The Killings

by Gonzalez, J. F.

  Robert smiled. “Fair enough, sir. You let me know if anything comes to you, okay?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Robert shook the pastor’s hand and walked out of the church. He opened the massive church doors and took two steps out when he spotted him. A jolt of adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream, preparing Robert to run or fight. Then he remembered that he wasn’t just your average Negro anymore. He was an officer of the law and he had (almost) as many rights as any White man. He continued walking down the church steps toward the sidewalk. Waiting at the bottom of the steps on a motorcycle was Officer Lacey.

  “How’s the investigation coming, Detective?’ Lacey asked with a grin.

  Robert ignored the jab. “Nothing yet.”

  “Well, I got something.” He was leering at Robert. It was obvious he had something on his mind. There was something he wanted to tell Robert and whatever it was, he was thrilled by it. That cruel gleam was in his eyes as he dragged out the moment.

  “Get on, boy. We’ve got some business to take care of.”

  Robert stopped at the bottom of the steps. “What business?”

  Robert could tell by the vicious smile that ripped across the redheaded bastard’s face that Lacey had been waiting for him to ask that question.

  “We’re going to see your friend Henry Parker. He’s wanted for questioning ... about the killings.”

  There was no need to explain what killings he meant. There was only one set of murders that everyone in Atlanta was talking about, only one group of murders that Robert had any interest in: the Atlanta Ripper.

  Robert frowned and walked forward a few more steps. “Why? Why are you questioning him? He don’t know nothin’.”

  “Well, I think he does.” He pointed his nightstick at Robert. “I think you do too. All you jungle bunnies stick together.”

  Robert shook his head vehemently. “I’m trying to find the killer and so’s Henry.”

  Lacey smirked. “Yeah, that’s what you say. Then get on the bike and let’s go pay him a visit. If he’s innocent then he ain’t got nothin’ to be worryin’ about now, do he?”

  “He ain’t did nothin’ wrong.”

  “He’s done a lot wrong. You and I both know that. He’s done more wrong than any ten niggers in this city.”

  “I mean he ain’t have nothing to do with killin’ them women.”

  Lacey slipped his nightstick back in its holster. He smiled and licked his teeth. “Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that now won’t we? I wasn’t gonna let your Black ass ride on this here motorcycle with me no how. What would it look like with you all hugged up on me like that? I ain’t no nigger lover. But I’m gonna find Henry and I’m gonna throw his murderous Black hide in jail. You can believe that.”

  Officer Lacey started the engine and gunned the motorbike’s throttle. He winked at Robert and then took off down the street in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

  Robert watched Officer Lacey ride off with a sense of impending dread. I’ve got to warn Henry, he thought. Heart racing madly, Robert raced away from the church, determined to get to Henry before Officer Lacey did.

  TWENTY-ONE

  August 21, 2011, Downtown Atlanta

  “What do you want?” Carmen was trembling. Just seconds ago she was afraid she was about to be raped. She had been rescued by the man who was now pointing a gun at her, the man who’d just murdered Albert in cold blood. She was beginning to think she might have been better off with Albert.

  “I just want to talk.”

  Albert lay convulsing on the floor between them. He was dead. His body just hadn’t realized it yet. Blood poured from the rupture in his cranium. Carmen backed up as the pool of blood touched the tip of her pumps.

  “You - you shot him. You shot Albert. Oh, my God! You shot Albert!”

  “I said, I want to talk to you.”

  Carmen didn’t know who the chubby guy was, but it was obvious from the nervous excitement in his voice and the erection in his pants that he wanted to do a lot more than talk. She knew enough about kidnapping cases to know that if she got into a car with him and drove out of the parking garage, odds were high she’d never be seen again.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  The chubby guy looked around the garage, making sure they were alone. They were in a remote part of the parking garage. She and Albert had been the last employees to leave the building. Carmen had to restrain herself from lunging for the weapon, but it was still pointed at her chest and she could see no way to get past it without catching a bullet.

