Houston, 2030: The Year Zero

by Mike McKay

  Chapter 7

  The family woke up even earlier than usual: William, Clarice, and Davy targeted to the Beaumont Loop.

  Mark delivered Mr. Todd's message as promised. “I don't think you have to go, Clarice,” he added, “back and forth, it will be over ten miles. With your tummy, I would stick to our marketplace, if I were you.”

  “If the Senior Officer says so, we must go,” Clarice said.

  My daughter-in-law took the stupid Salvation Way programs a notch too seriously, Mark observed.

  From December, Clarice started playing a little game with Davy. “Show me – Daddy's hands!” The toddler would wiggle his own fingers in the air. “Here are Daddy's hands! Now show me Daddy's eyes!” Davy would point to his own eyes. “Here are Daddy's eyes! Now show me Daddy's legs!” Bang! Bang! The little boy slapped his hand on the Dad's knees. “Right! Here are Daddy's legs!” The boy understood his Dad now had two legs, but no hands and no eyes, – and was happy to provide his own as a replacement.

  The Salvation Way ending of the game Mark did not like at all. “Now tell me, Davy: who is your Daddy?” – “A vet!” – “What is the red bucket for?” – “Salvation Way!” “And how do we ask for donations, Davy?” – “Change for Vets!”

  “Despite Mister Todd is called a Senior Officer,” Mark said, “who the hell is he to give you such an order? Just say ‘no’.”

  But Clarice smiled: “Mister Todd has a point. Other collectors say the Beaumont Loop is pretty darn good. After five, the 'Fill workers go to the local watering holes with their pockets full of money!”

  Yes, full of money! An average adult rag-picker made three hundred, maximum three hundred and fifty, a day. How much in the pre-Meltdown dollars? Two dollars and eighty cents! Back then, it would hardly buy a single beer. The good news, now the booze was relatively cheaper. Thirty bucks for a glass of local beer, forty – for a shot of Moonshine. The former contained various substitutes instead of barley, was unfiltered, and frequently went sour. The latter was a certified poison, but all these minor issues did not prevent the landfill workers spending their daily wages in the endless saloons strategically positioned along the highway.

  “No need to walk the whole ten miles,” Mike said, “in the morning, I can take you three to the cemetery on my trike. You will attend the funerals, then walk back slowly. Still quite a distance.”

  “Excellent!” Clarice clapped her hands, “are we going?”

  “Mike needs to be at his plant before seven. If I understand you right, you propose to wake up at five tomorrow?” William disagreed. “And what the hell will we be doing at the empty cemetery between seven and ten?”

  “I know! Not a problem,” Clarice said, “Instead of the cemetery, Mike will drop us at Day-Pay. Right? It runs six to nine. After nine, we have plenty of time to get to the cemetery, it's not far at all.”

  “The Day-Pay collection is crap,” William said. “Too much competition. Besides, the job-seekers don't have much to donate. They are sitting at the Day-Pay because they have no job, remember?”

  Clarice kissed William in the ear. “Pumpkin, we must go. Frankly, I'm pretty bored doing our market every day. Please, please, please… Besides, our Davy has not been to the Beaumont Highway yet!”

  She said ‘the Beaumont Highway’ as if talking of Disneyland or Six Flags Over Texas. Of course, she meant that little arcade, with electronic games, a Merry-Go-Round, and Bumper Cars! The owner had to run his own electric generator at the back, but despite the expensive gas – still turned profit. Kids were kids. Even the grown-up-and-pregnant kids, like Clarice.

  Before the Meltdown, life had way more fun. Mark and Mary did not like sitting at home on the weekends. They took William and Michael to all kinds of entertainment places. The NASA Space Center, thirty-five miles. The Houston Museum District – twenty. The Schlitterbanh water park in Galveston – fifty miles. Or even the huge, famous Schlitterbanh in the New Braunfels, and all the attractions in San-Antonio, one hundred and ninety miles away! A fifty-miles drive was quite comfortable, save for the usual ‘Are we there yet?’ moaning from the back seat. Two hundred miles weekend trip, with a motel stay overnight, was not too difficult. The magic of effortless travel, performed by almost every adult American with a car and a tank-full of gas!

