Black Angel

by Thomas Laird

  “But it’s all perfectly true.… You’ve never been to my apartment, have you.”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’ve got my Kimball baby grand in the living room of my little abode.”

  “Really?”

  “For true.… And here’s the kicker. I have perfect pitch.”

  “What’s that?”

  He explains that he can tell by listening if a note is being played or sung on key.

  “Only a few dudes have that gift, buddy.”

  “I believe you.… How come you never told me any of this shit before?”

  He leans aggressively toward me as if he’ll pull the truth out of me yet.

  “You never asked. I didn’t think you cared to hear about any of that.”

  “Well, you were wrong, Jack.”

  “Oh, God. What’ve I done now? Have I humanized my poor fucking self?”

  “Just about. It’s like I never knew anything about you.”

  “Please, Will. You’ll be holding my fucking hand, next thing you know.”

  His expression of mock contempt makes me laugh out loud.

  “Not likely, partner.”

  “You ought to come over with Hannah, sometime. I’ll play some Chopin for you both.”

  Then he returns to the solemn, artsy-fartsy Jack Clemons. It’s like he splits his personality before my very eyes. He’s a magician, sort of.

  “And who’re you going to bring to the concert?”

  “I don’t play for the ladies. I play for myself and for select audiences only.”

  “You don’t play for your women folk?”

  “No, Will. It’d overwhelm them. It’d be vastly unfair.”

  It’s like he’s come alive before my eyes, now. He was just another cop with a badge, even though we’d been working in close quarters together for months.

  “I don’t get why you held back for this long,” I tell Clemons.

  “Look. My old man was a Vietnam vet. He was a lifer in the Army. Rangers. Very tough individual. He always talked about how he never got close to “fngs.” Fuckin’ new guys. He always thought it’d hurt too much to get attached to another grunt, so he held back with the personal history stuff. You follow?”

  “Yeah, I do. But I wish I’d known all this before.”

  “Point is, Will, you know it now. I mean, am I right or not?”

  30

  Sweet hitchhiker.

  She can’t be more than twenty-two-or-three. She has auburn hair to her waist, and the freckles lightly dot her face. A pretty girl, all in all.

  I couldn’t risk using the BMW that my foster daddy procured from his Italian friends in Chicago. By now they have all deserted him, seeing that he is persona non grata with the IRS, that infamous band of hooligans that rid the country of Alphonse Capone. The name “Capone” puts my father in league with crime’s heavyweights. I’m not sure if he’s deserving of that high-level association.

  The driver’s name is Carrie Anne. She picked me up on US 80 on my way out of Joliet on an early Wednesday morning. Carrie tells me she never picks up hitchhikers, but she asked as if I were the strong silent type who might serve as a bodyguard for her on her long journey. I was more than happy to accommodate her.

  “You’re not one of those serial killers, are you?” she grinned as we headed for parts west on the Interstate.

  “Do I look like a bad guy to you?”

  “You’re a very attractive man,” she blurts.

  “Why thank you, Carrie.”

  “You don’t carry much luggage.”

  She’s referring to my single duffel filled with my belongings now resting in the backseat of her 1994 Escort.

  “I travel light.”

  “You look a bit well-dressed to be a hitcher.”

  “I enjoy the challenge of getting places without the cost or the hassle.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “William. People call me Will, though.”

  “I like that name. Will.”

  She smiles with the same kind of gushing sincerity she handed me a little earlier.

  “Where exactly are you headed?”

  “Los Angeles,” I tell her. “Beverly Hills, to be more exact.”

  “I don’t mean to pry. Sorry.”

  “It’s not a problem, Carrie. Really. Ask away.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m an exterminator.”

  “You kill bugs?”

  “No. I take care of bigger pests than that.”

  “Like what?”

  She has her eyes half off the road, and since traffic is fairly heavy this morning, she’s making me just a wee bit anxious.

  “I don’t want to distract you,” I tell Carrie.

  She turns her head toward the west.

  “What do you do?” I ask so she won’t turn moody on me. We’ve got over 2000 miles to travel together, if I don’t kill her out of boredom, dump her body in a truck stop, steal another ride, and keep going to La La all by myself.

  I’d rather talk to her, though. I’ve been leading the solitary life too long lately. The only contacts I make seem to disappear before my eyes. I look forward to seeing if I can be with people without murdering them.

  “I’m a graphic designer. I’ve got a job waiting for me in LA.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What is it you really do?”

  “I was going to be a lawyer. You didn’t buy that exterminator joke?”

  “I’m not stupid, Will.”

  “No. I can see you’re not. You’re very bright.”

  “And I don’t want you to think I’m some desperate female, either. When we stop, we’ll be sleeping in separate rooms.”

  “Of course. The thought never crossed my mind.”

  And the thought really never did cross my mind. I have no intention of coupling with this silly bitch. I just wanted to see how long I could go without throttling her. I might be able to make it to David Crowley’s house in Beverly Hills without actually liquidating this dumb cunt.