  The chubby guy seemed satisfied that they were alone. He gestured with the gun, motioning toward her car. “I don’t want to talk here.”

  Carmen held up her hands and spoke in as reassuring a voice as she could manage. “L-Look - look - I really appreciate your helping me with that jerk, but somebody probably heard that gunshot. You should get out of here. It’s my gun that shot him. Y-you can just wipe your prints off and no one even needs to know you were here. I’ll just tell the police he tried to rape me and I shot him in s-self-defense.”

  The chubby guy smiled, and for the first time Carmen realized how dangerous the guy really was. He was enjoying this, her desperate attempt to save herself. This was all part of whatever sick game he was playing.

  “No, I’m not leaving. Not without you. But you’re right about one thing, someone might have called the cops. So I don’t have time to fuck around with you.” He poked the gun into her stomach. “Now get the fuck in that car!”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. You want to shoot me? Then shoot me. The cops will be here any minute and they’ll find your fat ass standing over my dead body. What do you think’s going to happen to a guy like you in prison?”

  The pudgy guy grabbed the sides of his head, covering his ears and closing his eyes as if he was trying to think through a cacophony. He grimaced as if he were in pain.

  Oh, shit. He’s hearing voices. He’s schizophrenic.

  She watched as he lowered the gun and reached underneath his shirt and into the waistband of his shorts, pulling out a big, old-fashioned straight razor. He opened his eyes and something about them seemed different, less focused ... as if he wasn’t completely there.

  “If you don’t get into that car, I’m going to hurt you really, really bad. Now pull out your keys, open the door, and get in the fucking car!”

  The pudgy guy was shaking with fury. He didn’t look so harmless anymore. He looked batshit crazy. And if he was crazy, Carmen knew her attempts to reason with him were probably useless. I’m so fucked, Carmen thought.

  “My purse is over there behind you.”

  “Then go fucking get it!”

  Carmen walked slowly over to her purse, keeping distance between her and the chubby guy with the gun. She kept her eye on him as she reached down and picked up the purse.

  She fished around inside for her keys.

  “Hurry the fuck up!” the chubby guy yelled.

  Carmen was running out of time. She ran a dozen escape scenarios through her head and they all ended with her being gunned down in the parking lot or taken somewhere else and raped and mutilated. She froze and began to tremble. A new, terrifying possibility had just entered her mind.

  “Are you ... are you the Lust Murderer? Are you the guy who’s been killing all those Black women?”

  “I don’t have time for this shit! You’ll find out soon enough. Now let’s go!”

  There was a bottle of pepper spray attached to her keychain, and she uncapped it as she pulled her keys from her purse. The chubby guy stepped forward and reached for her purse, obviously meaning to find her keys for her to hurry her up. Carmen seized the opportunity and did the only thing she could think to do. She attacked him.

  Just as he shifted his knife into his gun hand and reached for her bag, Carmen raised the can of pepper spray and aimed it at the center of the chubby guy’s fat face, right between the eyes. She held the trigger down for a full five sec
onds. The chubby guy screamed, trying to cover his eyes, still holding the weapons. She aimed a kick at his balls even harder than the one she’d hit Albert with. The pointed toe of her pump connected squarely and she felt something break. He screamed again and doubled over. A red stain immediately formed at his crotch.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh! My balls! You broke my balls!” The chubby guy was wailing, his voice a high-pitched crescendo.

  Good! I hope I ruptured something, Carmen thought.

  The man dropped to his knees. The straight razor fell from his hands and clattered across the blacktop, coming to rest several yards away, but he still held the gun. He held his busted testicles with one hand and rubbed his burning eyes with the back of his gun hand.

  “My eyes! You burned my fucking eyes! You’re dead, bitch! I’m going to cut your fucking tits off! I’m going to shove this fucking gun up your ass and pull the fucking trigger! You’re fucking dead!”

