Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition

by Andrew Sutherland

  Eric was, of course, the sole proprietor of both companies. They had their own phone numbers. Eric had a pay-as-you-go phone for each company and kept masking tape on each phone with the business name so if he was called, the right business always picked up. Eric was thorough. Eric was going to win. This was the long game. He excelled at the long game. The exciting part was this was also the endgame. He was ready to finish up. He only had five left. Unless…

  He picked up another burner phone and made a call.

  After a few rings, a tired and petulant voice answered, “Hey, Vince. I got all that info for you. I had to do some digging, but I got some great stuff. I had to expose myself a little, so I think I should probably get a little extra something in my check.”

  Eric, who was now Vince, said, “Well, you said it would be a flat $250. I don’t know if I can get any more scratch than that.”

  The hacker, whose name was Gilbert, answered slyly around a mouthful of Cheetos. “Well, Vince, if you only want to pay $250, I’ll just hold onto some of the info. When you get more, I’ll spill the rest of the beans.”

  “How much more?” Eric--Vince--had expected this. He’d found the “researcher” on Craigslist. He knew the guy was an opportunistic scumbag the first time they’d talked. He’d met more than his fair share in the joint.

  “$450 and you get the gold package.”

  “$400.”

  “$425 and not a penny less.”

  Vince sighed. He didn’t care. The money would never change hands. “OK.” He said hesitantly. “I guess I can dodge my landlord for the next four days. When can you meet?”

  “I’m free right now. Why don’t we meet at the Chicago St. entrance to Calvary Cemetery I’m taking the bus, but there’s a stop right there. I can be there in twenty.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll be in my work van. You can hop in and we can look at the stuff in the cemetery. I’m sure you want to fly below the radar.”

  Gilbert, who was a fairly talented hacker, but a deluded degenerate, liked to pretend he was a spy so he eagerly agreed. Eric/Vince knew he would agree. He was great at reading people.

  They met at the cemetery. Vince spotted Gilbert’s corpulent frame from a block and a half away. Gilbert clambered into the van. His prodigious gut almost touched the dashboard. “I’m going to drive further back into the place. It looks slow, and we can take our time going over this stuff.”

  “The info’s all right here.” Gilbert patted a large manila folder. “I think you’ll be pleased. Money well spent, my man.”

  “Okey dokey.” Eric drove further into the cemetery. He was pretty sure the tub of goo next to him had never served in the armed forces. The cemetery was for burying military personnel, but he was positive there was nothing against the rules about dispatching non-military personnel here.

  He pulled the van around to the back part of the cemetery. The van was completely non-descript. Not only had Eric taken the Steve’s sign off the back, he’d removed the back license plate, as well. He often stole dummy plates off of other white vans. There was certainly no white van shortage in Chicago. He had his own plates for the van, but when he drove to “work places” or to do other stuff, he used borrowed tags. He had borrowed tags on the van now. They parked.

  Vince said, “OK. What ya got?”

  “Money first, then I let you see.” More James Bond shit.

  Vince said, “Of course. Let me climb back to my tool box. I keep my cash back there.” He said it with a self-deprecating laugh, and Gilbert just nodded knowingly.

  Eric got a heavy piece of plastic tarp, wrapped his hands a foot and a half from each other, and whipped the plastic sheet across Gilbert’s face. He pulled back hard. Gilbert clawed ineffectually at the plastic mask he was now wearing. It was being sucked against his mouth with every gasp. Eric--he was Eric now because he no longer needed to be Vince--whispered in Gilbert’s dying ear, “You picked the wrong guy to deal with, Fucknuts. I’d have killed you anyway, but you’re dying slow because you tried to strong-arm me. You shouldn’t do business on Craigslist, man. If you do, you shouldn’t meet people in isolated areas. You are one stupid, fat fuck.”

