• • •
Mark and Doonie got back to the office just as Kaz won the lottery. Last week a white male, cast on the right wrist, greasy pants, was found in a shallow grave in the MacQueen Forest Preserve, way the hell up past DeKalb.
The corpse had been in the ground two-three weeks. Tox, organ damage, abscesses and dental disaster indicated chronic booze and speed abuse, but the COD was a broken neck.
His prints were in the system; busted for turning tricks back when he was better-looking. Dennis Lovesey. Age forty-two. From Utah.
The DeKalb County Sheriff had no leads on who killed him or why.
The Forest Park cops showed photos of Dennis to Tony and Roz, who confirmed he was Buddy.
The Forest Park cops showed the photos to Ron Coomber and asked if this was the man who purchased the Yellow Submarine.
“Coulda been. Sure. Maybe.”
• • •
“Drove seventy miles to dump the body—he’s fat but he ain’t lazy,” Doonie concluded, when he and Mark briefed Lieutenant Husak.
“All we know about the fat guy is he glanced at the Yellow Sub,” Husak corrected. “No proof he’s the one who hired the homeless guy to buy it. JaneDoe coulda hired him.”
“Owner said she’d never been in.”
“This owner who wouldn’t be sure who it was if you showed him a picture of himself?” Husak countered. “And as for killing the homeless guy—JaneDoe’s a big healthy girl, she could break a man’s neck.”
“Yeah,” Mark agreed, “she could.”
But now he was a millimeter closer to being able to prove she hadn’t.
All he had to do was sort through every large overweight white male in Chicago.
Thirty-Seven | 2012
It was the Laurie Desh death whammy all over again: Dale is having perfectly good sex, and Tommy Tesca leaps out of a tabletop electronic device.
This time Dale was no longer living with Soosie. Soon after going into the artist-slaughtering business Dale had done the right thing and broken up with her. Which was also the practical thing; no way to explain to Soosie why he kept disappearing for weeks, and why he suddenly had money.
This time Dale was in his office. Lou had set Dale up with a respectable front, as an Esthetic Impact consultant, whom the Mastrizzis’ many acquaintances in the business world hired to class up their office walls. Turning murderer was the tragedy of Dale’s life, but turning corporate interior decorator felt like its low point.
Dale was at his desk, receiving oral affection from a professional under the desk; a healthy fee was the only reason a woman would touch someone whose complexion was as unhealthy as Dale’s.
Dale had left his computer on, and, even as his lava was fixing to go all Vesuvius, he couldn’t resist a glance. Saw a news flash from ArtAlarm.Com: ROBERT GILSON MURDERED.
Vesuvius went dormant.
Dale phoned Lou Mastrizzi and told him they needed to speak.
• • •
They were tooling up Lakeshore Drive in Lou’s two-day-old Maserati Quattroporte, which had that new-car smell and that newly-swept-for-bugs sense of security.
“So what’s up?” Lou asked, with his eternal sense of security. No matter what, Lou exuded the unruffled, amused demeanor of a man utterly comfortable in his spa-polished skin. Lou enjoyed his life, and yours too.
“Tommy Tesca is in town murdering artists.”
“Robert Gilson? Heard it on the radio while I was driving over.”
Dale nodded. “Now we know why Tommy disappeared last year.”
“Why you so sure this was Tommy?”
“Seven years ago Gilson was on the first list of targets I made—the only list with Chicagoans on it.”
Lou mulled that. “If it is Tesca—why?”
“Money. And to show us up; he’s breaking the rule about not killing where we live. If I’m right, he also won’t wait a year before killing another one. And even if he doesn’t…”
A sad grin from Lou. “The asshole’s gonna get caught.”
At which point the only bargaining chips the asshole could offer the cops would be Dale and the Mastrizzis.
“Okay,” Lou continued. “Still could turn out someone else popped Gilson, but I’ll track Tesca down. If it was Tommy, we’ll get to him before the cops do.” Making that sound simple as Googling the nearest Banana Republic.
“Good,” Dale replied, trying to match Lou’s casual confidence. Failing, dismally.