  Now the plan for Davy's day trip: ride a cargo trike to the landfill, hang around the noisy labor market, and attend boring funerals. The latter has some excitement nonetheless, – a rifle salute! After the cemetery, collect charity with his Dad from saloon to saloon and from bar to bar, until Mom points out: look, Davy, THE ARCADE! They will buy tickets for the Merry-Go-Round. The little boy will wait in a long line, excited. Finally, he will cling to the back of a fiberglass pony, doing loop after loop, watching thousands of color lights, enjoying the ride. All three and a half minutes of it!

  “OK, honey, if you insist,” William said. “The real pity, I'm going to miss The Fugitive re-run on SRTV tonight. With Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones! I like that part, when Deputy Gerard blows off the man's head and says: I don't bargain…”

  “You have seen it approximately two hundred times, pumpkin,” Clarice kissed her husband again, now in the lips.

  “Not in my brand-new twenty-twenty vision, honey,” William smiled, returning the kiss. The ‘twenty-twenty’ was William's latest joke. Apparently, his left eye had a twenty-twenty vision: twenty-by-twenty pixels, to be exact.

  “I will get your uniform ready,” Clarice said, “the medal – too!”

  There was a little delay. Once they started snogging, Clarice could not physically stop for at least five minutes. Finally, she unwrapped herself from her husband and stumbled to the neighbor, Mrs. Kong, to borrow a coal-iron. An invention of the local blacksmith: old electric irons gutted, with perforated metal boxes for hot coals installed under the handle…

  They departed home at six: Mark on his bike and the others on Mike's cargo tricycle. For a mile, Mike puffed on pedals, trying to keep up with Mark, but finally gave up and told Mark to ride on. Mark turned to C.E.King Parkway, and continued to the Station. He and Kim spent another morning checking the database hits for Hobsons, this time – at the GRS west. A few minutes past one, Mark's phone beeped, – their ‘TV volunteer’ brought her funerals' video. Mark rode to the Station as fast as he could, – the address search today was fruitless, and he held some, perhaps unnecessary high, hopes for the video.

  At the Station conference room, Tom introduced Mark their volunteer agent – a girl about sixteen. A typical rag-picker: barefoot, in military pants, ragged T-shirt, and with wide-brimmed straw hat behind her back. Her ears were pierced in no less than ten places, with an impressive collection of earrings. Over the neck, she had a massive necklace made of colorful Lego bricks, with matching Lego bracelets on her left wrist and her right ankle. An elaborate tattoo started at the girl's neck and ended up on her cheek: half-Hydra, half-plant, with snake heads growing next to leaves and flowers. One Hydra head on the cheek was not yet fully punched-in, just a black contour and a diamond-shaped eye.

  “Alice is our neighbor,” Tom said. “Currently she's between the jobs, and goes to the Day-Pay in the morning, so nothing conspicuous. Even better: they know her well at SRTV…”

  “You're lying, Tom,” Alice rotated her Lego bracelet, “SRTV only used my footage once, so far!”

  “Are you a real rag-picker, or is it a make-believe for today?” Mark asked shaking the girl's hand.

  “A real scav,” she said. Her handshake was confident and firm, almost macho-style. “I've been around the 'Fill for almost five years.”

  She pointed to the corner, and Mark saw a well-used straw basket with landfill tools: a hook on four-foot bamboo handle, a spear-like probe with a long nail for the tip, and a pair of scav-skis. The yard-long wooden planks with flip-flop straps at the top helped rag-pickers over unstable garbage.

  Tom inserted
the camera's memory stick into his laptop. “We forced to higher ISO and one over two hundred exposure, so each frame is as sharp as possible,” he explained. The video on the wall LCD panel started rolling.

  “I came forty minutes before the service, as Tom told me,” Alice said. “Here comes the local competition,” she pointed to the screen. There was another young woman with a handheld camera, preparing to roll the footage. “She asked me why the heck I'm filming on her territory. I lied that I volunteered for Salvation Way…” They anticipated this. Mr. Todd was informed, and if asked he would confirm they ordered Alice a short video for the charity promotion.

  Exactly as Mark agreed with Mr. Todd, there were no photos of victims in front of the chapel. They set the slightly doctored postmortem shots inside, next to the closed coffins. If somebody attended the service just for the purpose of learning the identity of the dead, he or she would have to pass through the front doors.

