American Devil th&dl-1

by Oliver Stark

  Sebastian entered. He had an appointment with an English tailor. He had a weakness for clothes, in particular for bespoke Savile Row suits. He only had one, but loved it each time he wore it. He always thought that it gave him a kind of religious feeling of forgiveness, just like Dee said Christ could. But the suit was more convenient than Christ. He could put it on whenever he wanted the clear lines and balance of superbly tailored fine wool to wash him clean of sin and make him a perfect citizen again.

  Sebastian took the elevator to the conference suite for his appointment with the visiting tailors from William and Roger Burke amp; Co. of Savile Row, London. Many English tailors had taken to these visits to the bigger American cities and the local businessmen and dignitaries loved the old-fashioned glamour and deep subservience involved in being measured and made for.

  Sebastian was met at the temporary reception area by a delightfully fresh-faced English girl, who introduced herself as Melissa. She was so finely dressed, so elegant in every way that Sebastian thought she might have been turned on a lathe and made in some gorgeous London babe factory. A twinge in his stomach made him want to reach out and grab her.

  The thick red carpet, gold and red colour scheme and low lighting of the suite managed to give this hotel an old English feel. He was met by the tailor and the cutter, Messrs Henry Oldfield and Graham Winder. Henry was in his fifties, white-haired and tanned, wearing a blue pinstriped three-piece suit with a plain blue tie. Graham was in his early forties and wore a rather striking electric blue suit with a red tie.

  The new and the old, thought Sebastian. Catering to all tastes, no doubt. He glanced again at Melissa as she placed a champagne bucket and glasses on the coffee table. His mind wandered momentarily into a fantasy and then snapped back to the gentlemen offering their cream-softened hands.

  The three men sat in a circle of red velvet chairs for their ‘consultation’.

  ‘Firstly,’ said Henry, ‘we need to understand the nature of your need.’

  ‘That is very hard to explain,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘We shall do our utmost to make these decisions simple, sir.’

  Sebastian liked being called sir. He turned to Melissa and met her gaze. He smiled. He could do anything. That’s what his gaze said and Melissa lowered her eyes. So like animals, aren’t we? Just a pecking order based on power and the capacity for violence and love.

  ‘Is it for a special occasion, day wear, evening wear or business wear?’ Henry was leaning in, his kind, understanding head tilted and his warm grey eyes searching to please.

  Sebastian didn’t know what was next. The Progession of Love was finished, but already Sebastian felt that it was not going to be enough to make him stop. Maybe he would appear to his next victim as the perfect, well-dressed gentleman and become in an instant the ogre of unimaginable debauchery. If he was not feeling so cautious, he would have loved to have chosen Melissa as a delicate taster. He’d never killed an English victim. He was interested to see how the different culture might express itself at the moment of death. Would the English reserve remain, or give way to uncontrollable cries?

  ‘I have brought a specimen suit,’ said Sebastian. He indicated the suit bag, and the fleet-footed and slender-ankled Melissa held it aloft.

  ‘Unzip, please,’ said Sebastian to Melissa. His thumb rubbed against his forefinger as he watched her reveal his suit and hold it up. The two tailors looked at it.

  ‘Richard Anderson, is it?’ said Graham with the faintest nuance of disdain.

  ‘It is,’ said Sebastian.

  Henry went across and looked at the suit carefully. Every so often he murmured to himself. Finally he returned to his client.

  ‘I would like to show you something a little different. I can see the elegance of the long lapel and the single button, it is flattering and undeniably sharp. What would suit, sir, might be something with a little more hint of the dandy. I’m suggesting perhaps a double-breasted classic two-button double-vented jacket with jetted side pockets in a fine nine-ounce worsted flannel. Very elegant. Cut double-pleated trousers with a two-inch turn-up. Very unusual in these parts but just the mix of tradition and modern style.’

  Graham went to the long bench behind them to find a nine-ounce Super 100 worsted flannel. He brought a roll of material to Sebastian and offered the edge to his fingers.