Lou gave Dale an amused, sympathetic glance. Exited at Belmont, took a right turn into Lincoln Park and pulled to the curb. Unbuckled his seat belt. Asked, “Ever drive a Mazz?”
• • •
The Mastrizzi muscle hunting Tommy Tesca came up with exactly nothing. It had been thirteen months since Tesca’s family or friends heard from him. Nobody knew why Tommy left or where to. Fell off the Earth.
Lou unleashed his best hacker.
There was no credit-card trail. Tommy must’ve paid cash for everything. But the cyber-hound sniffed out a year-old court filing in Indiana. Thomas Tesca, born in Cicero, Illinois, currently a resident of Indianapolis, petitioned for a change of name.
Petition granted. He was now Jonathan Davis.
Davis’s address turned out to be a postal box. Lou’s muscle checked the box rental joint. Tesca had terminated the box soon as he became Davis.
The muscle scoured Indianapolis. Nothing.
Then it became obvious why they were having no luck finding Tommy Tesca aka Jonathan Davis in Indiana.
Gerd Voorsts got shot in the head. Tommy was still in Chicago.
• • •
Dale began carrying a gun. Totally illegal. Didn’t care.
Dale also completed the purchase of a six-mil Damian Jung canvas. He met with Lou and their investor, Jay Branko, at Branko’s office, to brief them on the acquisition; the only way they talked business was face-to face.
In the elevator after the meeting, Lou gave Dale a wry look, leaned close and whispered, “Holster bulge.”
Lou treated Dale to dinner. Alinea, a trip to high-tech foodie heaven.
The first hour was all small talk, as they ate their way through the tasting menu’s cascade of gastro-engineered delicacies and perfectly paired wines. Nine courses in, Lou judged Dale to be un-tense enough to digest the main course.
Lou advised Dale that carrying an unlicensed weapon was an unacceptable risk. Advised Dale not to doubt they’d find Jonathan Davis, soon. Advised Dale to concentrate on their project. Informed Dale the only thing to worry about was what color he wanted his Maserati to be. Because, when this ultimate deal went down, a Mazz was going to be Dale’s bonus.
• • •
Dale, as advised, laid awake all night concentrating on how this ultimate deal would go down. How, when Tommy was safely dead, and Damian Jung was safely dead, and all Jung’s paintings had been safely cashed in at a fabulous profit… Dale would be the only man alive who could implicate the Mastrizzis.
• • •
Dale bought a smaller carry piece and a subtler holster.
He put his original gun in the nightstand by his bed. Another gun in his desk at work. Another under the driver’s seat of his Prius. And two more in an emergency escape kit, which he’d begun assembling the day he’d gone partners with the Mastrizzis.
And maybe it was just superstitious, but given the manner in which he’d found out about Laurie Desh, and now Robert Gilson, Dale decided to stop having sex until Tommy Tesca was dead.
Thirty-Eight | 2012
Time to quit fiddling with the goddamn dildo and leave. But Tommy couldn’t make up his mind between having only John and Paul’s faces show, or to include Ringo’s. More of a laugh with Ringo showing, heh?
But when Tommy pulled the Yellow Submarine up so Ringo was sticking out above Gerd Voorsts’ skinny dead lips, the dildo got wobbly; Tommy didn’t want to risk it falling out of Voorsts’ mouth before the cops found it and got some good shots of it.
Rejected that. Would look preposterous.
Fuck. Better safe than sorry. Tommy pushed the Yellow Sub down until it was securely wedged. Still looked pretty decent. Yeah. Fine.
Tommy was halfway up the basement stairs when he stopped, pissed at himself for being such a goddamn wimp. Why the fuck bother going to all this trouble—paying that junkie creep to buy the perfect signature dildo, then whacking the creep and driving to almost fucking Wisconsin to bury him—and then settle for doing a half-assed job? Heh?
Fuck that. If he left it like this it’d make him crazy.
He stomped back down the stairs. Pondered the body in the tub. Visualized. Hehhhhhh…
Tommy slid the Yellow Submarine out so that Ringo’s face showed. Fucker started to fall outta Voorsts’ mouth again.
