Sirens in the Night

by Bradley, Michael;

  Dana Brooks, on the other hand, knew radio only through her experience at WPLX. She was a quiet twenty-something with short blonde hair, cropped just below her ears. She had started as an intern six months before Ron Michaels took over the morning shift. The new morning show host, feeling that his position warranted additional perks, began asking the young intern to get him coffee, doughnuts, and any other food that suited his fancy each morning. As a joke, Ron put the shy intern on the spot by telling her a joke on the air. To everyone’s surprise, Dana Brooks’ personality behind the microphone was a far cry from the shy young lady that everyone had become accustomed to. Station management hired her to become the second member of the morning show. However, when not behind the microphone, the young Dana would instantly revert to her former shy self.

  Ron wrestled his girth into the studio chair behind the control console while Jack gathered his coffee mug, newspaper, and copy of Rolling Stone magazine. Glancing at the back of Ron’s shirt, Jack shuddered at the damp patches of sweat soaking through the cloth.

  “Where’s Dana?” he asked.

  Ron Michaels plugged his headphones into the control console. “She’s picking up coffee. She’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Jack shook his head and thought, It’s been over a year and you still make her get your coffee, you lazy bastard.

  “You working at Pulsar tonight?”

  Jack nodded. “As always.”

  Stepping out of the studio, Jack Allyn made his way down the hall and pushed open the door to the production studio. Similar in size and shape to the broadcast studio, this one was used for producing audio elements that were used on the air, such as commercials, jingles, and promotional announcements. Although this studio had the same control console, microphone, and studio computer system, it also contained an eight-track digital recording system. Jack checked his mailbox, and found three requests for production voiceover work. Within an hour, he had recorded the three commercials, and loaded them into the studio computer system, marking them available for use.

  On his way out of the station, Jack passed Dana Brooks in the hallway, juggling a box of a dozen doughnuts, and two coffee cups. He said hello to Dana, who muttered a quiet reply with her head down, avoiding eye contact. Watching as she walked down the hall, awkwardly struggling with the burden in her hands, Jack shook his head and smiled. He didn’t offer to help, knowing that Dana would mumble something about being fine and not requiring assistance. Glancing at his watch, he noticed that it was closing in on eight in the morning, and realized that he should be on his way before anyone else arrived in the office. Early in his time at WPLX, Jack had made some comments resulting in most of the station staff labeling him as nothing more than a cynical asshole. It was an assumption that he didn’t feel compelled to correct. There were only a few members of the radio station staff to whom Jack regularly spoke: Riley at night, and Ron Michaels and Dana Brooks in the morning being the three most frequent. It was a situation that was acceptable to him, so he didn’t see the need to change it.

  _______________

  Penn’s Landing, the waterfront area of Philadelphia’s Center City, stretched between Spring Garden Street to the north and Washington Avenue to the south, and was mostly cut off from the rest of the city by Interstate 95. The area, almost completely covered in concrete, had become a family-focused entertainment venue over the past fifteen years, and included the permanent mooring of several historical ships, an outdoor concert venue, two casinos, and even an outdoor ice skating rink. One of the latest additions to the area was Pulsar, a nightclub that had transformed one of the old riverside warehouses at the far end of Penn’s Landing into one of the hottest nightspots in the city. Open only on Friday and Saturday nights, Pulsar, with its multi-level dance floors, six bars, and elaborate laser and lighting effects, had quickly become the premiere nightclub by which all other nightclubs in the city were judged.

  Jack Allyn had been lucky enough to land the job of Pulsar’s resident disc jockey on Friday nights, a title which he found to be a bit archaic considering that, like the studio at WPLX, all of the audio at Pulsar was digital, and controlled by a computer system. There were no discs for him to jockey anymore. Although he was paid well for the eight hours he spent providing the musical atmosphere for the club, he didn’t do it for the money. Jack used it as his opportunity to rebel against the stagnation he felt in his broadcasting career. It was a weekly respite from the five-day-a-week hell that was his nightly shift at WPLX.

  Arriving at Pulsar at five in the afternoon, Jack Allyn rang the doorbell by the side entrance designated for employees. He waited patiently, leaning with his back against the wall, until the steel door swung open. Stepping through the doorway, Jack was standing in the small hallway in the business offices of the nightclub. The red carpet ran the short length of the hallway, the walls of which were painted a pale blue. Ahead of him, two doors, one on each side, opened into the hallway. Jack spent very little time in the business offices, but had been there long enough to know that each door led to an office of grand proportion and extravagance. One of the two offices was frequently used, but Jack knew that the second had been rarely occupied since Pulsar’s inception a year ago. The owners of Pulsar were wealthy men, one from Philadelphia, and the other from New York. Jointly, they owned Pulsar in Philadelphia, and a smaller club in New York City called Nebula, which, although smaller than its Philadelphia sibling, was just as impressive. Jerry Rickett, the owner from Philadelphia, spent every weekend in his office overseeing the weekly operations of Pulsar. His partner, Anderson Bock, spent most of his time in their New York club.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder at Jerry Rickett as he pulled the exterior door closed. Jerry, in his early fifties, always looked as if he was trying too hard to fit in with the younger crowd that came to his club. His shoulder length hair, which Jack knew to be grey, was regularly dyed black and slicked back with hair gel, giving it the always wet look. Jerry maintained a two-day growth of stubble on his face, and he was wearing faded denim jeans, a black silk V-neck shirt, and a black and white plaid sports jacket. He had pushed the sleeves of the jacket up his arms to just below the elbows. Jerry always tried hard with getting his “look” right, but Jack thought it looked too forced every time. It also didn’t help that Jerry had developed a bit of a paunch as he grew older, and his choice of outfits weren’t always very flattering for someone of Jerry’s shape and size.