  Sebastian rolled the material between his forefinger and thumb. ‘Superb.’

  ‘Would Sir like to study some of the colours and patterns?’

  Sebastian said he would, and stood, turning slightly so that his eye fell on a folded newspaper that was sitting on the table.

  Sebastian’s attention was drawn by the first word of the bold headline. He tilted his head to one side to see the picture. It was a face. A girl’s face in a grainy unflattering photograph. ‘A second,’ he said to the tailors, and moved to the table.

  His heart was beating now.

  He took up the afternoon edition and opened it. There in the centre was a large photograph of his Mo, flanked by photographs of two women, Lottie and Lucy.

  Sebastian was aware of the people behind him watching him, but the emotion building in his chest was taking all his energy and strength to suppress. He read the opening.

  HARLEM KILLER DEAD KILLER OF TWO YOUNG WOMEN DROWNS AFTER POLICE CHASE

  After an intense and dramatic chase, the serial kidnapper and murderer known as ‘Redtop’ was hunted down to a pig farm in upstate New York in the early hours of this morning.

  Detective Tom Harper of the NYPD, working with the FBI, located the killer as he attempted to dispose of the body of recent victim Lucy James.

  As the killer fled, Detective Harper chased him through dense woodland before cornering him and watching him jump to his death in a holding pond of slurry.

  Sebastian’s heart was beating ten times per second. Sweat formed on his brow. He wanted to scream, to run, to kill. His body was caught in a crossfire of emotion — pain and anger in a cauldron of fire.

  He wanted to cry. He never cried. He hadn’t known what grief felt like and now the unfamiliar feeling was drowning him. He reached out for the table to steady himself.

  ‘Is Sir all right?’ asked Henry.

  ‘Would Sir like a glass of water?’ asked Graham.

  No. He didn’t want water. He wanted one thing only — to kill. Tom Harper had taken the only thing he loved in the world. Harper had killed his brother. His little brother Mo. His simple little brother who’d done nobody any real harm.

  All Sebastian wanted was to kill. To kill Tom Harper.

  No. Better than that. To give Tom Harper more pain than he had ever imagined.

  PART FOUR

  December 2-4

  ‘How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.’

  Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Downtown Bar

  December 2, 7.40 p.m.

  Denise Levene was still unable to speak to anyone about her father’s death. Whenever she got to that point in a relationship when two people open each other up and peer inside, Denise Levene would freeze. Speaking about him made it seem too casual, too everyday — it put him in the same category as gossip. She wanted to feel it close and hard inside her, like pain. She’d dated in earnest throughout college, swinging from one guy to another like a girl on the monkey bars, always clever enough to leave before anyone was able to claim that she hurt them. She had hated emotional ties as much as she hated white shoes, fast food and television advertising. She liked things sincere. Then came Daniel. She could see why he was in politics. Gift of the gab. He’d convinced her to try something more substantial. She’d found that she liked it.

  The tall guy with the salesman smile was already approaching her with a little swagger in his hips. Denise tried to avoid eye contact, but it wasn’t going to work with this guy. He thought she was cute, liked her business-like hairdo, her long legs — and the sniffy attitude just turned h
im on even more. He liked a challenge — chased skirt tasted so much better than skirt on a plate.

  ‘Hey, there, sweetheart, you look a little lost.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m waiting for someone.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got some directions here you might find helpful. ’ His large hand pressed flat on the bar and he leaned in close, his cologne suffocating her. ‘If you want to know where to go, just follow the arrow,’ he said and rolled his forefinger down his tie to the arrowhead at the end. Denise felt his arm curl around her shoulders. ‘I’m always happy to take you there, sweetheart.’

  Denise pushed his arm away from her. ‘If I want to visit a sewer, I’ll call Environmental Protection.’

  The man smiled, showing his bright white teeth. ‘Come on, baby, we can go the scenic route if you want, but I always like to go as the crow flies, if you know what I mean.’ His hand slipped round her waist.