  Gilbert thrashed a little more, then his hands went limp. Eric held the plastic another three minutes, thought about it, then held it for five minutes more. Eight minutes without air would kill anyone. He got out of the van’s sliding door. He looked around to make sure no one was looking, then opened Gilbert’s passenger door. He pulled the guy out and spilled him on the ground. It took some struggling, but Eric managed to get everything he could find out of the guy’s clothes. He had put plastic on the passenger seat in case Gilbert’s bladder or bowels released while he was dying. His bowels hadn’t moved, but he had shot a stream of hot urine down his right leg. It had pooled where his wide ass had been. Eric pulled the plastic off and threw it over the fat corpse. The plastic he choked him with would go into a dumpster at the theatre. His last duty was to pull the license out of Gilbert’s wallet, clean it off with some baby butt wipes he had in the van, and place it, fingerprint-free, on Gilbert’s chest. Easy ID of a scumbag for the cops to figure out. He climbed back in the van.

  Once he was safely in his apartment, his Lenny costume put neatly away (he’d taken it off before meeting with Gilbert and stowed it neatly in the back of the van), he opened the folder and started to look at the file of information on Mr. Alistair McNair.

  The research was thorough. Eric was a little disappointed he had to lose such a good researcher, but the guy was a scumbag, and Eric was in the business of dispatching scumbags. He read the folder with interest. He started with the most recent stuff and worked his way back. The more he read, the more fascinated he became. He read about the private investigation stuff, some peripheral press about him helping in some big human trafficking thing, Al’s being a professor. The fact he was a professor of stage combat was noteworthy. He kept looking at the records and notes. Then he read that Al had been in Chicago right after everything had gone south for Eric. As a matter of fact, Al was in town when Eric was sentenced to do time in Joliet. He’d logged stage time with a bunch of the shitters that were on the list that Eric kept. It looked like the people that were left on the list were the ones that Al had known and worked with.

  Eric had killed nine of the original fourteen people. The five that were left were all working on stuff in town. They all doubtlessly had figured out that the people from that illfated stage combat party were getting offed one by one. Al had known at least two of the ones who had already passed, but he probably hadn’t gotten far enough into all of this to figure that out. Unless someone told him what was happening, he’d probably never figure it out. Eric had decided to kill that fucker Gill last. He’d off that whore Sheena second to last. She’d slept her way to the top. How fitting to get the role of a lifetime, Lady Macbeth, only to fall off the Kinzie St. Bridge into the Chicago River.

  He’d keep an eye on Al, no matter what. He thought the guy was potentially dangerous, and he didn’t want to fuck up this late in the game. He was almost there. He was almost done. When it was over, he’d move away and do some theatre somewhere where he’d be appreciated. He had heard there were enclaves of Americans that did theatre in Japan and places like that. If you knew your way around a theatre even a little, they’d welcome you with open arms. He liked that idea.

  He set the file aside and grabbed a CD from his new music collection. It was Changesbowie, a compilation album by David Bowie. He put it in his new radio and turned up “Space Oddity,” the first track on the album. He could relate to Major Tom in a big way. Here he was, shooting off into outer space; at least, he would be as soon as he finished his countdown.

  24

  “Lord love a duck; that’s a huge bathtub!” Al was looking at the bathtub of his dreams. He was usually a shower man. He would use his parents’ Jacuzzi, but he liked to draw a bath for himself and spend his own time in the smaller space of a large tub. He’d only been in one tub that could accomm
odate his height and girth in recent years. It was at a hotel on the California coast. Even that tub had been a Jacuzzi tub. This was an old, copper and nickel, double slipper, claw-foot piece of American craftsmanship. He’d never seen a double slipper tub. He’d seen single slippers. They were the tubs that were higher on one end and, thus, looked a little like a giant’s slipper. This one went up on both ends. It was wide and deep.

  “Right? When I first saw the fucker I was trying to think of how I could lose it in evidence.” Bud said looking at the tub with longing.

  “I bet they had to bring it in through a window. Did he own this place?”

  “Yeah. Bought and payed for a few years ago. Whaddya think? I mean, I know what you think about the tub; I mean about the rest of this bullshit.”