So Tommy slowly, slowly, eased it down, one fucking little fraction of an inch at a time…
Holy Mother, there it was. The Yellow Sub was in there solid, no wobble, with just enough of Ringo’s puss sticking out so you could tell it was him. In fact it was cooler with just half his face showing—like Ringo was playing peek-a-boo from inside this dead genius’ mouth.
Tommy treated himself to a long gaze at how great this came out. Soaking it in. Imagining the looks on the cops’ faces. What would go through their minds.
Fuuu-uck. What a buzz.
Tommy left feeling, what—lighter than he had since, shit, years. Heh!
• • •
Tommy’s best mood in years lasted until late the next afternoon.
The problem wasn’t being cooped up in a mobile home out past Elgin, an hour and a half outside the city, in by-God corn-growing goat-fucking meth-cooking farm country. This was a good hideout. Place the cops and the Mastrizzis wouldn’t look, a shit-hole trailer park where the residents were mostly farm workers who were mostly illegal and totally into nobody getting nosy about anybody’s particulars.
What killed Tommy’s buzz was watching hours of news without a single goddamn word about Voorsts. For the first time in his life Tommy found himself frustrated by the fact no one had found the body of someone he’d popped.
Getting the Yellow Sub just right had been a rush. But after a while, knowing he’d done such good work and no one was seeing it, that was just fucking annoying.
He opened a fresh bottle of Scotch. Balvenie Doublewood, heh, first-class single malt Dale Phipps turned him onto. Dalie-boy did have his moments. But mainly Dale had his pile a fuckin’ tightass rules, and here’s to breaking one more: Tommy poured the Balvenie over ice.
The 21-year-old hooch spread through Tommy like a cloud of warm silk, and when it got to his brain it whispered, When you whack JaneDoe, how far in you gonna push the Cubs bat?
Well, thing is, Tommy explained to the Balvenie, no way to tell until he had the bitch dead and saw how the miniature Cubs bat worked with her mouth, and—he learned this from Gilson and Voorsts—the way the bat goes with JaneDoe’s whole face, heh? Just have to go with what feels—
Fucking finally! Gerd Voorsts was dead. For real, on TV. Bulletin on a local newscast. Which meant the cops, maybe this very minute, were photographing the Yellow Submarine, from every angle.
Tommy’s benign buzz flowed back in.
Then got even better.
The Channel 2 anchor said the magic words: “Chuck, any confirmation from police we’re looking at a serial killer?”
Chuck said, “Investigators are considering the possibility this was indeed perhaps the work of a serial killer.”
They cut to live chopper shots of a crowd outside Voorsts’ house. Tommy channel-surfed; four local channels were also going live, with choppers.
Within minutes the combination of magic words and aerial photography hooked CNN: “In Chicago, a serial killer is targeting major artists.”
Because CNN was in, the other cable news networks had to jump on it. Started showing clips of art snobs back in Voorsts’ hometown, Holland, freaking out.
Tommy poured another heretical Balvenie on the rocks. Raised the glass. “You watchin’, Dalie-Boy? Lou? Gianni? Heh?” Knocked back the Scotch. Yeah! This could not be happening better.
Except…
Over the next few hours the cops as usual refused to cough up any details. Tommy expected that; they’d kept the Ken doll secret, so no way they’d blab about the Yellow Submarine.
But sitting here watching the news, realizing millions of people were tuned in, but it might be years before any of them got to see his work… bothered him.
Until he learned he had an official serial killer secret identity.
Fuckin’-ay! He was The Art Critic. These were The Art Critic Murders, now and forever. Famous shit.
At ten P.M. nearly every local and national newscast opened with some variation of: “Another killer review from Chicago’s Art Critic!”
Every dumb-shit station using the same fucking line. But ya couldn’t blame ’em. Killer review. Funny.
Funny? Shit! This was off the charts. He had the cops completely suckered. Was pissing on the Mastrizzis. Was gonna retire rich, and invisible.
Invisible, and yet a fucking star.
Though that did bump up the risk factor. With all this publicity, whacking JaneDoe might turn out a little trickier than he figured, ’cause now every artist in town would be shitting bricks. Taking precautions.
