The Nature of the Beast

by GM Ford

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  “Car and driver here for you at seven. After he gets you where you’re going, he can take this stuff over to the bureau.”

  A longer and more profound silence settled over the room.

  “Something interesting though,” she said finally.

  “What’s that?”

  “The CPD surveillance tapes,” she said, picking through the piles of information with which she had surrounded herself. She found what she was looking for and held a green folder out to Craig. “Bio-Metric analysis of the images from the moving and storage place and the little bodega,” she said.

  Like most recent technological advances in the field of personal recognition,

  Multimodal Biometric Analysis had originated as a response to the needs of the gambling industry. Conceived and nurtured by the industry’s ultra-deep pockets, several new technologies had been engineered to thwart the ever-increasing army of cheats and grifters plaguing the casino business, who had gladly provided the seed money for innovations designed to extract data from digital video images. Facial-recognition software, algorithmic iris recognition, fingerprint analysis, stride and motion analysis…every reading stored and reduced to a single digital thumbprint to be stashed away for future comparison. Your very own bar code.

  “We’ve got a bio-metric flag on one of the women from the bodega video,” she announced. “Everybody else checks out.”

  Craig was unimpressed but didn’t say so. As far as he was concerned, bio-metrics still required further tweaking before he’d consider it a truly useful tool. The programs regularly flagged dwarves and midgets as children in disguise and identified the gender of seriously obese people more or less at random, but, not wishing to appear the stodgy Luddite, he moved around to the side of the bed, got down on one knee and looked over her shoulder at the screen. She smelled of soap. Nothing fancy either. Dove or Ivory, something like that. For some reason that excited him no end. The screen blinked to life.

  Jump to the bodega. East Indian clerk reading some sort of skin magazine. A woman strides into the frame. Medium length dark hair cut in bangs. Raincoat. High cheekbones and higher heels. Next angle. Coming right at the camera in super-slow motion. Then picture freezes on the screen.

  A maze of digital indicators suddenly surround the woman’s picture. Lines, arrows, numbers, everything updating itself in real time as the woman’s digital image stood frozen on the screen.

  Audrey began to inventory the data. “Caucasian. Somewhere between five eleven and six feet one. Allowing for four-inch heels. A hundred and seventy-five to a hundred and eighty-five pounds.”

  “Big gal,” Craig commented.

  “Body scannings say she’s between twenty-five and thirty.”

  “Where’s the flag?”

  Audrey tapped the keyboard. Another jump. Exterior camera.

  The woman leaving the store, cutting across the street at an angle, bags dangling from her hands as she hurries home. She pointed at a blinking green line on the screen.

  “There, “ She touched the screen with a manicured fingernail. “The computer finds something anomalous about the way she walks,” Audrey said.

  Jackson Craig pushed his nose closer to the screen. “Make her move,” he said.

  Audrey complied. They watched as the woman mounted the sidewalk and quickly strode out of camera range.

  “She’s kind of klutzy. But, I don’t see anything untoward,” Craig said.

  Audrey pointed at the bottom of the screen. Another green line was blinking.

  “Four-and-a-half miles an hour. Ninety-three strides a minute.”

  “Long strider,” Craig commented.

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Audrey looked up from the screen. Their eyes met. “Where have I heard that phrase before?” she asked.

  “Arizona.”

  “That Mr…. Mr. What’s his Name. The tracker guy in Arizona.”

  “Begay,” Craig said. “Harden Begay.”

  “Those were his exact words. He said our perp was a long strider.”

  Second time through the tape, they watched in silence up until the point where the woman paid for her groceries. “Stop,” Craig said as she reached to collect her change.

  The screen image froze at the point where their hands nearly met above the scratched glass counter, all very Sistene Chapel, God reaching out to Adam.

  “Big hands,” Craig ventured, pointing. “Bigger than the clerk’s.”

  “It’s him,” Audrey said.

  “It’s been right in front of our faces the whole time,” Craig said. “We should have guessed.”