  He aimed the gun in the direction where Carmen had been standing and pulled the trigger three times, but she was already moving, trying to make it to the blade before the crazy fuck’s eyes cleared. Blood was now leaking copiously from the guy’s groin. He was grimacing in agony and had fallen over onto his side. She’d definitely ruptured something. He wasn’t going to be chasing or raping anybody anytime soon, but he might still get away, come back for her some other time or after some other girl. She could end this all now if she could get to that blade without getting shot. She was only a few yards away, but she had to pass him to get it.

  The chubby guy was shooting wildly now. Two more shots went off in the direction of her car.

  If that piece of shit shoots my car I’m going to castrate his fat ass!

  She had almost made it to the blade.

  The chubby guy had stopped shooting and was blinking and trying to open his eyes. Tears were streaming down his face. He was trying to see and was listening for her. His tears were washing away the pepper spray. Carmen reached down and grabbed the blade just as he pointed the gun toward her.

  Oh shit.

  “Gotcha, bitch!”

  “Fuck you!” Dead or not, she was not going to go out without a fight. Carmen raised the blade and charged at him.

  Two deafening shots rang out.

  TWENTY-TWO

  August 21, 1911, Atlanta, Georgia

  Robert ran. He wasn’t exactly sure where to find Henry; there were so many possibilities. He could have been at one of the numerous houses, speakeasies, or any of several brothels he ran. He could have been cuddled up with one of his many ladies. He very well may have been helping a rival into a shallow grave somewhere. There was no telling. Robert did the only thing he could think to do. He caught an electric streetcar downtown to Henry Parker’s home back in the Fourth Ward, hoping he wouldn’t get there too late and his friend would be there. There was no telling what that asshole Lacey would do if he caught Henry alone. There was no telling what Henry would do.

  The streetcar stopped at Peidmont and North Avenue and Robert quickly disembarked and began to run. Sweat bulleted down his face and soaked his shirt as Robert raced through the streets of the Fourth Ward, searching his memory for the way to Henry’s house. He picked a direction that seemed right and sprinted the two short blocks to Ponce De Leon Avenue.

  Robert was out of breath by the time he spotted the large two-story colonial with the huge wooden balcony that wrapped around the entire second floor. There was a large iron fence, more than six feet tall, surrounding the property. Tall magnolias, oaks, and southern pine trees shielded most of the first floor from view. Large white columns rose on either side of the main door and ornate wooden cornices bordered the roofline. Incongruous with its owner, Henry’s home was an idyllic mansion gaily painted in canary yellow and white. Roses, tulips, orchids, and some small white flower Robert couldn’t name dominated the flowerbeds in front of the home.

  Despite their years of friendship Robert had only been to the notorious gangster’s opulent home a few times for the annual Christmas party and Thanksgiving feasts. He’d passed by it in the day on several occasions but had never visited. Robert only went to see his friend when Henry returned to the neighborhood, to the home he’d grown up in, to visit his aging mother, or at the speakeasies or Robert’s barbershop. To Robert, the house portrayed an image that was too far removed from the Henry Parker he knew. It seemed artificial. This was not the home of a Black gangster but of a wealthy White family with Black servants. Robert didn’t know the man who called this place home.

  The front gate stood wide. Officer Lacey’s motorbike sat by the front steps with the engine still running. With any luck, Henry wasn’t home, but Robert had gotten the impression that Lacey had already known exactly where Henry was before he confronted Robert at the church. It was as if the redheaded bastard wanted Robert there to witness his friend’s arrest as a test of his loyalty to the police force.

  Robert dashed through the gate, up the front steps, and through the unlocked front door. Henry stood in the huge foyer pointing a shotgun at Officer Lacey, who aimed a Winchester revolver back at him. They both turned their aims at Robert as he entered the foyer, and he immediately held up his hands in surrender.

  “Wait! Wait! It’s me!”

  They returned their aim to each other.

  “Put that gun down now, boy,” Officer Lacey sneered at Henry. “Before you get hurt.”

  “You put your gun down and get the hell out of my house!”

  “You’re under arrest, boy. I know you the one been doin’ all these killin’s.”

