On The Edge

by Daniel Cleaver

  “I’m a single woman. I’m in control of who I sleep with.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so,” Candy replied and then asked quizzically, “Is that why I’m here, for sleeping with men? You’re going to have to kill practically every adult woman in the United States.”

  “Not at all. Only harlots.”

  “How in the hell am I a harlot? I’m better than most of my friends, I sleep with a guy I like and hope that will lead somewhere, but that doesn’t always work out. That’s just life, I guess.”

  “No man wants to marry a whore, who gives away her treasures so freely, you debase the value of chastity, you debase yourself.”

  “Debase, are you nuts? Well, clearly you are nuts. To take a cop, you know what’ll they do, don’t you?”

  “They’ve been so good at catching me so far,” the Hangman sneered.

  “They’ll work out who you are.”

  “Not anytime soon and certainly not in time to save your wretched hide.”

  “Look, enough is enough. You’re clearly insane, let me go and I’ll do what I can to help you. I doubt you’ll get the death penalty because it’s totally obvious that you are insane. They may even need to redefine their categories because I don’t think they have one to describe your peculiar level of madness. But what it does mean is that you’ll be sent to a secure sanitarium, where you won’t be able to harm any more innocent –”

  “Innocent!?” the Hangman raged. “Innocent! I only kill whores and to be frank, I do a good job for society by putting them out of their misery.”

  “Oh, so they should thank you?”

  “They’ve lost their way, they grub about offering their bodies to all the dirty dogs, not caring who they touch, or who touches them, or what they may catch, spreading their filthy diseases. If they don’t care for themselves, then perhaps they are better off dead. I’m cleaning the street of whores and sluts; the world should thank me.”

  “You’re a regular Jack the Ripper? He was just as insane, but he was dealing with prostitutes.”

  “You’re worse. You give away your body for free, to anyone that asks. You are a whore and you will die a whore’s death.”

  The Hangman pushed a switch and the flat-bed of the table started to lift slowly, an engine hummed as it moved the head end upwards.

  “What are you doing? What is going on?”

  “You’ll see soon enough. You are going to be punished for your crimes.”

  “What crimes? I haven’t done anything that is against the law.”

  “Crimes against the law of common decency.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your slutty behavior.”

  “Like what?”

  “Having your tongue pierced.”

  “My – how do you know about that? I don’t even wear it to work.”

  “I know everything.”

  “I have my tongue pierced, so what?” Candy said defiantly.

  “Why do you have your tongue pierced? It’s to give a man pleasure, isn’t it?” The Hangman moved in closer to her. “Hoping he’ll come back for more, wagging his tail like a rutting dog.”

  “It’s a fashion statement,” Candy said. “It shows that I’m independent.”

  “A likely story. You had your tongue mutilated to give strange men pleasure and you don’t think you’re a whore? You don’t even have a regular boyfriend.”

  “So?”

  “It means that you had it done to pleasure strangers, ergo, you are a slut.”

  “Stop, please, you don’t have to do this,” Candy said, straining against her restraints.

  “Oh, but I do,” the Hangman’s metallic voice boomed.

  “And you’ve pierced your nether region.”

  “How do you . . .?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, well, but. . .”

  “No buts, missy, are you going to claim that it’s another fashion statement?”

  “They’re a secret for me to know –”

  “And for men to find out? You really do deserve this punishment.”

  “You are clearly off your rocker,” Candy laughed.

  The Hangman threw a noose over her head.

  “No stop, I’m sorry, please stop.”

  “Too late.”

  “It’s not too late,” Candy begged and started to cry again.

  “It was too late when you decided to behave like a hussy. Your days were numbered. You signed your own death warrant. It would only be a matter of time before you caught a deadly disease. I’m just speeding up the process.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Oh, but I do and it’s your fault. You’re making me do this.”

  “Stop, I’m begging you.”

  The table stopped in an almost vertical position and Candy slumped against the binds attached to her arms and legs. The Hangman switched on the camera and announced to the salivating audience, “Good evening, my friends. Tonight, as promised, you will witness a deserving candidate being hanged, drawn and quartered.” The Hangman bowed with a flourish.

  “Stop it please!” Candy begged.

  “First the hanging . . .”

  Candy’s bladder relaxed and the Hangman noticed. “Oh, you dirty girl, look what you’ve done.”

  “Please stop this.”

  The Hangman adjusted the focus on a handheld device. Candy’s eyes widened in fear. Not only was she going to die in agony, but also it was going to be seen live on the internet for all the sick perverts to enjoy. It would spread onto the mainstream sites, the ones that file under ‘humor’ such things as people being run over, beaten to a pulp, or jumping to their death. God, the indignity of it all. Candy could not resign herself to this fate: had the recording been on already, was the camera already filming her and she had not seen it? Was everyone going to hear the taunt of her being a whore, only existing to please men? She muttered a silent prayer to God.

  “It’s too late for repentance, my dear. But pray if you think it’s going to help.” The Hangman addressed the camera. “Now, ladies and gentlemen watching at home, as promised a victim, who has volunteered to be hanged, drawn and quartered for your viewing pleasure.”