  Audrey shrugged. “Not even exotic anymore. Lots of cross-dressers in the world,” she said. “Doctors. Lawyers. Indian chiefs.”

  “This would certainly explain why that unfortunate rookie patrolman walked right up into knife range.”

  Audrey had to agree.

  “Might even explain all the women’s clothes and lingerie we found at Harry Joyce’s place, way back when.”

  “The clothes weren’t Harry’s.” She pointed at the image on the screen. “They were his. Harry raised him as a girl. Made him dress like a girl. Used him like a girl.”

  Craig’s distaste was evident. “Does any of this help us find him?” he snapped.

  “Nope,” she said. “Probably makes it harder.”

  Craig paced over to the window, pulled back the heavy drapes and peered out. The snow had stopped. The sheer volume of city traffic was pulverizing the snow and ice, leaving wide black ruts in the otherwise snow-covered streets.

  “Pray tell.”

  “That car we crushed on our way into the underground.”

  “The Toyota?”

  “Registered to a Derrik Coleman.” She spelled it out.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Same person who purchased the Raven Street money orders.”

  She rummaged through the morass of paperwork, came out with a NSA printout.

  “Twenty-two Derrik Coleman’s in the greater Chicago area, but only three with that particular spelling.” She tapped the sheet with her nails. “One of whom is sixty-eight years old and another of whom is African American.”

  “Which leaves…”

  “Derrik Coleman of 1517 Nassau Avenue. Adelphi Court Apartments. Apartment 2D.” She held out a sheet of paper. Craig took it from her hand.

  Illinois driver’s license photo, Xeroxed several times over. Nothing but a deeply shadowed, film noir face staring back at the camera. She rummaged again and came up with one of the posters they’d hung all over South Chicago. He took that too.

  Craig stared at one likeness and then the other, back and forth for the longest time. “Could be,” he said finally. “Could well be.”

  “Hard to tell for sure. DMV camera’s so damn bad.”

  Jackson Craig heaved a sigh and tossed the pages back onto the bed.

  “We’re both officially between assignments,” he said. “If you’re right, the bureau will figure it out. We’ll leave agent Gomez a heads-up.”

  When he looked up, she was grinning.

  “Something funny?” he asked.

  “ You’re sooooooo full of crap,” she said.

  He tried to look offended. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not giving up on this. You’re going to try to find Colin Satterwaitte.”

  “I told you…”

  “Save it,” she said disgustedly. “Your personality type doesn’t tuck its tail between its legs and skulk off into the bushes.”

  “Oh…the profiler at work,” he joshed. “Now you’re profiling me.”

  She ignored the bait, held out her hands. “Help me up,” she said.

  He hesitated and then stepped over and took her hands in his. He leaned back and gently pulled. “Easy…easy…” she whispered as her upper torso began to pivot on the sheets. A third of the way around, the sheet slid to her lap, revealing a thin white cast encasing her chest and ribs. She stifle
d a groan and swung her blue bootied feet over the edge of the bed. Once she was balanced and sitting upright, some of the color returned to her face, Craig pushed a plastic stool under her feet.

  “Look what they did to me,” she said, knocking with her knuckles on the cast. “Acrylic. They don’t use plaster any more.”

  “This is crazy,” Craig said. “No matter what happens here, I’ll survive. I’ve got enough seniority and enough cachet to still have a job when this is over. You don’t. Something goes wrong here, you’re pursuing other options.”

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Let’s just have a look at the apartment.” She didn’t wait for an answer. “There shouldn’t be any anxiety about where I am and why I didn’t arrive in L.A. as originally scheduled, until some time tomorrow afternoon. Between now and then we see if maybe we can’t find that boy.” She raised both hands.

  Craig was unable to restrain a narrow smile. “Courage is like love…” he began.

  “Don’t.” She wagged a rigid finger at him. “Just don’t.”