  The grave diggers appeared first, readily recognized by their somewhat dirty pants' knees and footwear. Then, there were eight men in Salvationists' uniforms: a five-strong brass band and three volunteers with rifles. The band lined up at the entrance and started playing a remote resemblance of funeral music. After filming outside for a little while, Alice walked inside the chapel and took position close to the caskets at the tiny stage. The entire hall, with neat rows of benches, and the entrance door – were perfectly framed.

  “You are pretty good with the camera, Alice,” Alan said. “Don't waste your talent at McCarty Road.”

  She smiled. “If anybody paid me for shooting videos, I wouldn't be looking for day jobs at the 'Fill! Anyway, watch this. A bit unusual for the funerals…”

  The camera panned along the room and zoomed towards the rear. Mark briefly mentioned Clarice, with little Davy on her laps, and William, in his uniform and with freshly polished Purple Heart, sitting in the fifth row.

  “This one,” Alice pointed, “the girl in crimson tunic.”

  On the screen, an Amerasian woman in her mid-twenties, slowly walked towards the stage. She stopped and glimpsed at the victims' photographs. Then, as if she could not decide if to leave immediately or wait, she wandered around the chapel and finally landed at the rear bench, next to the entrance.

  “Look at her dress,” Alan smiled, “I can bet my last cup of real coffee she works for a pimp.”

  “Reverse the video, Tom,” Natalie asked. “I need a clear shot for the face-rec.”

  By the time they finished the video, Natalie walked in with the good news:

  “We have a positive hit! Jennifer, or Jen Lien, born in 2006. Her juvenile criminal record – as long as my arm. She tried all the usual: small-volume drug pushing, petty burglary, underage prostitution, illegal pregnancy termination, you name it. According to our intel, now Jen works as a pass girl for a pimp named Joe Vo.”

  “Vo?” Alan said, “a smart cookie, apparently. Will be difficult to make him talk…”

  “Fortunately enough, we are not the Sex Trade division,” Mark pointed out. “Our task is not to jail the pimp, or this Jen Lien, but just squeeze them for some intel, – and only if they know anything at all.”

  “If sending the crooks to jail is not your priority, Mark, I can arrange a set-up,” Alan said. “Let me make several calls to my old criminal underground friends. Just to warn you, it wouldn't hold fifty seconds in front of any judge…”

  As soon as Mark walked into his office, his telephone rang.

  “Mister P!” Sergeant Zuiko sounded promising, “you don't believe what I found for sale at the Garret Road market!”

  “Tell me.”

  “A bike. Half-price, and in excellent working order.”

  “The excellent order is excellent, and the half-price is even better, but not a big surprise,” Mark already could guess, but did not want to spoil Alex the punch-line.

  “With the bike, I also got a fine gentleman who calls himself Joe Smith. I don't buy this for his real name, naturally, but we will rectify this in due time… Right, Mister… Smith?” The last remark was spoken loudly, to somebody on the other side of the line.

  “Anyway, Mister… let's say, Smith, has a pair of perfectly good legs. He never broke his leg, believe it or not. How he ran from us, nothing wrong with the legs at all… Not until you suddenly break one, that is. Accidents happen all the time, Mister… still: Smith? The longer you call yourself Joe Smith, the higher the chance of an accident… Oh, that is not for the phone, this is for my friend Joe here. Anyway, the bike Mister Smith tried to sell, it has very peculiar right pedal. With a brace. Right, as for a prosthetic leg! What? It belonged to your uncle, Joe? He had no leg? And I am your Bolshoi Ballet dancer, Joe. Ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta…” Alex probably trying to show ‘Mr. Smith’ the Swan Lake now, Mark imagined. Sarge had two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle, this would be comical.

  Only if it was not scary! The Russian accent was authentic, and the matter-of-fact tone – extremely convincing. “Sorry, it's again to our friend here. We are having a conversation most interesting. Trying to communicate, so to speak. Did I ever tell you what I did to that ballet dancer, back in Moscow? Tovarisch had a peculiar interest in young boys… That is ‘Moscow, Russia,’ Joe, not ‘Moscow, Texas!’ He is, like, don't touch my legs, don't touch my legs… And I am: who am I to ever touch your legs, man? Am I a barbarian? I have respect for the classic ballet, do I? No-o-o, I did not touch his wonderful legs. Just between the legs… the other things. Now, he must be so grateful: nothing interferes with his stellar performance… As for you, Joe… You are not a ballet dancer, by chance? No? Outstanding! I already imagine a heavy office desk, – which may suddenly fall on somebody's leg, dear Joe. Such a cruelty, so difficult to explain. – Sometimes, in the night, I ask myself: Sarge, what are you doing in the Police? What are you doing? Sad, very sad indeed…”

  “Excellent catch, Alex. How sure are you about Mister Smith's one-legged uncle?” Mark asked. It seemed they had a lucky strike of the day.

