footfalls sounded behind the detective, precipitating the arrival of the inspector.

  “I get why crooks kill cops,” said Zwolinski. “In a way, it’s surprisin’ that it doesn’t happen more often. But why in the hell would they do that—” A thick finger pointed at the officer’s groin. “This wasn’t some lone psychopath who did all this, so there’s got to be some logic—some reason.”

  “Intimidation.”

  The inspector ruminated for a moment. “Like that sick psychological shit they do in wars?”

  “Yeah.” An idea came to the detective. “Did you see their badges?”

  “No.” Zwolinski turned his head, filled his lungs, and shouted, “Langford, Peters, Johnson!”

  Aided by the three summoned officers, the inspector and the detective searched the crime scene for ten minutes. The dead men’s badges were not recovered during this operation.

  Zwolinski dismissed the trio and eyed Bettinger. “So what does this mean? Somebody executed ’em, took their dicks and badges?”

  “Not sure. The killers might’ve wanted trophies—like antlers on a wall—or maybe they wanna be able to prove that they did this.”

  “To who?”

  “Us.”

  The inspector did not look happy. “Why?”

  “Maybe we’ll get that stuff in the mail and some advice about how to do our jobs.”

  Zwolinski’s face turned into the ugly mask that his boxing competitors saw a moment before they were knocked to the canvas. Too angry for words, he turned away and strode toward the yellow tape.

  Bettinger focused his attention on the environs, which the lights of the blasted car allowed him to observe. Standing beside a black sedan at the far end of the street were four men, wreathed in steam that flashed red and blue. The detective soon identified the members of the quartet as Dominic, Huan, Perry, and the small, m
ottled fellow, Tackley. Quiet conversation floated between their heads.

  Bettinger walked toward the gathering.

  As he circumvented the wreck, he and his partner made eye contact, and the dark opening below the big fellow’s nose turned into a thin line. The pockmarked Asian lighted a cigarette, and the mottled man drank from a silver thermos that looked like an antiaircraft shell.

  Stretching his arms, the redhead eyed the newcomer. “Since when does the night move horizontal?”

  “I think it’s dark matter,” said Huan, dragging on his cigarette.

  “Aren’t the scientists looking for that?”

  “Furiously.”

  “Looks like I picked the wrong day to soak my petri dishes.”

  “There’s always a risk.”

  Bettinger came within smelling range of the quartet. “Any of you have any idea what this is about?”

  Perry motioned to the crime scene. “That?”

  “That.”

  “Somebody doesn’t like cops.”

  Huan exhaled thick tobacco smoke. “I concur.”

  “Should we let the inspector know?” the redhead asked the man from Arizona.

  “I think he has that part already.”

  “Then maybe the press?” Perry raised his eyebrows, which resembled pale caterpillars. “They love it when we give them scoops.”

  “Extra.” Huan’s cigarette glowed. “Extra.”

  Tackley sipped coffee from his stainless-steel thermos, and it was unclear if he was frowning or grinning.

  “In other places I worked, a cop getting killed didn’t inspire jokes,” said Bettinger, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.

  “Where’d you work?” asked Perry. “I bet it was someplace nice, where everybody’s real smart and knows the answer to everything.”

  Huan exhaled smoke. “New Geniusville?”

  “Tell us,” implored the redhead. “Where’d you solve mysteries?”

  Too tired to maintain the prickly circumlocution, Bettinger gestured at the blasted cruiser. “So you don’t have any idea who might’ve done this?”

  “Someone who doesn’t like cops.” Perry shook his head and looked at Huan. “He forgot already.”

  “Any specific ideas?” pressed the man from Arizona.

  “Someone who knows how to operate a hand grenade.”

  Huan’s cigarette glowed. “All the steps.”

  “I got an idea,” said Perry. “Put out an APB for a guy holding a pin.”

  Bettinger turned away from the group, saying, “Corporal Williams,” as he departed.

  “I think he’s irked,” remarked Perry. “Though it’s hard to tell.”

  “Impossible at night.”

  The big fellow joined his partner, and together, they approached the crime scene. Thick parkas and wool hats covered a white guy and black woman who were near the patrol car, unloading photographic gear from a hand truck.

  “You know them?” asked Bettinger.

  “The forensic techs.”

  “What’re their names?”

  Dominic shrugged. “They’re married.”

  The detective watched the technicians photograph the blasted cruiser. Artificial daylight illuminated the empty sockets of the thing that had been Gianetto, and when the black woman repositioned her bulb, a hunk of metal and three teeth glared inside of the corpse’s mouth.

  “This doesn’t concern you?” Bettinger asked Dominic. “Cops getting executed?”

  “Of course it does. I called you, remember?”

  “I’d bet an inch of bills that Zwolinski told you to make that call.”

  “Whatever.”

  The detective glanced over his shoulder. Eighty feet away, Huan and Perry listened to the quiet things that crept out of Tackley’s mouth.

  “Your pals don’t seem real helpful.”

  Dominic gestured at the corpses. “Did you even know who these guys were?”

  “I met Gianetto, but didn’t know him.”

  “And Dave Stanley?”

  “Never met him.”

  “Right.”

  The big fellow nodded his bandaged head and folded his arms. He seemed to believe that he had reached the end of a conversation.

