by Bavo Dhooge
Tersago waved a hand at the empty container, as if it were a chic boutique on the day after Black Friday.
“What’s new, Styxie?”
“I was about to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“You haven’t heard? The Stuffer’s notched up another one.”
“Yeah, I heard it on the radio,” said Tersago. He’d told Styx once that his childhood dream was to be a policeman. “Didn’t happen on my beat, though.”
On his beat, as if he actually was a cop on patrol.
“You didn’t see anything?” asked Styx.
“If I had, my friend, you don’t think you’d already know about it? What, you don’t trust me anymore?”
“Just making sure, Terry, that’s all. This case is really starting to piss me off.”
“I know where you’re comin’ from,” said Tersago empathetically, as if he and Styx were buddies, “but I’ve got something else for you, man. Something to take away your pain and put you in a better mood.”
Styx was so preoccupied with the investigation into the third murder that he’d completely forgotten today was payday. Tersago pulled a bulging white envelope from an inside pocket.
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he grinned.
Styx looked at the outstretched hand and the envelope it held, but made no move to take it.
“Yeah, I almost forgot.”
“Almost forgot? What’s the matter with you? You don’t need it? What, did you win the Lotto? Get a raise?”
“I just forgot,” said Styx.
“You really don’t trust me anymore, do you?”
“It’s got nothing to do with trust,” said Styx.
“No? What, then? There’s three thousand euros here, Styxie. That’s a month’s pay for doing nothing. Specifically for doing nothing.”
“I know, but—”
“But what? You understand it usually works the other way around, right? You pay me for information, if information’s what you’re after.”
Styx stared so intently at the thick white rectangle that Tersago finally looked down at it, too, as if he didn’t know how it had gotten into his hand. Shelley barked, putting his own two cents in, and Styx took the envelope. The dog’s barking echoed off the walls of the container.
“Good boy,” Tersago told them both. “Your friend there smells a treat.”
Styx stuffed the envelope in his back pocket. This wasn’t the first time he’d been greased to keep his mouth shut about the shady goings-on in the harbor, but it was beginning to eat at him that he did so little to earn the bribes he received. He didn’t even have to look the other way. All he did was pass along a container number and location, and let Terry know when the harbor patrol would be making their rounds on the other side of the harbor.
“I think this is the last time,” said Styx.
“What?” Tersago looked stunned. In the empty container, his voice rang out like thunder. “I’m not paying you enough?”
“That’s not it.”
“You want more?”
That wasn’t it. It was something that had almost completely died away, but that still hung on in a dark corner of the broken-down wreck called Raphael Styx: one last shred of human decency.
“This got something to do with Amanda?”
“No,” said Styx.
“What, then?”
“How is she?”
“I have no idea. Last I heard from her, she was in Thailand. I didn’t send her in a container, in case you’re wondering. I bought her a plane ticket, straight up. I heard she’s got some rich fuck there wants to marry her.”
“Yeah, well,” said Styx. “Nothing to do with me.”
Tersago sighed.
“Look, I don’t know anything about the fuckin’ Stuffer, Styxie. But I’ll ask around, okay? If it’ll make you feel any better.”
“Thanks,” said Styx. “I appreciate it.”
Tersago got to his feet. “It was just a bunch of counterfeit shit, man.” Tersago sounded almost apologetic.
“What?”
“Italian fake-leather handbags, designer jeans, cigarettes, the usual shit.”
Styx put up a palm. “That’s none of my business, either.”
“Calm down,” said Tersago, laying a hand on Styx’s shoulder.
“I am calm.”
“You just let me know about the next job. End of the month, I’m getting in a load of cars from the East Bloc. I figure I’ll need two, maybe three containers. You’ll take care of your contact in customs, right?”
Styx wanted to say, Don’t worry about it. But he couldn’t get the words out. When Tersago locked up the container behind them, the emptiness within looked way too much like Raphael Styx’s life. Something had to change, but how long had he been handing himself that line? Too long.
Maybe it was too late for him to change. What was he doing, messing around with a second-rate thug like Gino Tersago? Styx was prostituting himself, and the harbor was his whorehouse.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You might have to set that up with my replacement.”
Tersago’s hand dropped to his wrist and held it tightly.
“Hey, Styxie, you’re not gonna nark on me, are you?”
Styx didn’t answer.
“I pay you, man.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Well?”
“Don’t worry, Terry, I won’t rat you out.”
Why would he betray Tersago’s trust? Even that seemed too low for him.
Heading for home, he walked along the dike, past the fancy hotels, some new, others old and in disrepair, their glory days behind them. He was about to come down the steps to the street when he turned around and looked back. He’d walked right past it without realizing where he was.
He retraced his steps to the Rubens apartment building in the Hofstraat. Where was the officer who was supposedly staking the place out? Nowhere to be seen. Typical, Styx thought. The idiot’s shift ended, and he went home. He would rub Joachim Delacroix’s nose in it in the morning.
Styx led Shelley into the lobby and checked the list of tenants. The pit bull plopped himself down on the floor.