  Lacey’s gun hand trembled as he spoke. His eyes darted from Henry to Robert. Sweat had beaded on his brow and dripped down into his eyes. He blinked frantically, as if afraid that taking his eyes off Robert and Henry for even a second would lose him some imagined advantage.

  Henry sneered. His hands were steady, eyes unblinking and unmoving, like the eyes of a reptile stalking prey. “You’s crazy, White boy. I ain’t have nothin’ to do with them girls gettin’ killed and you know it!”

  Robert had to do something! He took a cautious step forward. “Let’s all calm down now. Lacey, come on. You know Henry ain’t have nothin’ to do with them killin’s. This here is just crazy.”

  Lacey shook his head, lowering into a shooter’s stance and backing up further to give him a better view of the two men. “I don’t know no such thing.”

  “Yes, you do. There ain’t no evidence says Henry had anything to do with this. Henry is all about makin’ money and these killin’s done hurt his business more than most. It don’t make no sense for him to be involved.”

  “You better listen to him, White boy,” Henry said.

  Robert looked around. There was something wrong. Henry was never alone. Ever. He had too many enemies. How had this cop waltzed into Henry’s home without any resistance? Where were Henry’s men? Where was all the security?

  That’s when Robert spotted Roscoe Tillis, one of Henry’s closest bodyguards, creeping past one of the windows on the porch. Roscoe was more than fifty years old and had been a friend of Henry’s mother. He protected Henry as much as a favor to Mrs. Parker as for the generous salary Henry paid him. Robert looked over at Henry and could tell by the smile on his friend’s face that he’d spotted Rosco too, but that was the only indication. Henry’s eyes completely avoided the porch behind Officer Lacey and remained fixed on the policeman’s face. Roscoe was now almost directly behind Lacey, raising his Schofield .44 revolver and slowly aiming it.

  He could barely breathe. The humid Georgia air seemed to have thickened and the heat felt like an oven. Robert’s heartbeat quickened. He felt like he should do something, but what? If he warned Lacey, he would be betraying his friend and might get either Roscoe or Henry killed. If he didn’t, he’d be an accomplice to the murder of a police officer. Robert felt like he was about to pass out.

  “Okay, White boy. I’ll put my gun away, but I still ain’t goin’ nowhere with you,” Henry said, as he lowered his s
hotgun and placed it on the antique Victorian marble-top table upon which the keys to his home and most of his businesses rested. Lacey smiled, suddenly relaxed and confident. He was a bully through and through.

  “Well, it ain’t gonna be quite that easy now. You done pulled a gun on an officer of the law. That’s a capital offense for a colored boy. You uppity-ass niggers got to be taught to respect the law.”

  Henry continued to smile. Robert saw the look of confusion flash across Lacey’s face just before it was replaced by one of rage and indignation. He could almost read the officer’s mind. Lacey was going to murder Henry for pointing that shotgun at him. Henry saw it too, and for the first time, his eyes strayed behind Officer Lacey to Roscoe, passing a desperate signal.

  Everything was moving too slowly, and Lacey was moving too fast. If Robert didn’t do anything, Henry would be dead in seconds. Robert did the only thing he could think of. He threw a punch.

  Before Roscoe or Lacey could fire a shot, Robert’s punch landed flush on Lacey’s jaw, dropping him like a stone. Robert looked down at his fist in amazement. Henry moved in. He slapped Robert on the back as he shouldered past him on his way to where the policeman lay on his back, struggling to get up. Henry kicked the gun from his hand and then kicked the officer in the jaw with his pointy alligator skin shoes. Lacey’s eyes rolled up in his head and he flopped over onto his belly. Blood trickled steadily from his mouth and nose.

  “You were going to kill me? Me? You’re a fucking dead man!”

  Officer Lacey was on all fours, looking up in a daze just as Henry punched him in the jaw, dropping him back down onto his belly. He began stomping Lacey in the face, smashing his face into a blood-spattered ruin. Roscoe came in through the front door and began landing a few kicks and punches of his own.

  Robert felt like everything was spiraling out of control. “Stop, Henry! You’re going to kill him!”