  *

  We approach California on the third day on the road. We’ve crossed a desert or two; I can’t recall which bodies of sand because I spend most of the time sleeping so I don’t have to talk to Carrie anymore. She bores me, but not to the point of homicide. Besides, with all the cops looking for me having a female at the wheel driving as a pair is perfect cover. I suspect that Detective Koehn and his crew think I’m still in Chicago or the area. Which is fine for me because I want to let Koehn’s personal pressure cooker build up to a boil. And then I want him to forget about me. I want him relaxed before I visit him and his entire family. And before I meet up with his wife-to-be, the beauteous Hannah and her fair daughters. I have special plans for those last three females.

  We descend the state of California until we reach Los Angeles and its spider web of highways and freeways and interstates. Carrie winds up being a skillful navigator. She’s received excellent directions from her new employers, whoever the hell they are, and she drops me off at David Crowley’s gate three days after we began our little odyssey together.

  I thank her for her company and for the ride. She was true to her word about separate motel rooms en route. We stopped twice. I paid for the rooms, and she was surprised when she saw I paid in cash. The guys at the motels were used to plastic, but they took my bills without too much eyeball-rolling.

  It’s hours before dawn. I press the buzzer at the gate.

  “It’s not the IRS, Jason,” I tell the security guard.

  My foster daddy hired Jason when I was in my late teens. Jason was a Marine sniper who served in Vietnam, which is why David hired him, I think. Old ties to an even older war. And Daddy lost his war; we didn’t.

  “Hello, Jason,” I greet the security guard.

  “Hello, Mr. Anderson,” Jason replies. But there’s a dubious look on his face. He knows the police want me. He, however, will not drop a dime on me because he’s discreet. Discreet to the tune of s
ix figures a year for watching Daddy’s gate. He might be worried that his job is coming to an end, what with my father’s IRS difficulties, but he’s probably waiting for the results to come in. I don’t know what other job a high school graduate like Jason could find that could come close to his current salary.

  My handsome, sandy-haired dad opens the door.

  “You’re taking a very stupid chance by showing up here,” he says to me.

  “It’s dark. They think I’m still in Illinois.”

  He brings me in and quickly shuts the door.

  “At least you had the sense to come here late.”

  Very late, indeed. It’s 2:20 a.m., Western time, of course.

  If there are surveillance people on the street, I didn’t see them, and Daddy’s estate is very well concealed from the other homes down his street. Not to mention that his spread occupies three acres. In this part of LA, a lot this big is a bit unusual. But I think I made it past Jason without being observed.

  I don’t plan on lingering here long.

  We go into his expansive study. There are law books galore. The classics. The usual collection of fine literature adorns his massive bookshelves. He sits at his large oaken desk with an impossibly perfect shine to its surface. I sit where I always do, opposite from David.

  “What do you want?” he demands.

  “Money.”

  “I sent you fifteen thousand.”

  “I’m broke, Dad.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Have we lost our connection?” I grin.

  “The day you did murder. Yes.”

  “Then why do you have anything further to do with me?”

  “I took you in. I told you I’d take care of you. I went beyond any reasonable bounds of doing things for you, Benjamin, but here it stops. They are going to catch you, and now you’ve come to my house, which makes it aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

  “You already abetted and aided me.”

  “Here it ends, as I said.”

  “I need money,” I tell him.

  “I don’t like the demanding tone,” he tells me.

  “I’ve always had that tone with you, David.”

  “You’re a blackmailer and a murderer.”

  “I’m the little boy you brought up in this lap of luxury.”

  He looks around his study. He appears trapped and trying to find an avenue of escape.

  “How much?”

  “Whatever you have in that safe behind you.”

  “I can’t. I need every dollar. I’m trying to get out, tonight.”

  “You’re going to run from the Feds? And how will you do that?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “No. It’s mine now too, Daddy, since I’m back here in the friendly confines of home.”

  “You’ve never lived here. You’ve never really lived anywhere. You went from this house to the military like a disease, infecting anything you’ve touched.”

  “Such lofty morality from a drug Mafia mouthpiece.”

  “I never murdered anyone. I shot at men in a war, but I never…”

  “You defend scum.”

  “I’m not a good man, but I’m not a…”

  “Monster?”

  He studies me. Then he taps his fingers on the top of the oaken surface.

  “How much?”

  “Everything you’ve got.”

  I show him the .45 caliber Colt, now.

  “I’ll give you whatever you want. That isn’t necessary.”

  I aim and shoot him in his left shoulder. The shot is not meant to kill him. The blast knocks him out of his swivel chair onto the floor behind him. When I reach him, he’s flat on his back and bleeding heavily.

  “Don’t, Benjamin. Please…”

  I walk out of the study and make my way into the garage. He has several large gas cans that he uses for the upkeep of his gardening devices, mowers, and weed whackers. My daddy is the consummate gardener. It is his passion.

  I take two of the five gallon gas cans back into his study. His face is considerably paler now.

  There is no danger that Jason has heard the retort of the .45 because this house is very well insulated. In fact, Daddy’s study is well sound-proofed. Only a slight chance he heard the crack of my pistol.

  Daddy is bleeding out.

  I begin pouring the gasoline all over him. Then I douse as many of his fine books as I can before my pipeline of fuel depletes.

  David Crowley is groaning at me.