  “Jack! You’re gonna rock the house tonight?” Jerry asked, just as he did every Friday afternoon.

  Smiling, Jack replied with his usual cliché answer, “Yep, I’m going bring the house down.”

  That always made Jerry happy, and that night was no different. The club owner smiled, gave Jack a pat on the back, and said, “That’s my boy!”

  For Jack to get to the club’s DJ booth, he had to traverse a series of hallways that ran along the outer perimeter of the club, and ascend a long flight of spiral stairs. The booth hung out from one wall over the multi-level dance floor. Because of its position, its occupants had a perfect view of almost every part of the club through the booth’s large window. As Jack entered the booth, the lighting engineer, Brad Colburn, was already there. The interior of the booth was a showcase of high tech electronics and computer systems. The wall opposite the door was covered from floor to ceiling with rack mounted control modules for the amplifier system installed in the club. The control boards and computer systems for the lights and audio were centered at the base of the window. Brad Colburn was testing the lights for the dance floor as Jack entered the booth.

  “What’s up?” asked Jack.

  Concentrating on the lighting transitions in the club, Brad replied, “I’ve got a bulb out above level three. I can’t get it changed before we open.”

  Brad, who was in his early twenties, was wearing jeans and a Metallica t-shirt. His head was cleanly shaved, and a brown goatee hung from his chin, tr
immed to a downward point. Black horn-rimmed glasses were perched on the bridge of his long, narrow nose.

  “Can you compensate?”

  Without looking up from his work, Brad replied, “I’m working on that now.”

  Jack smiled, knowing that Brad could easily reprogram the lighting system matrix to compensate for the loss of half the bulbs in the club. One burnt out bulb would be a piece of cake. Tapping at his keyboard, Jack began compiling his music playlist for the evening.

  By ten o’clock that night, the dance floor of Pulsar was packed with bodies, all moving to the pounding beat, which could not only be heard, but also felt throughout the building. The thumping rhythm permeated every inch of Pulsar, even causing liquor inside the bottles at the bars to vibrate to the beat. On the dance floor, men and women were packed in tightly, swaying, grinding, and sweating to the music. The atmosphere smelt of a convoluted mix of perspiration, alcohol, and fog machine chemicals. The bartenders at the six bars around the club were feverishly rushing from one side of their respective bar to the other, filling and refilling drinks. The liquor was flowing freely, fueling the gyrating mass on the dance floor. The lights and lasers flashed and blinked in an extravagant show designed to dazzle and inspire awe.

  Jack, watching from the booth, estimated that the headcount was close to two thousand people. From his vantage point, he could see Jerry Rickett standing by one of the bars on the opposite side of the club. Jack smiled as he watched Jerry’s head sway out of rhythm to the beat. The night was going well, and he felt like he was in his groove with the music. Brad had been feverishly programming and reprogramming the lights and lasers to increase the intensity on the dance floor. Programming the next fifteen minutes of music into the computer gave Jack a chance to relax and watch the festivities below.

  The crowd below him was a mix of ages, ranging from those in their early twenties to those in their forties. He found it interesting to watch the different age groups segregate themselves in the club. The twenty somethings would alternate between the bar and the dance floor, seeming as if they could never get enough of either. The female thirty somethings would spend a lot of time on the dance floor, while their male counterparts would gravitate to the bars. It was easy to pick out the forty somethings because they would spend most of their time sitting in one of the many small lounge areas scattered along the edges of the dance floor. They would make occasional trips to the bars, but would stay clear of the dancing crowd altogether. Jack had made it his hobby to study Pulsar’s urban wildlife, as he called it, from his perch high above them all.

  As he gazed down upon the throng below, his eyes were drawn to a woman who had just entered the club. Normally, he wouldn’t give much attention to any single individual, no matter how attractive that individual might be. But there was something about her that made it difficult to pull his eyes away. Her hair was golden blonde, and fell alluringly onto her shoulders. Her face radiated a beauty that Jack was certain could melt an iceberg. She looked to be in her early thirties, and when she crossed to the nearest bar, the head of every man turned. As she walked, the tight red dress clung to her body, bending around every curve and flexing with each movement. For the first time in his tenure at Pulsar, he actually wished that he were on the dance floor. There was something sexy and sensual about every move she made. Just the act of breathing seemed to have animalistic undertones. From high above the dance floor, Jack watched as heads turned in her direction all over the club.