Styx pressed the bell labeled SPILLIAERT.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Spilliaert?”
“Who is it?”
“My name’s Raphael Styx, chief inspector with the Ostend police.”
“And?”
“I wonder if you can spare a few minutes?”
“For what?”
“Can I come up? My understanding is that you reported a crime this morning.”
“That’s right,” the voice said.
“A woman was murdered.”
There was no response. Styx expected to hear the door click open, but it didn’t happen.
“I need to ask you a few follow-up questions, sir. It’s urgent.”
“I told the police everything I know this morning.”
“Yes, we’ve spent the whole day trying to reach you, but—”
“I’ve been at work. I just got home.”
Still no buzzer. Styx’s hip began to protest. Shelley was also getting impatient, and he pulled on his leash. He wanted to go back outside, back to the beach. He’d had enough of this stuffy foyer. Styx looked into the lobby camera’s lens and could feel Spilliaert looking back at him.
“I can show you my ID,” Styx offered.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Spilliaert’s voice. “I know who you are, Chief Inspector. What exactly do you need to ask me?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it like this,” said Styx.
“Why not? I can see you.”
“Yes, but I can’t see you, and that’s not the way we do things.”
“I can imagine,” the voice said, suddenly tinged with irony.
“Excuse me?”
“I can imagine that’s not the way you do things.”
“How do you mean?”
“You like to ha
ve the upper hand.”
Styx said nothing, looked straight into the lens. He jerked on Shelley’s leash to settle the dog down.
“I’m sorry?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard Spilliaert’s last comment.
“I said, Chief Inspector Styx, that you’re a man who doesn’t like to be messed with. But that’s exactly what’s been going on these last months, isn’t it? It must be frustrating for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“These serial murders. The Stuffer.”
Styx edged a bit to one side, tried to move out of the camera’s field of view. “And what do you know about the case?”
“I read the papers, Inspector. You haven’t gotten anywhere, have you? That’s why you’re here. You’re hoping I can help you, but all I can tell you is what I saw when I came out of the sea this morning.”
Styx forgot the stiffness in his side. “Do you always take an early swim?”
“You don’t need to act like you still don’t know who you’re talking to, Inspector.”
“I’m talking to Mr. Spilliaert, aren’t I?”
Styx heard a knowing laugh, distorted by the intercom’s speaker.
“If you like.”
“Just a second,” said Styx. “Is your name Spilliaert or not?”
“What do you think? You know the masters, don’t you? You know that Léon Spilliaert, one of Ostend’s Surrealists, has been dead for more than sixty years?”
There was the taste of bile in Styx’s mouth, and he finally realized what was going on.
“I’ll be whoever you want me to be, Inspector.”
Styx swallowed. He was about to reach for his cell and call the squad, until he remembered that he never carried a phone when he was out with Shelley. A matter of principle, a rare chance to relish being cut off from the world. Meanwhile, Spilliaert-but-not-Spilliaert could see him, and would be gone long before backup could get there.
“Okay,” said Styx. “Let’s start over.” He pressed the buzzer and said, “Who am I speaking with, please?”
“I told you I just got home from work, Chief Inspector.”
It wasn’t the words the man said or even the words he didn’t say. It was the way he said them—and didn’t say them. No other man would laugh with such confident abandon. Styx pushed the entry door, but it held fast.
“I’ll let you in when I’m good and ready.”
“Open up, you fuck!” Styx yelled.
He beat on the door.
“And we were getting along so well,” the voice said sadly.
“Let me in!”
And then the voice took on a new tone—harder, more dangerous. “Come on, Styx, you don’t expect me to sit here waiting while you send out for a battering ram?”
“Why did you call us?”
“I was getting bored, Monsieur l’Inspecteur. I thought you’d all forgotten about me and gone on to other playmates. A true artist has to make himself heard from time to time. He’s got to get through to the stupid zombies who waste their lives staring at a computer screen. In this society we’ve created, he can’t afford to lock himself up in an ivory tower.”
Styx pounded on the door with his fist. With his other hand, he rang every buzzer on the board. A confusion of voices came through the speaker, each wanting to know who was there. There was no time to explain the situation. He yelled out his name, but there was no answering click. One resident announced: “If you don’t go away, I’m calling the police.”
“I am the police!” screamed Styx. “Open the fucking door!”
And at that moment, he finally heard the click. He flung the door open and, vaguely, behind him, heard the voice of the man who couldn’t be anyone else but the Stuffer:
“What’s taking you so long, Styx? Come on up. You think I’m going to wait all night?”
There was no time to think. He unclipped Shelley’s leash and jumped into an elevator, leaving the pit bull behind.
“Go home, Shelley!” he ordered, pressing the button for the fifth floor. If only he had his phone, he could call John Crevits, call the squad, call that dashing young prick Delacroix, who at this moment was probably standing before a full-length mirror, primping and pimping himself up for a night on the town.
“Come on,” he urged the creaky machinery. “Come on!”
The numbers above the door blinked on and off slowly. Two . . . three . . . four . . .
“Goddammit!”