  I already know where the safe is, just behind where he lies. So I go to the panel, and I press the hidden button, and the bookcase swivels about, and there it is. I know the numbers because Daddy has allowed me to watch him, since he has always feared that he’d need me to secure him funds for just such an occasion as the attack of the accountants at the IRS.

  Eureka! The old man has stuffed his larder with something close to a half million in American dollars. Sometimes he has British pounds stashed here because he loves flying off to London, but my luck is with me because it’s homeland currency this early morning.

  I unload all the clothing out of my large military duffel. Then I put as much money as I can inside the bag. Fortunately, David has concealed thousand-dollar bills and hundred-dollar bills, along with a smaller collection of twenties and fifties. So I’ll be able to use the smaller denominations to make my way out of California and then head back east, where I have unfinished business.

  And then it’s perhaps back to sunny, warm Mexico lindo. Not back to Aguascalientes, of course, because that might be asking for trouble. The Mexican cops frown on rape and murder, and they have my likeness undoubtedly posted everywhere in that vicinity now, and I’m also determined not to go through plastic surgery. For one thing, you can’t trust the doctors, because I’ve been in the headlines lately. For another, I’m not a big fan of personal agony. I don’t like being in pain. Hurting is something other people should do. It’s not for me.

  I look down one last time at David Crowley. I show him the little lighter he uses for candles and for his fireplace. Then I light it and place the tip of the flame just above his shoe-tops. The stink of the gas is almost overwhelming.

  “Benjamin, don’t,” he pleads.

  I light him up, and his body flares like an explosive torch. He screams as the flames run riot over him. Then I quickly go to the bookcase and I apply the fiery end of the small wand to some of his literary collection. The bookcase explodes, and I have to jump back, grab the duffel loaded with Daddy’s cash, and I have the .45 palmed, all as I’m sprinting for his front door. The flames seem to follow me, and I barely make it out his entrance.

  Jason has smelled the conflagration, and as I approach him, I raise the .45 and shoot him once in the forehead. The back of his skull is blown behind him, but in the dark, the blood looks black. I can’t see the usual pink and white profusion of brain-matter.

  I hurry toward the front gate, punch in the code, and the big barrier opens more slowly than I’d like it to.

  David Crowley has a security system that will no doubt alert the police and fire department automatically, so I have to run for it. The duffel is heavy with my money and my weapon, but this burden is not too heavy to bear, and I race away from my father’s burning, ruined estate.

  31

  March is harsher, with the white stuff. We get three inches apiece on each of the first three days of the month. It makes getting around the city interminable. The streets are clogged; the Stevenson and the Eisenhower and the Ryan and the Kennedy are fucking nightmares. The plows can’t keep up because the snow just keeps on coming.

  On the twenty-eighth day of March, the weather relents and the plow guys make the most of the respite.

  The news of the bonfire in LA travels quickly to Chicago, so we hear about David Crowley’s death just hours after the fact. The gas cans were found or at least remnants of them were and the fire inspectors relay to the cops here and in California that the blaze was no a
ccident. And the next day, they scooped up enough of Crowley to find a bullet hole in the charred-broiled shoulder of the owner of the mansion that was torched. Prints won’t help us because Anderson left fingerprints all over the house in which he once dwelled. A jury wouldn’t have much use for that kind of evidence.

  But everyone knows who called on the Mafia mouthpiece. The LAPD and the CPD have no doubt it was our boy and his own, Captain Benjamin Anderson.

  Then the girl who gave Anderson the ride from Joliet to the West Coast comes forward. She positively IDs Benjamin as her road partner for three days on Interstate 80. She says she dropped him at Crowley’s front door early in the morning on the day Crowley became fried rice.

  So we have him cold, pretty much, for his father’s slaying and for the killing of the security guard, Jason. Gerald is still in the wings waiting to rat him out even though he never actually met Anderson in the flesh. The circumstantial case is pretty solid, our prosecutor insists. I’m not so sure. I’ve seen good criminal counselors blow gaping holes in circumstantial and hard evidence cases. That’s why they make the big money and that’s why they dwell in large estates in the ritziest locations in California and on Long Island.

  I’d rather see the Captain’s corpse in the morgue. Then I know that if there is a God He’ll do the right thing to him when it comes to handing out genuine justice.

  *

  We have other cases on our load. We have two seniors murdered in the inner city. They were both petty heists gone dirty. They had their wallets stolen, both of these black geezers, to the tune of $12.36 total for both. The bangers who did them were pissed the take was so small, so they smoked both old men with a shot to the head apiece. We catch the bangers in six days. They’re both multiple time losers in the hood. We even get a couple of standup citizens to rat them out. Eyeball witnesses. Both old guys were shot in the street in the cold, harsh light of March in the city. So they both go black on our boards after a short posting in red.

  We have a welfare mommy who suffocates her two-month-old daughter in her own breasts because Mommy winds up being bi-polar, and the shrink says she was severely depressed at the moment she asphyxiated her own kid.

  We have a teen driver, aged sixteen, who knocks down a priest on the southwest side and damn near cuts the padre in two, killing him instantly. We find out he’s got a bench warrant on two other DUIs.