  ‘Get your hands off me or you’ll regret it,’ said Denise, low and calm.

  ‘I can feel you’re warming towards me,’ he said, still holding her waist.

  Tom Harper was at the door of the bar, looking for Denise. His eyes narrowed. The guy quickly let go of Denise’s waist. ‘Maybe later,’ he said, and walked away.

  ‘Was that guy giving you trouble, Denise?’ said Harper, approaching.

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ she said.

  ‘I bet that’s true.’

  ‘Yeah, well, thanks anyway. I don’t have any scruples about a guy helping me out.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it. Now let’s get us both a beer.’

  They sat close to each other at the bar, huddled over their drinks.

  ‘Any news yet?’

  ‘Not a thing. I’ve been working flat out, but we’ve found nothing to go on. It’s been a bad couple of days. Chasing shadows and dead ends. And he’s still out there somewhere. Don’t understand it, either. He’s gone quiet. No new kills, no communications. I don’t like it.’

  ‘You got your badge back,’ said Denise with a smile. ‘That’s good news, at least.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tom. ‘They had no choice. Either admit that some suspended cop had caught Redtop or put me back on the team. But it’s good to be officially back on Homicide. We got a lot of working out to do. A lot of good men got hurt.’

  ‘It sounded like a hell of a mess out there,’ Denise said.

  ‘Two FBI special agents were seriously injured. Asa Shelton and Isaac Spencer were burned pretty badly. Two guys from our team were hit bad. Garcia was dragged across the field after a pig caught on his webbing. Half his clothes burned into his skin. Mason’s face is a mess. Plenty of broken bones too.’

  ‘It’s lucky they’re alive,’ said Denise, her eyes caught on Harper’s all the way.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tom. ‘They’ve all got families, you know. Me and Eddie don’t and we missed the stampede. Is that called irony?’

  ‘No,’ said Denise. ‘It’s called luck.’

  Eddie Kasper had some minor burns from trying to help the others, but Mason was still in intensive care after the showdown at the hog farm. He wouldn’t ever be known for his looks again; the skin grafts wouldn’t disguise the fact that half his face had been burned away.

  ‘Do you know anything more yet?’ asked Denise. ‘Anything on who this guy Redtop is? Who was he?’

  ‘His name’s Maurice Macy. He jumped in the holding pond and it’s pretty difficult to drain. They only just got his body out, but they got his prints from Benny Marconi’s truck and he’s on file. He has history. And we found a link with Lottie. He was carrying Lucy James in a sheet. They found a match between fibres in Lottie’s hair and the sheet. Looks like Mo killed them both. Maybe he took more.’

  ‘Is there any link to Sebastian?’

  ‘This is where it gets interesting. Until two weeks ago, Mo Macy was being held in Manhattan Psychiatric Center. He’d taken girls before. Years ago. He never killed them, just kidnapped them and kept them captive, but he wasn’t sophisticated. They both escaped and went to the cops.’

  ‘He was on Ward’s Island? The same place Winston Carlisle was being treated?’

  ‘Exactly. It doesn’t make sense at all, but it’s a link.’

  ‘You think the American Devil was setting this guy up too, like he did with Winston?’

  ‘That was my first thought, but he’s not going to tell us now. We checked with Winston, and he doesn’t remember him either.’

  ‘So, what happened to Lucy?’

  ‘Yeah, poor kid. She’d been raped and suffocated. Maurice’s prints were all over her.’

  ‘Suffocated?’

  ‘There’s too many links to the American Devil to dismiss it entirely, but nothing concrete.’

  ‘Except a cherry blossom petal.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. Mo was living in an apartment in a disused building. That’s where he kept the girls. He had hospital restraints on the bed. The forensic team are going over it, but it’ll take time before they assess everything they find.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Denise. She shook her head and took a sip of beer. ‘Anything new on the American Devil?’