  “I forgot to mention the most important thing. It's a mountain bike, twenty-six inch. The rear tire has a patch on it, as our CSI saw at the dirt trail you-know-where. Anyway, that's all from my side – for now. Kim and I will deliver our new friend Joe to the Station. He will sit next to my heavy, heavy desk and we will have – further conversation…”

  …Three hours later, Mark was facing a disheveled man in his mid-fifties, with mouse-like facial features.

  “Mister Joe Heller,” Alex introduced his ‘friend.’ “Upon the investigation, we got few things straight. Mister Heller got the bike two days ago. He will tell you everything in his own words, right, Mister Heller?”

  “Look, I am so sorry. I have a family to feed…”

  “Never mind, Mister Heller. If you are completely honest with us, we will not press charges. Tell the FBI agent what you have told me.”

  “Sure, sir. As I said, I was walking through the woods, at about ten PM…”

  “How precise is the time?” Mark asked.

  “I always leave work at nine sharp. Takes me about an hour to walk home. I have no watch…”

  “You always walk the same route?”

  “Pretty much so, sir.”

  “OK, please continue.”

  “Then, I heard a noise in the woods, unusual.”

  “Unusual?”

  “Oh, so to say. I hear noises every night. People chatting, kissing, having a fu… sex, I mean. Once, I stumbled upon a sado-maso. She was all in leather, with a riding stick, and he was handcuffed to a tree…”

  “So, let me get it right, you like stalking lovers in the woods?”

  “No, sir. Never!”

  “Remember, we agreed to have one hundred percent honesty here,” Alex pointed. “You stole the bike, ran from the Police, resisted arrest… Regretfully, we must send you to jail, after all…”

  “OK, I confess!
I do… watch… sometimes.”

  “Fine. And so, you were walking through the woods and heard something unusual…”

  “Oh, yes… It was like somebody ripped heavy material. Trrr-rip! I thought: if lucky, it will be another sado-maso, or a wild sex. Ripping clothes apart, my favorite…”

  “So?”

  “So I pulled a bit back and went around the bush. You have to be very careful, or may get into trouble… Then, I opened the branches. Just a bit. And looked. One guy – on the blanket, the other – fu… I mean: had sex with the girl.”

  “Are you sure they had sex?” Mark asked. A witness with wild imagination – what could be worse?

  “I meant: it looked like the guy was having her. Because the girl was on the ground, and he was sitting over. I thought: nothing special. Two guys sharing a hooker. One is already done and having a nap, the other decided to use the girl… through the rear. Make all the money worth, so to speak…”

  “Wait! How could you make all these details? Was it dark?”

  “No, sir. They had an electric lantern on the blanket…”

  “Why did you think the girl was a hooker?”

  “The guy moved up and down, but the girl was still. I thought: she doesn't like rear sex, but took the money – must do the work… But then, the guy stood up. He had a chunk of meat and a knife. They hadn't sex, he cut her bottom, see? I nearly shit my pants! First, he put the meat into a bag. On the ground, he had a bag, like a small backpack. He wiped the knife with a rag.”

  “What did he do with the rag?”

  “Put it in the bag pocket, sir.”

  “And the knife?”

  “I didn't see how he hid the knife. He was sideways to me, like this… Maybe, dropped in the bag too… Then, he walked to the blanket and clicked the lantern off.”

  “And then?”

  “Went towards the road. I didn't want to have a better view, you understand…”

  “How the man looked like?”

  “All dressed in black. Black jeans, black canvas shoes. Black shirt. Long sleeves. Only his gloves were white. Like those work gloves, with little dots…”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No. He had like a ski mask. A balaclava – that's what they call those. Also black.”

  “Was he tall?” Alex asked.