  Al and Bud were the only ones in the place. The crime scene had been processed but was closed pending an official disposition on the nature of the case. If it was found to be an accidental death, another department would take over and try to find the next of kin.

  After leaving rehearsal, Al had called Bud to get directions to the apartment. It was up by Foster and Broadway. Al knew the neighborhood; he’d lived around there when he was in Chicago. He picked up a bottle of Pinch for Bud. He wouldn’t have time to go to a bar tonight, but he wanted to keep Bud on his good side. He didn’t think he’d have any problems doing that. Bud was a real detective. He, Bud, could feel whatever this was, getting bigger, more connected, and much more engaging as each day ticked by.

  Before getting on the El and heading north, he’d called Edith.

  “Hey, big man. I have about a ton of information for you.”

  “Is it too much?”

  “Not for me. I don’t know your capacity for bullshit yet, but there is a fair amount of bullshit. I think there might be some information you can use. Wanna get together?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Your hotel. I’m not ready to have you come over for a slumber party just yet. You could be a pervert.”

  “I could be. People have said that before. I have to go up north and see a man about a bathtub.”

  “Shopping or are you going to a bathhouse?”

  Al knew there was an extensive rainbow district up north, but he had no intention of going into a bathhouse in this or any other city. “A guy drowned in a bathtub.”

  “Little person?”

  “Big tub. The guy was 5’7”.”

  “Cut off to be an adult little person is under five feet.”

  “So I’ve been told. I’m checking to see if it has any bearing on what I’m looking into. Theatre guy.”

  “Check and see when this guy came on the scene in the Chicago area. I have a theory.”

  “What’s your theory?” Al was interested.

  “I can’t tell you now. It’ll wreck the nerd foreplay. I’ll meet you at your hotel. What time?”

  “I don’t know. It’s five-ish right now. I’ll be travelling for an hour give or take and be there for an hour, so probably around 7:00? I’ll call when I’m heading down here, K?”

  “White Russian.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When I get there, you should make me a White Russian. I like them.”

  “Consider it done. I’ll call. Now, I gotta scoot. Stop flirting.”

  “Honey, if you think this is flirting, you are going to need reinforcements.” And she was off the phone.

  Back in the hotel, Al was looking at the empty shelf over the tub. “Is everything the way you found it? Except the photos?”

  Bud had gotten here before Al and had set Polaroid pics of the crime scene laying around. He put pictures of any items that and been moved or taken from the scene in the positions they were in at the time of the drowning. “You should be able to get the idea if you pretend the pictures are the items they represent.”

  “Cool.” Al had left the bathroom and was looking at the CD’s on the shelves. He stared for a long time. He finally reached up and pulled the furthest left CD case on the shelf that was at eye level from its position. “Was this here?”

  “We didn’t move it and the boss didn’t move anything. He can be here in a couple minutes if I call him.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him. Can you ask him when Dave got to Chicago? I mean when he started to work in theatre in Chicago?”

  “1990. He moved here to go to undergrad and started working tech while he was working on his degree. He’d transferred here from some little town in Michigan.” Bud reached for his notebook to get more details. Al stopped him.

  “That’s OK, Bud. I just needed a timeline of some kind. I’m noodling a theory. So, this CD.” He raised it up over his left shoulder as he continued to scan the gaps on the shelves. “It’s Pink Floyd. The Wall.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “It’s in the wrong place.”

  Bud looked at the shelves. He saw the CD that had been next to it was The Fantastics original soundtrack. “Yeah. Floyd. Fantastics. It’s out of order but it’s in the “F” section. So what?”

  “Bud, these CD’s are arranged by album title. This one should be down at the bottom. The wood here is also worn down more than other places. I bet what he did was find a CD, take it out of the case, and put the case here…” Al indicated the spot where he’d grabbed The Wall. “Then he’d take the CD and put it in the Bose player and take his bath.

  “Oh, really? What makes you so sure?” Bud sounded like he thought Al was full of shit.

  Al threw the case to Bud. “Open it. I betcha the bottle of Pinch I brought you one of the discs is missing from that case.”