  At the bar, she ordered a shot. When her drink arrived, she jerked back her head and downed the shot instantly. Jack could see her slowly moving her head from side to side, scanning the crowd around her. He leaned over, nudging Brad with his elbow, and gestured in the blonde’s direction. Like most of the men on the floor below, Brad became instantly mesmerized. She continued to scan the crowd, until it seemed as if she had found what she was looking for. Jack watched her move effortlessly through the crowd onto the dance floor. She seemed to be homing in on one man, who, oblivious to the sudden attention, was dancing with three twenty somethings. The blonde moved in toward the man, as if she were a wild animal stalking her prey. She slowly circled around through the crowd, inching her way toward him. Sliding up next to him, she began to provocatively gyrate her hips to the beat of the music, instantly attracting his attention.

  The three twenty somethings the man had been previously dancing with seemed irritated by the new arrival and, feeling that they were being ignored, moved off to dance somewhere else. The man, who was broad shouldered with black hair and a matching goatee, turned all of his attention to the newly arrived blonde. Jack wondered if they knew each other, because it wasn’t long before their bodies were rubbing and grinding against each other, generating a sexually charged atmosphere between them. The fact that they were in the midst of a crowded dance floor didn’t seem to matter to the couple as they continued their alluring motions.

  For the next two hours, the couple never left the dance floor. They had continued their tantalizing dance with no sign of slowing down. Suddenly, Jack saw her lean in close to the man’s ear. Nodding his head in response, the woman took hold of his hand, and they rushed off the dance floor toward the exit of the club. Jack laughed as he watched the couple disappear out the door. Figuring they were heading out to the parking lot, probably to the back of the man’s SUV or whatever car he had, Jack decided that it was just another one-night stand.

  Chapter Five

  Samantha was pissed off when she lifted the yellow police tape and ducked under it. Not only was it Saturday morning, but the police dispatcher had called her at six fifteen to tell her about the body that had been discovered. She had dressed quickly, cursing the entire time, and left her town house. It had not been a good night, and Samantha was running on three hours of sleep. She had difficulty shaking the images of mummified corpses, making it difficult for her to close her eyes. She feared that the nightmares, which had been gone for close to a year, might return, bringing with them the guilt that she had worked so hard to suppress.

  The dispatcher had given scant details about what had been discovered. She had simply told Samantha that a body had been found in an alley next the nightclub at Penn’s Landing called Pulsar. Although she knew of the club, Samantha had never been to it. The club scene wasn’t really her style. However, the dispatcher had made one comment that gave Samantha reason to pause.

  “The captain thought it’d be best to assign it to you since it might be related to another of your cases,” the dispatcher had said.

  The only active case on which Samantha was working was the three mummified corpses from earlier in the week. She told herself that this couldn’t possibly be related to that case. Yet it nagged at the back of her mind all the way over to Penn’s Landing. And, as she stepped through the cordon at the crime scene, she had a faint feeling of nausea as she saw the shriveled corpse leaning against the exterior nightclub wall. The victim, with its back against the wall, was seated with its left leg outstretched and the right folded under the buttocks. The skin of this body had the same leathery texture as the three that Samantha had seen on the previous Monday. The eyes were wide open, gaping at some unseen terror, while the mouth was frozen in a silent scream, with the white teeth peeking out from under the prune-like lips. The black hair on the head was disheveled, probably caused by the wind that had been blowing in from the river all night. The victim was dressed in black trousers and a white silk shirt, which had been torn open with such force that the top four buttons had popped loose from their threads. Due to the dehydration, the skin of the chest and abdomen had tightened around the rib cage, forming a distinctive outline of each and every bone.

  Kneeling beside the corpse, Samantha gazed closely at the neck, and could just make out the small pinpricks forming the shape of a human hand on either side. If I hadn’t known to look for them, I would have missed them, she thought. Sighing, she looked up and down the alleyway. One end led t
o the front of Pulsar, while the other ended at the edge of the pier on which the club was built. The structure providing the wall on the other side of the alley was a parking garage owned by the city’s parking authority. The alleyway itself was narrow, not even wide enough for a car to fit down. At each end, Samantha observed, was a security camera mounted on the club wall about twenty feet above the ground.

  As she rose to her feet, Peter Thornton approached, having just arrived moments earlier. He stood behind Samantha, and surveyed the crime scene.

  He said, “Another beef jerky corpse.”

  Samantha gave him a long disapproving look, to which he shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Just following Dr. Radcliffe’s lead.”

  Pointing to the security cameras, Samantha said, “I want to see the footage from those cameras.”

  “Got it.”

  As Peter walked away to fulfill her request, Samantha approached the young uniformed officer standing nearby. He had been watching silently from a short distance as the detectives made their initial survey of the scene.