  Craig watched in bemused silence as she put one foot and then the other onto the floor. Watched as she tested her legs, found it workable and started sliding across the floor towards the closet.

  Craig checked the clock on the wall. “Twelve hours max,” he said. “By that time the bureau will be looking for their data and our employers will have been advised that we’ve taken a powder, at which point they’ll be looking for both us. After that, they find us in any fifteen seconds they have to spare and put an end to our foolishness.”

  __

  Dan Rosen stood with his nose pressed to the one-way window. A plastic- shrouded ground crew was de-icing the plane. Great clouds of propylene glycol hung in the air around the Boeing 720. He could hear the squeak of Bobby’s loafers on the floor.

  “He’s not going to go quietly, is he?” he asked.

  “Probably not,” Bobby said. “He’ll do whatever he can do to complete his assignment. It’s the way he’s wired.”

  “And if there’s a problem?”

  “Then we’re covered,” Bobby said. “We removed him from the investigation. Anything he does from this point on is strictly off-reservation.”

  Rosen cut him off. “What if he succeeds?”

  “That will be quite a bit stickier. CPD already sees him as a bit of a cowboy.”

  “Can you blame them? They had to rescue him twice! “ Rosen said.

  “Which means we’ll probably have to share the spotlight with them if he somehow reels him in. That way everybody walks away happy.”

  “Bite your tongue,” Rosen said. “We’ve expended over two hundred k already. Not to mention favors to be returned at a later date. If we’re paying for dinner, we damn well better be able to…”

  “It also means you’re going to have to declare him fit for regular duty.”

  “Not very damn likely,” Rosen said.

  Bobby Duggan thumbed a button on his encrypted Blackberry. Spoke softly for several minutes and then broke the connection. “We’ll get Jack a little help with his protocol,” he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  The green light over the security portal began to blink. The door opened. A member of the flight crew beckoned them forward.

  “Ready when you are,” he said.

  Bobby Duggan followed his boss down the gangway.

  54

  The letters on the signs were bigger than his head. SOLD OUT. WILL CALL ONLY. He stood there in the snow, stamping his feet, half in anger, half in trying to keep them warm. New Plan. New Plan. Think. Think.

  A few hundred ‘thinks’ later, he saw her. Big, determined and alone. Ridiculous Shirley Temple ringlets tucked up under a knitted watch cap. The white ski parka made her look like the Michelin Man’s mother.

  He watched from across the street as she collected her ticket from the will-call window and started tromping down West Washington Boulevard.

  He stepped quickly over to the snow-flocked fence surrounding the studio’s West Hawley Street parking lot. He moved along the fence line, running his fingers through the chain links, sending the accumulated snow cascading to the ground as he moved along the fence line.

  She headed east, kicking snow as she hurried up the street. Everything depended on what happened next. If she had a husband waiting in a car, he’d have to go back and find another one…if she…

  But she didn’t. His instincts had been correct. Takes a loner to spot a loner. She kept walking, getting into an easy arm-swinging rhythm as she trudged along through the unblemished snow.

  He closed the distance between them, at one point getting uncomfortably close, waiting behind a panel truck as she turned left on North Chester Street. He counted to three and then broke into a full sprint to the corner.

  When he peeked around the edge of the fence, she was no more than thirty feet away, waddling along with her splay-footed gait. He waited until she came abreast of a battered blue Toyota and then moved quickly. The new snow erased the sound of onrushing boots.

  55

  2D stood at the top of the landing. Directly in front of you as you crested the first flight of stairs. At the other end of the hallway, music was leaking out into the hall. Something beat-heavy and techno. Audrey leaned her cast against the wall and kept watch. Her sternum’s throbbing ache had found a way around the painkillers and she had an itch in the middle of her back in a place where she’d have to drill a hole to scratch.

  They’d discussed it on the way over. Stupid was one thing; crazy was another. Because attempting to apprehend this guy without a tactical unit was nothing short of suicidal, and since they were hardly in a position to call for back-up, they’d agreed to limit their activities to ascertaining whether or not Derrik Coleman was indeed Colin Satterwaite and whether nor he happened to be inside 2D at the moment.