  Bud didn’t believe him, but wasn’t willing to risk a bottle of Pinch. “No bet.” He said opening the case. Sure as shit, disk two was missing. “There’s a disk missing.”

  “Yup. Killer’s got it.”

  Bud bobbled the CD case and almost dropped it in the now-empty tub. “The fuck you just say?”

  Al looked at him. “Killer’s got it. Someone came in here, killed Dave, took his Bose Wave Radio, took a bunch of his CD’s, and walked out, just as easy as you please. The only way that could have happened is if someone killed him and took that shit. He had other stuff worth taking…aside from the tub. I think the tub would be hard to steal.” He walked to the door opened it, went out into the hall and shut the locked door behind him. Bud was about to go check on what Al was up to when the door popped back open.

  “What was that about? And what the fuck is that?” He was pointing to the Szco sheath knife Al was tucking into the rear of his belt.

  “Knife. Pried the door. There are some other fresh pry marks on the door jam. That’s how he got in.”

  “Nice detecting.”

  “Where’s the safe?”

  Bud was looking sheepish. “What safe?”

  “This guy has dope, pills, a huge tub, about a million CD’s, his desk is neat, and there are no bills to speak of in the desk. He has a couple of inboxes on his desk. The desk has one drawer. There’s no filing cabinet. I trust you guys tossed all the drawers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s the deed? Where are his valuable papers? He might have a safe deposit box, but this guy doesn’t seem like a bank guy. Lots of tech guys are more into safes than bank boxes. They work weird hours and want easy access along with safety.”

  “Sounds plausible. Where’s the safe?”

  “Someplace smart. Someplace obvious.” Al looked around for a while. He’d just about given up when he noticed that the cracks in the floor boards around the bottom of a rather impressive rubber plant were a little darker than anywhere else in the place. He went to the plant and checked it out. There were two hook and eyes on the back side of the plant’s pot hooking it to the baseboards. The hardware was painted the same color as the mahogany boards. He flicked the hooks out of the eyes and pulled gently in the bottom of the plant. It rolled easily across the wooden floor. There were four floor boards that had been cut out and made into a small door. It wasn’t h
ard to see, but if the plant wasn’t moved, most people wouldn’t notice. Al pulled out his knife again and pried up the little door. It swung silently up, and there was a combination lock on a steel plate in the floor. “Tada,” Al said as if he’d just performed the world’s most boring magic trick.

  “Well, shit. You’re making us look like rubes.”

  “No. You work on a bunch of shit all the time. Probably have a case load that could choke a rhino. I have singularity of purpose on my side. I don’t have a lot of distractions.”

  “You don’t get out much, you mean.”

  “Po—tay-to, po—tah-to. Have your guys open that fucker. I bet there’s something good in there.”

  “You aren’t a safe cracker, too?”

  “Nope. Just a mild-mannered gum shoe from Bumfuck, California. I’m gonna fly. Nothing more to see here. This guy was offed. Murder/robbery. Bet my pet dog on it. Let me know when you have that thing open.”

  Bud was looking simultaneously amazed and deflated. “OK. I’ll call when I find out what’s in there. I’ll put a rush on it.”

  “You should. I think the bodies are going to start piling up. By the by, do you have that file on Mary?”

  “Oh, shit. Almost forgot. Here.” He forked over the file. “I’ll have Dirk’s in the next day or two. Weekends are a little more relaxed, and I can make more copies without being watched. So you think this is a guy?”

  “I think this is a big, strong, pissed-off guy with little or no care about right and wrong. If we don’t stop him, he’ll either disappear or he’ll go out in a blaze of glory. I don’t particularly want either one.”

  “What do you want, Al?”

  Al was putting on his jacket and heading for the door. “To stop him. For good and all, one way or the other, this guy’s gotta be stopped. I’ll have it narrowed way down in two to five days. I’m hoping it’s closer to two. Son of a bitch is on a roll now. Get some sleep, Bud. Go home. Play with your kid. Enjoy the Pinch; as a matter of fact, have one for me. I gotta go meet a girl about some computer stuff.”