  “Two cops were executed and mutilated,” said the detective. “This is a threat to all of us, and it’s not the time for you and your pals to withhold data and play secret clubhouse.”

  “You’re livin’ in a illustration,” the big fellow proclaimed, “so let me give you a photograph.”

  “Please do.”

  “You’re a cop by the standards of wherever it is you came from—Arizona, right? Someplace warm and easy and far away, where people drink iced tea all day. Me—I’m from Victory, I’m a product of this place. I been a cop here nineteen years, and each of them is like a decade anyplace else.

  “So I understand this city good, and I knew these two guys—Gianetto made a speech at my wedding. But you … you’re a Arizona cop on a field trip. You’re a fuckin’ tourist. You think you know, but you don’t have any idea how this all works. I humor you with this Elaine James shit, but this right here’s somethin’ different.”

  “What is it?”

  Dominic shrugged.

  “Got anything to do with that guy you and Tackley put in ICU?” Bettinger recalled the name. “Sebastian Ramirez?”

  “No.” Anger shone in the big fellow’s eyes. “You investigatin’ me and my partner?”

  “Your former partner. And yes.”

  An open hand thudded against Bettinger’s chest, shaking the buildings and knocking him backwards. The detective set his feet, hardened his fists, and leaned into the forward fighting stance that was second nature to him after years of studying martial arts. In his peripheral vision, he saw a dozen turning heads, including the lumpy one that belonged to Inspector Zwolinski.

  Dominic appraised his opponent and spat on the concrete. Blue steam poured from his nostrils as he walked away from the crime scene, toward Huan, Perry, and Tackley.

  Bettinger wrote Sebastian upon his notepad. Dominic’s reaction had all but confirmed a connection between the brutalized Hispanic and the executions.

  Underlining the name, the detective appraised the quartet of law enforcers who stood in the shadows beside the black sedan. All four men were displaying their backs.

  XX

  Residents of Victory

  The cordoned-off area was mapped and captured by the forensic technicians, and afterward, Bettinger (and other law enforcers) began a door-to-door survey of the buildings on Leonora Street. For twenty minutes, the detective tried to engage tenants who were either unresponsive or hostile.

  Again, he pressed a buzzer.

  “Ring that bell again, and I’ll get my fuckin’ bat!” threatened a woman through her closed front door. “The metal!”

  “I’m a police officer,” Bettinger said, “and I need to speak to you about the shooting that occurred earlier th—”

  “I didn’t see nothin’.”

  “May I come in and get an official—”

  “I ain’t puttin’ on clothes and makeup for this.”

  Talking to a policeman at half past four in the morning was an activity that the citizens of Victory welcomed no more than they would an impromptu proctological examination.

  Bettinger left the irate woman, climbed the steps to the third floor, and approached the apartment there that faced the street. Its door was adorned with a picture of Jesus Christ and a plaque that read OUR SAVIOR.

  Seeing no buzzer, the detective knocked. “Police.”

  Footfalls sounded within the apartment, and the light dimmed in the Lord’s left eye, which was evidently a peephole. “May I see a badge?” inquired a tranquil male voice.

  Bettinger flashed brass.

  “One moment.”

  A chain rattled, and a bolt clacked. The door withdrew into a snug apartment, revealing a plump, bald, and shiny forty-year-old Caucasian fellow who wore a maroon robe and
slippers that looked like sheep.

  “Come on in.” The resident gestured fluidly.

  “Thank you,” said Bettinger, walking inside. The cozy interior was illuminated by the Christmas lights that adorned a fake white pine tree, and the smells of apples and cinnamon saturated the air.

  As the door closed, the detective extended his hand. “Detective Jules Bettinger.”

  “Organist Peter Kesell.”

  They shook hands.

  “Come to take it away?” The shiny musician gestured at the Christmas tree.

  “I’ll let it go if you cooperate.”

  “Would you like something to drink?” Peter Kesell asked through a grin. “I made apple cider last night.”

  “Thank you, but I have a lot to do. I just—”

  “Indulge yourself,” the organist said as he disappeared into a dark portal. “It’s Christmas.” A switch clicked, and an overhead light illuminated a kitchen wall that was inhabited by no fewer than fifty crucified Christs. Soon, Peter Kesell returned, bearing a mug from which emerged steam and a stick of cinnamon.

  “Thank you,” Bettinger said as he accepted the beverage.

  “Where’re you from? New Mexico? Colorado?”

  “Arizona.” The detective sipped the cider, which had a delicious and particularly complex flavor. “You’ve done something remarkable here.”

  “Thank you.” The shiny fellow glowed with pride.

  Bettinger gestured at the window that faced Leonora. “Did you see or hear anything?”

  “A gunshot woke me up. I heard some other shots and an explosion—though for obvious reasons, I stayed away from the windows…”

  Drinking an apple, the detective nodded.

  “When I thought it was over,” Peter Kesell resumed, “I looked. There was a lot of smoke, but I’m pretty sure I saw a van driving away—one of those long ones.”

  “A cargo van?”

  “Yes.”

  Bettinger returned the mug to his host and opened his notepad. “What color?”

  “Brown or black. Maybe dark blue. I’m sorry … there was a lot of smoke.”

  “Any marks on the van?” the detective inquired as he distributed graphite between blue lines.