  ‘Nothing. They’ve got his DNA from the Stanhope house, but the leads are all dead. I don’t understand why he’s stopped killing. Maybe he’s finished what he set out to do.’

  ‘It’s still puzzling’ said Denise. Then she sat up. ‘If Mo Macy kidnapped Lottie, it means that our American Devil profile wasn’t right. I should’ve spotted that sooner. The American Devil didn’t need those four days.’

  ‘I’ll get it altered.’

  ‘How are you, tough guy?’

  ‘Well, they’ve reinstated me; that’s enough.’

  ‘They’ve given you the lead back on the American Devil case?’

  ‘Lafayette offered. I declined. I want to work free, you know. Follow my instincts. I’m better working with one or two people. I’ve even tracked down the five locations in the city where you get winter-flowering cherry blossom and have got some ideas to work on.’

  Denise smiled. He was a good guy, for all his faults. He wasn’t just honest with others, he was honest with himself.

  Alone in a booth opposite, the man who’d hit on Denise sat and watched, sipping his bourbon quietly. He twirled Denise’s keys in his hand. It was so easy to slip a hand into someone’s bag while they were trying to avoid your cologne. He had what he wanted now: a way to give Tom Harper more pain than he could imagine. He was just waiting for the right opportunity. Sebastian leaned back. He felt sure the right opportunity was just on its way.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Denise Levene’s Building

  December 2, 9.30 p.m.

  Sebastian sat in a hired green Ford. The window was down, the night air cold on his face as he watched the world go by. There was a creased photograph of Mo stuck to the centre of the dash, and every few seconds Sebastian looked at his little brother and his feelings of injustice swarmed over him. He’d never felt so alone. He needed Little Mo. Without Mo, what was it all for? He wanted to hurt now. Just lash out and hurt. He needed to kill. He looked up at Denise Levene’s apartment. It was time to get inside and give Tom Harper ’s little city girlfriend a shock.

  Sebastian knew he wasn’t wrong, just different — what did Freud say about it? ‘A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.’

  That’s all he was, a man in tune with his complexes. A legitimate search for happiness, no different from all such searches. No different at all. Pain would make him happy.

  He looked out again. Denise would be saying goodnight to the good Tom Harper across at the bar. Denise would be thinking of getting home. The concierge would soon go to the bathroom again to snort some more low-quality cocaine and Sebastian would slip inside and find a nice warm corner to sit and wait. He wanted to disembowel her and tie her intestines round Harper’s neck.

  He opened the ca
r door and stepped on to the sidewalk. He watched the concierge take a furtive look round and then head off down the hall. It was simple. Sebastian opened the lobby door with the key pass and walked to the stairs. Denise lived on the fourth floor. Within three minutes, he was standing outside her apartment. He felt the tingle that he always felt, just like the first time when he had stood in Chloe’s house. He put on a pair of latex gloves and slipped the key into the lock. He turned it and felt the mechanism click.

  Sebastian knew he could’ve made a great detective. He would be able to catch anyone and destroy them too. But the NYPD had turned him down. He’d failed the psychological assessment. Not good enough for them. His character was deemed unfit. He was not worth an NYPD ID card. Well, he was now, right? He was beating the whole of the NYPD and now he was going to take their best detective’s profiler. How ironic.

  Denise’s apartment was not what he’d expected. She came across as a controlled and ordered thinker. Her apartment was a mess. Sebastian didn’t like mess at all. It was a turn-off. He liked his women to be princesses. He didn’t like to see discarded clothes and pantyhose all across the floor, empty coffee cups and books scattered on every seat.

  He walked through each room in turn. ‘You’re a slut, Denise Levene. I had no idea.’ He opened the bathroom door. Hundreds of products cluttered every shelf, all of them without their lids. On the floor, a bath towel was lying damp and discarded. Sebastian shook his head. He would have to teach her how to behave properly, like a real princess. Then he would kill her.

  Chapter Eighty-Six