  The first part was easy. They hiked all the way to the top floor, folded the poster until only the face showed and knocked on a couple of doors. After a bit of huffing and puffing about being disturbed at that time of night, both the octogenarian Driscoll sisters in 3F and a Mr. Hugo Limuti in 3E agreed. The poster looked a lot like the boy in 2D. Always smiled and then looked at the floor. Never said a word. Nice boy. Quiet. Only seen him two or three times in all the years I lived here.

  Craig had been working on 2D’s door for the better part of five minutes. Finally, he straightened, stepped to the side and eased the door-knob around to the left. The door clicked open. In unison, they drew their weapons.

  Craig gave the door a little nudge. No dead bolts. No chains. Another inch. Still no sign of having been locked from the inside. The tension dropped a level and a half. Craig reached out and used the flat of his hand to swing the door back until it made contact with something on the floor and came to a stop. They held their breaths and waited. Nothing.

  Craig reached again, gave the door another nudge, this time creating an opening wide enough for an unobstructed line of sight down the hallway. No interior lights. Dead quiet. The hardwood floor looked to be littered with all manner of debris. Craig made eye contact with his partner. Nodded.

  They entered the apartment back to back. Covering one another’s blind spots as they zigzagged up the hallway in a series of short rushes, keeping their feet glued to the floor to avoid turning an ankle, shuffling, crouching to look behind and under things.

  Craig swept his gun back and forth across the living room as Audrey turned right into the kitchen, then followed her in. They covered one another as they checked the cabinets and refigerator and found nothing.

  Same with the living room, except much noisier. The floor was covered with hundreds upon hundred of video games, three deep in places as they shuffled their way through the room, sliding stacks of video games along in front of their feet as they checked behind, beside and under every piece of furniture in the room. Again nothing.

  Satisfied, they took positions on either side of the bedroom door, backs against the wall, taking a mo
ment to catch their breaths, before Craig reached out with his artificial hand and opened the bedroom door. The door swung inward. A blast of cold air met their faces. The bedroom window was all the way open. A pile of new-fallen snow had formed on the floor.

  Craig lay belly down and peeked around the corner of the door frame. Nothing under the bed, not even dust. He pushed himself to his feet, looked over at Audrey then reached around the corner and snapped on the overhead light.

  Audrey shuffled quickly to the far wall and flattened herself on the left side of the closet door. Craig kept his automatic trained on the door as Audrey reached out and eased it wide open. Neat as could be. Woman’s clothes on the left, men’s on the right. All hung with military precision. Shoes neatly arranged in ranks on the floor on the closet.

  Wasn’t until they’d begun to relax that Audrey noticed pair of boxes on the bed. “Damn,” she said.

  Both containers were stamped with the same military designation: M18A1.

  “Claymores,” Jackson Craig whispered.

  “He’ll want to go out in a blaze of glory,” Audrey predicted. “Something really theatrical. He’s got some sort of statement he wants to make.”

  “I hope to God you’re wrong,” Craig said.

  “I’m not,” she said flatly.

  Craig holstered his weapon. “ If you’re right, if he’s going to find some way to make whatever point he wants to make…why would he take the boy with him?”

  “No reason I can think of.”

  “Michael or no Michael, we can’t have a depraved transvestite carrying a pair of anti-personnel mines around the city.”

  “No we can’t,” Audrey agreed.

  The diesel roar from the alley was beginning to fill the room. Craig walked over reached up and began to close the casement window. He stopped. Not moving. Seemingly frozen in place by the wintery wind.

  “Call for an aid car,” he shouted as he sprinted for the door. “Call Leonard.”

  Audrey sidestepped over to the window and peered down into the alley below. The rear wall of the building was lined with dumpsters. Directly beneath the bedroom window, the body of a little boy rested atop the snow covered refuse.