  “No, no, no, I did not volunteer. You people watching out there, you can stop this – I’m going to die. Phone the police. This is wrong, you know it’s wrong.” The noose rope started to straighten.

  Candy looked up at a whirring sound and she saw the noose heading upwards pulled by a motor and knew it was only a matter of seconds before it tightened around her neck. The Hangman undid the binds fastened around Candy’s ankles and had to move quickly as she kicked out. The rope tightened and Candy grimaced as the rope slowly squeezed. . .

  Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 – 21:45.

  The captain took a call and his face dropped; he shut his cellphone and said, “We’ve got a suspicious death, up in the canyons – again.” He shrugged on his businesslike sports jacket that he wheeled out for special occasions.

  “Are ya coming, too, Captain?” I asked in surprise.

  “We’re all going.”

  “How come?”

  “The media are all over the case. It’s a celebrity. It’s a celebrity and bizarre circumstances.” His face turned ashen. “Very bizarre circumstances.”

  We drove up to the canyon in three different cars.

  “Mermaids are real, though,” said Sheldon.

  “No, they are not,” Elvis said through gritted teeth.

  This row had been going on since Milo had mentioned vampires earlier. We’d gone through werewolves, mummies and zombies, now we’d move on to Disney characters by the sound of it. I tried to tune ’em out.

  “What about elves?”

  “No way, man.”

  “But I’ve seen them.”

  “No, you ain’t.”

  “Cool it, guys, we’re here.”

  Uniformed cops had kept the media and onlookers ba
ck. The media were in a frenzy. Donnie Deathstar had always led a colorful life, plenty of scandals and any story about him would sell newspapers by the bucket load, but this was beyond their wildest dreams. Rumors were spreading like crazy on the gossip websites, but no matter how strange the rumors were, nothing would be as weird as the truth. The pressmen and -women fired questions at us as we walked up to the scene of crime tape and ducked underneath it. We flicked our credentials at the uniformed cop leaning against one of the many police black and white vehicles and approached the rim of the canyon. We waited as a giant, truck-mounted crane hoisted the burnt-out Harley-Davidson motorcycle from the bottom of the canyon and the skeleton of the chopper swung in the air like a rotting corpse on a hangman’s noose. The press went wild and snapped away at the ghoulish sight. I noticed two news helicopters, Channels 9 and 5 circling overhead, as the captain signaled for us to move on down. He stayed behind to field questions from the press as we approached the crash barrier.

  George McGinty snorted. “Hey, you’ll never guess what?” he said excitedly. “I saw a couple having sex right here last night. Doing it standing up naked as jay birds for the whole wide world to see.”

  “Get away,” Milo gasped.

  “I swear on my children’s lives. My eyes popped out and I nearly drove over the edge myself!”

  “Do you think that’s what happened to Donnie Deathstar? Did he get distracted by them and shoot over?” Mia asked.

  “No,” George scoffed. “You can see where he hit the crash barrier, this ain’t a murder, it’s going to be a suicide. You can tell he must have hit that barrier at sixty, seventy miles an hour.”

  The captain overheard his comments and said, “We’ll dust the crash barrier for prints anyway.”

  “Is that really necessary, Captain?” I said too quickly as I realized that was where Mia and I had sat last night and our prints would be all over it. “Can’t help thinking it’d be a waste of time,” I managed to add in a more even voice.

  “We ought to be thorough,” he said, “especially with the eyes of the world watching us.” He cocked a thumb back at the mob of reporters.

  “Oh shoot!” Mia said as she pretended to trip and stumbled against the crash barrier, just about where we’d had sex.

  “Are you okay?” I asked and gently sat her on the crash barrier and sat next to her, roughly in the positions we were in last night. “Well done,” I whispered.

  She winked and smiled seductively and whispered back. “I want you. Now.”

  I gulped, looked around at the others as if they could tell, but most were taking up typical cool, cop poses in case they made the news that night. They were far too distracted. But not as distracted as me after Mia’s statement. I thought of the severed hand and that helped take my mind off her offer of sex.

  Slightly.

  Ferdy and the fingerprint geeks looked mad that we were sitting in the middle of the crime scene. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly. Held my hands up and wiggled my fingers. “You’ll have ours on record, right?”

  He nodded and opened his kit and sighed as if I’d made his day ten times worse. However, I knew he was wasting his time. I knew what had happened, but I tried to make myself forget as best I could so that I could be shocked and surprised when they discovered the news. We climbed over the safety barrier and started down a well-worn path; it was steep and Milo and George stumbled a couple of times. Mia was sure-footed and went on ahead and said, “Dig your heels in, like this,” she demonstrated and made sure that with every step that she was forcing her heel back into the soft dirt. I followed literally in her footsteps, as did the others. Five minutes later, I was sweating with the exertion and was wondering how we were going to get back up when the slope gently bottomed out and the descent became easier until we reached the basin of the canyon where, once again, the scene of crime technicians had set up a tent.

  It was hot inside the tent without the wind to cool me down and the body smelled bad. Donnie Deathstar had broken his neck, which was a shame; he died too quickly for my liking. Maybe he just had time to reflect on the misery he’d inflicted on the young girls as he plummeted to his death, but I doubted it.