He’d just risen above the fourth floor when, through the Plexiglas window in the door, he saw a sudden movement. A shadow flickered past, and he heard rapid footsteps on the stairs. Going down. The bastard was getting away! He’d waited just long enough to make sure that Styx had boarded the elevator, and then he’d taken the stairs. From below, he could hear Shelley barking. Styx swore and beat impotently on the elevator door.
“Christ, this is bullshit!”
The door slid open. At the end of the corridor, Spilliaert’s apartment door gaped wide.
Downstairs, his fool dog was still howling.
“Shelley!” he bellowed.
Styx raced down the hall into the apartment and searched wildly for a telephone, a cell phone, a tablet or computer that could send an e-mail, anything—but there was nothing. The apartment was completely empty. He stood stock-still before the broad window that gave out onto a balcony with a view of the North Sea. On the horizon, a brilliant orange sun extinguished itself in the water. Four stories down, a figure in what looked like a yellow fisherman’s oilskin jacket and sou’wester hat hurried out of the building and away to the west.
The Stuffer.
There were two alternatives. He could find a neighbor who would let him call the station, but by the time the police turned up, the Stuffer would be long gone. Or he could go after the man himself.
Styx didn’t hesitate. Within a minute, he burst out of the elevator at ground level and gave chase. The farther he got from the city center, the fewer people were out and about. The beachgoers—at this time of year mostly older couples and families with small children—had packed it in for the day hours earlier. Gone were the surfers and sailboarders. Styx couldn’t see the Stuffer, but he knew the man was out there somewhere and quickened his pace. With each passing minute, his shadow lengthened on the dike’s pale-yellow tiles.
At last he was forced to stop, gasping for breath, propped up against a stone pillar in the Venetian Galleries. The pain in his hip was excruciating.
“Goddamnit!” he swore.
It would be pointless to try to continue. The killer had several minutes’ head start, and there was no guarantee he’d come this way in the first place. Styx’s choice of direction had been a wild guess. The Stuffer could have turned off the dike down any of a dozen side streets and by now might have lost himself in Ostend’s shopping district.
And yet . . .
And yet Raphael Styx had a feeling he was close by. He staggered forward—and saw a long shadow painted on the marble flooring.
“Hello?”
He approached the figure half-hidden behind a column, but then saw a second shadow, the two of them woven together confusingly. It was the magic hour, between nine and nine thirty. The sun was down, and a golden glow bathed the Venetian Galleries, enchanted them, turned them into the perfect backdrop for a photo shoot.
“Spilliaert?”
Styx barely had time to draw his weapon before the two shadows were upon him, and he saw that it was only a couple of teenagers.
“Sorry,” he said, but the boy and girl—young lovers, perhaps, saying their last good-byes before heading off in separate directions for the summer—were already gone, strolling arm in arm toward the sea.
“Shit,” Styx muttered.
He holstered his gun and turned back in the direction he’d come.
Styx crossed the dike and took the first wooden staircase down to the beach. He sat on the bottom step and pulled off his shoes, then began the slow walk back through the soft sand.
/> Léon Spilliaert, he thought.
Of course.
Spilliaert the painter might well have left descendants behind, but Styx was willing to bet that the Stuffer wasn’t one of them.
He walked between two rows of rental cabanas, all shut up tight for the night. You could almost shoot a Western here, with beach sand instead of desert sand and the cabanas standing in for saloons.
He saw the gun sticking out between two cabanas just a moment too late.
“Why do I have the feeling you’re trying to avoid me, Chief Inspector?” a voice said. “Aren’t you supposed to be trying to catch me?”
Styx stared at the gap, the opening, the space between the two wooden huts. He saw the Stuffer’s silhouette deep in the shadows, the face concealed beneath the yellow sou’wester hat.
“You’re just making it harder on yourself,” he began carefully. “First you call in this morning to invite us to the showing of your latest piece, then you disappear for the rest of the day, and then you lead me out here. Why didn’t you just come to the station if you wanted to talk?”
“Who says I want to talk?” said the Stuffer.
“Then what are we doing here?”
“We’re talking now, true.”
Styx kept his eye on the gun. The Stuffer had committed all three of the murders with his bare hands. The women had either been strangled or stabbed to death. There’d been no shell casings, no gunshot wounds.
Yet now he was standing eye to eye with a revolver. Even serial killers sometimes change their patterns.
“So you’d like to have a little chat?” the Stuffer continued, his tone casual. “Fine, then. What should we talk about?”
“How about pointing that thing somewhere else?”
“You think I’m an idiot? If you can’t come up with more stimulating conversation than that, I’m going to use it.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You know too much, Styx. I’m beginning to understand you. You’ve got anger-management issues. You’re not like the rest of them. You’re an outsider, like me. An outlaw, who plays the game by his own rules.”
“With a few differences.”
“Really? Name one.”
“I’m not a murderer.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard, Styx, I’ll give you that. You’re as committed to stopping me as I am to carrying on, and that’s dangerous. You’re starting to get in my way, and it’s time to do something about it. Plus, I’m getting bored. I need a little action.”