Fuck it—price of fame, heh? The Art Critic was stoked. Whole world was hot to see to his next killer review. No way was he gonna disappoint.
Thirty-Nine | 2012
They were in Carrie’s bed, the Assistant State’s Attorney stretched luxuriously against Mark as he confided the problems he was having finding a large fat white male.
Mark told Carrie about the databases refusing to spit out one intriguing large fat white male murderer, sexual predator, painter, art critic or art professor. Mark even pulled the driver’s license of the possible suspect from the Desh file. Dale Phipps was five-six, a hundred-forty pounds. And that, Mark told Carrie, that’s when he decided to call it a night.
Mark did not tell Carrie how, at 1:48 A.M., frustrated in every way, he’d put his computer to sleep, pulled out his cell phone and… almost called JaneDoe. Christ.
“Great,” Carrie said, “you’re spending the night with me because you couldn’t find a serial killer to spend it with.”
“Also because you’re big fun, and big smart.”
“So you only have sex with me so you can get to talk to me?”
“Guilty. Tell me how to find the fat man of my dreams.”
“Wellll…” Carrie drawled, and, as she pondered the problem, began absentmindedly rolling Mark’s balls as if they were large warm worry beads. “Maybe it’s a large fat white male who’s fixated on Gilson and Voorsts but can’t afford their paintings—then why didn’t he take any? Because he can’t bring home evidence he’s the killer. But then he still doesn’t have their paintings, so fuck me,” Carrie declared, punctuating it with an annoyed tug on her worry beads.
“Ow.”
“Sorry.” She resumed her gentle meditational rolling. “What if The Art Critic is an art critic? Must be a lotta fat white guys in that subculture.”
“But none with priors. And I can’t go interview them, find out where they were the time of the murders. Husak gets pissed when I even mention looking for alternative suspects.”
“So…” Carrie’s fingers began to juggle a little faster, “the way you’ll be allowed to investigate someone else is to prove JaneDoe isn’t the perp.”
“There isn’t any proof that she isn’t.”
“Then what makes you certain it’s not her?”
Carrie’s fingers went still; she’d felt him tense.
Mark said, “Look at her sculpture—the Ken doll and the Yellow Sub don’t match the look, the whole sensibility of her work.”
Carrie resumed gently—cagily—rolling Mark’s balls.
“What’s JaneDoe like?”
A short silence took a while to crawl by.
Mark said, “Arty.” He traced a finger up Carrie’s inner thigh. “Impulsive.” His fingertip began drawing lazy circles on Carrie’s clitoris. “Innocent.” He slid two fingers inside her and slowly flexed them. Carrie eased one of her own fingers in between his. Mark’s cell rang.
It was the surveillance team. They’d busted a guy in the alley behind JaneDoe’s building trying to break into a rear window of her apartment.
Forty | 2012
The Art Critic strolled into the south end of the alley, looking like he belonged there. He was in meter-reader drag, a ComEd uniform complete with hard-hat, photo ID and a data recorder.
The Art Critic checked the rear of JaneDoe’s building. JaneDoe’s red SUV was in the fenced-in parking lot.
He patted his breast pocket. Miniature Cubs bat was there. Patted his back pocket. The psycho note about going to Europe to kill a real artist was there.
He put on clear, colorless latex gloves.
Ladies and germs, boys and girls, The Art Critic will now deliver his final killer review.
It was 8:10 A.M.. JaneDoe would still be asleep. Groggy as hell when she came to the front door. People answer when it’s a guy from the electric company saying there’s a problem with your meter, and maybe a safety issue.
She’d be grateful when he explained: Sorry to bother you, lady, but your meter’s showing crazy high usage, didn’t wanna go enter those numbers and stick you with a humongous bill, not till I asked if you really been using this much, and he’d raise the data recorder like to show her the reading, but she’d see the gun under it, and wham bam he backs her in, closes the door and tonight he’s on a plane to Brazil.
The Art Critic left the alley and headed up the sidewalk toward JaneDoe’s front door, which was in the front corner of the building. As he went, he glanced across the street, kitty-corner, to where he liked to park when he cased her place, ’cause it had a view of her front door, and past it to where her Subaru exited the alley—The fuck?!
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