  “Holy crap!” George said. “Is that his pecker sticking out?” He pointed at Ronnie’s groin.

  The medical examiner turned and said, “The crotch had been deliberately cut away.”

  “You mean he was cruising with his pecker out?” George asked in astonishment. “Why’s he got a hard-on?”

  “My preliminary check would suggest that he was injecting something into his penis to maintain a permanent erection.”

  “What the hell is wrong with him? Why would you pump drugs into your pecker, cut the crotch from your pants and then drive up here to kill yourself?”

  Mia said, “We’ll probably never know why. My guess is that he wanted to go out in style and be remembered forever.”

  “Well, he’s got his infamy alright.” George pointed. “Look, nipple clamps, Jesus. The press will freak. His death has gone global already on the internet and even the people that had never heard of him before will know who he is now.”

  The medical examiner licked his lips. “I not sure it was suicide. . .”

  Mia shot me a look. “Why not?” she asked him.

  “It seems a crazy way to kill yourself, there was no guarantee. He could’ve broken his back and spent his life in a wheelchair.”

  I said, “He dropped two hundred feet, I think death’s pretty certain.”

  “Mmm, I guess that’s true. . .”

  “As Mia suggested, he wanted to go out in style, in a blaze of glory, so he would be remembered forever. Mission accomplished, I reckon.”

  “Well, I’ll make my decision after I’ve carried out all my tests: it’s the weirdest suicide I’ve ever seen and I’ve been covering Hollywood for ten years.”

  Mia and I low-fived out of sight, then trudged back up the slope. The sun was burning my back and I was out of breath by the time I reached the rim of the canyon. Mia had scooted on ahead, picking handholds as well as footholds, and made it look effortless. As I made it to the top, she pulled me over to the crash barrier and she faked a fall onto the metal again.

  Ferdy looked up aghast. “You’re kidding me, right?” he said in disbelief. “I hadn’t dusted there yet.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” I said. “He clipped the top of the barrier, ya can see where the impact was and the motorcycle burst into flames –”

  “How could you possibly know that?” he asked suspiciously.

  Mia shot me a warning glance and I swallowed hard before answering. “It’s obvious: he made no contact with any other objects before hitting the bottom.”

  “It could’ve exploded on impact at the bottom of the canyon,” he offered.

  “Ya can see burned trees all the way down, so it must’ve been on fire from the top,” I said with my arms wide as if I had solved the case.

  He looked over the slope and nodded as if he agreed with my diagnosis. “You’re probably right,” he said with a shrug. “Now, if you could vacate the area without touching anything else. That’s without touching anything else.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Mr. Yoon’s, corner of Driftwood & Speedway, Venice Beach, CA 90292 – 22:30.

  I’d invited Mia back to mine and I called into Mr. Yoon’s convenience store where Sharron had worked. I still wanted to find out more about her and her lifestyle, wondering if that would offer up any clues. “You again,” the owner said with open hostility. Grateful as ever. “What you want now?”

  “Just a chat.”

  “No time to chit-chat. I busy man. The cops shut me down for hours, make it crime scene and questions, so many questions.”

  “Maybe next time I’ll let him rob ya,” I said.

  “Please do. He would only get couple hundred bucks and cigarettes. I lost more money with cops all around. Bad for business. You bad for business.”

  “Ok, you win, next time I’l
l let him shoot ya,” I said.

  He didn’t like that idea but wouldn’t concede. “What you want?”

  “I wanna talk to you about Sharron.”

  “Who?”

  Here we go again! “Sharron,” I said again only to be confronted by his blank glare. “She worked here. The one that was murdered,” I urged and received a vacant, dopey stare for my trouble.

  I turned to Mia who said, “You have to wonder how many of his employees have been murdered.”

  I prompted, “The one with all the metal in her face.”

  “Oh, her,” he said.

  “Yah, her,” I said.

  “What about her?”

  “What was she like? What were her interests?” Mia asked him.

  “I wanna know where she hung out,” I asked, joining in. “Who her friends were.”

  “Don’t know. Too busy for chit-chat. She no good. No show many times.”

  “Why was that?”

  “She tried to be actress. She get audition. She go. No tell me. Very bad.”

  “Where did she live?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you look it up for me on her employment records?” Mia suggested.

  “Can’t lay my hand on records right now.”

  Ah, so that’s what his problem was, he was paying her cash. Cheap labor, off the books. I had a feeling he was up to no good, doing something illegal.

  “I’m just trying to make living,” he said, guessing I knew his secret.

  I decided to ignore the misdemeanor. Weighing up the time it would take and the cost of the prosecution would be all out of proportion. More importantly, it would now take over a day to get the paperwork right, then anything up to a day in court. I thought those two days would be better spent on the streets trying to capture the Hangman. A gang of youths wearing blue bandanas associated with the Crips swaggered in.

  The owner eyed them nervously and said, “You tell them to leave.”

  “Uhuh, ya didn’t want my help.”

  The gang fooled around, chucking fruit at one another.

  “I change mind.”

  “We’re off duty,” I said, indicating Mia and me, as we both enjoyed his discomfort.