  “Average, but well-built. About your size, sir.”

  “Anything else you mention?”

  “No. I was too scared…”

  “At what time did he leave the clearing?”

  “Oh, I am not sure. Felt a long while to me. Now I guess – no more than five minutes. Ten – max.”

  “OK. You are telling me the killer left the clearing towards the trail around 10:05 or 10:15?”

  “…Yes… I would say so. Yes.”

  “And what did you do next?”

  “I waited for twenty minutes. In the bush. I was shit scared, the guy comes back and sees me… Then, I came out. Looked at the guy on the blanket. He was dead. Looked at the girl – she was dead too. Well, I started to the trail. Suddenly, – I saw the bike against the tree. I thought: the killer is on-foot. If I have the bike, would be far better chance not to meet him again.”

  “If you rode the same direction the killer went, you would overtake him on the bike. One trail: left or right. Fifty-fifty chance.”

  “He had a good head start: twenty minutes… Besides, I decided to go to Pineland instead of the dirt trail. So I took the bike and rode straight home.”

  “Did you see anybody on the road?”

  “On Pineland. A couple walking hand-in-hand. Lovers…”

  “How far from the clearing?”

  “Half a mile, I suppose… Then, I came home: oh, shit! I have been in the woods, I have the bike. They will suspect me for a killer… The following day – the TV news… So I decided to sell the bike at once.”

  “You would have done yourself and us far better service if you rode to the Police Beat instead of hiding at home,” Alex said, “but considering… I can't blame you…”

  It took them another hour to prepare a statement and make Mr. Heller to sign it. They let the witness go, but not before obtaining and cross-checking his exact address.

  “Not bad for a day of work,” Mark concluded. “Now we have a reasonable lead to the female vic ID, but most importantly, this is the first time someone has seen our Butcher at the crime scene.”

  “Yes, better than nothing,” Alex said. “The closest we ever had before, was that Indomerican couple, case number eleven. If I am not mistaken…”

  “I remember it too. At that time, we couldn't connect the dots… Want to listen again?” Mark unlocked his computer screen. “Here it is, transcribed and back-linked to the audio…”

  A woman voice came from the laptop speakers: “…a little noise in the bush. Somebody on the path in front of us. Radjeev said: we should wait. If they were another couple? Who would like bumping into each other? Then, we saw a man, he was alone, walking away from us. I told Raji: so weird…”

  “Away from you? How far was he from you when he came to the path?” Mark's voice said on the audio.

  “Not sure. Two hundred or two hundred and fifty feet? I'm not good at distances… Besides, it was dark. The path is all under the trees. Shady.”

  “Describe me how the man was dressed.”

  “Military style, khaki, nothing special. Trainers. Those sport shoes with textile top. I always wanted such for myself, but difficult to find even second-hand, – they don't make them anymore. And he had a little backpack. That's all.”

  “You said, it was weird? Because you expected to see a couple, and he was alone?”

  “No, not that. How he walked.”

  “What was unusual?”

  “He was not on the road! Walked on the grass, next to the bush. And so quiet. No footsteps. Apart from this, nothing unusual: not running or anything…”

  Mark hit the stop button. “She gave a very generic description. Average height, about five-nine. Well-built. Her boyfriend's story matched perfectly. This could have been our man, what do you think, Alex?”

  “Trained in special ops. Quiet walking and all. Or perhaps, he is very smart. Figured out he had been seen, yet cool enough not to run and even not to leave any footprints. Forensic-aware, exactly as your profilers said…”

  After the interview with the Indomerican couple, Alan Moss had high expectations. The weather being reasonably wet, they might obtain the killer's footprints. The CSIs declared three hundred yards of the path, – from the place the couple saw the man to the nearest road intersection, – a crime scene. For three days, Natalie even slept in the woods. Together with Tom, she identified, photographed and cataloged an enormous number of distinct footprints: over one hundred shod and a couple of hundred barefoot, but two-thirds of the latter were clearly children-size. The vast majority of shoe imprints came from tire flip-flops. There were five or six imprints of army boots, and even one made by women dress shoes, but nothing was linked to a pair of trainers. Finally, Major Ferelli called the CSIs off. They were not even sure the man in khaki clothes and trainers was ‘their’ target! Now, the information obtained from Joe Heller made Mark believe they had abandoned their search too early.