“Patience,” I told myself. I continued to wait. He’d never broken his pattern before. Not yet, anyway. It had been more than a week since Nerd and I started working this case, and the man had only deviated from his daily patterns one time, when the early spring showers had kept the children safe and indoors and out of his sight.
I’d read the police report and nearly retched when I learned what he’d done to a six-year-old girl. The man turned and paced back toward me. The smell of his burning cigarette grew stronger as the smoke caught in a short gust of wind, rose in a thin twirl above his head, and wafted near me. I could see more of his face now. No taller than I was, his chin stubbled in flecks of black, and his cheeks sunken deep beneath bulging eyes. The sight of him made me think of a sad little ghoul, but to the girl he had raped and murdered, he must have seemed a giant. A monster. And to her parents—the ones I’m nearly certain arranged for his murder—this ghoul, this man, this thing, was pure evil.
“The world’s not going to miss you,” I said. “Technicalities are meaningless in my world.”
This was our fifth case since Nerd and I had gotten back together. I know it’s murder, but I like to call them “cases” as if I am some kind of doctor. Only I’m not fixing a broken bone or helping to rid the world of a crippling disease. Instead, I’m righting wrongs and bringing a sense of retribution to the minds and hearts of those in need. I know it’s still murder. I’m not trying to fool myself into thinking it is anything different. I am a murderer, and I’m the first to admit that I get off on it. But isn’t it the same for a scientist in the throes of a great discovery or a surgeon cutting into a body? Don’t they get off on what they are doing, too? And let’s not forget, I’m also getting paid a shit-ton of money for my work. And who doesn’t like that?
Since starting to work with Nerd, I have to say his technical abilities have gone beyond anything I thought was even possible. Sometimes I wonder if he was holding back before. Now he is really beginning to trust me—and us—and what we’ve become. The favorite change he’s implemented? He optimized the yellow and green and red links we used to navigate the Deep Web. And of course, I always favored the red, knowing the dangers hidden in those links. The yellow and green were okay too, but more for shopping. To the endless depths of the Deep Web, he’s applied what he proudly calls our personalized taxonomy, helping us connect to those seeking revenge. Since then, we’ve had more customers than we can take on. Who knew there were so many willing to pay five or even six figures for a taste of vengeance? In our first months, I made more money than Steve does in a year working as a police detective.
The money is great in theory, that is, but we have a problem. We can’t get paid. Our money is stuck somewhere in the vast and dark electron world of the World Wide Web. It’s circulating as Bitcoin, Nerd had explained to me. Internet currency just waiting to be converted and cashed in. But he had an idea about how to solve that, and promised a solution in the coming days. If he was right, I’d finally be able to show Steve something for all of my hours. Of course, he didn’t know about the murder part of the job—except for the homeless man, that is. I’d explained to him that I’d taken a start-up idea to a nerdy computer fellow and that we’d made some progress and had a few sales. He’d given me a cautious look meant as a warning, but had chosen not to say anything. He seemed to be satisfied enough.
Ghoul’s pace changed then, shifting and pulling my attention back to why I was here. His step quickened and his hands snapped together as his fixation on the playground intensified. He seemed agitated. I saw the little girl with the pigtails walking away from the playground, and I knew my window of opportunity was closing.
The old stone pavers lining the street were slick, smoothed by years of footsteps, and I carefully walked across them, approaching Ghoul without his suspecting me. Another squeal came from the playing children, and his face lit up in response. A row of yellowing teeth peered through his lips while he scratched his stubbly chin, darting his glances from child to child. He’d surely picked another victim, having given up on Pigtails. I reached down to playfully twist Needle, but then remembered I’d left my assassin’s ring in the car. Nerd had given it to me, and Ghoul was supposed to have been the first to receive the short but painful death it could deliver.
I thought back to when Nerd first showed me the new toy he’d gotten me to accompany this case. He’d outdone himself. Nerd had found every one of Ghoul’s records. All of them were on the state’s old computers, just lying out in the open, waiting to be picked up by any curious eyes with a penchant for simple hacks. And while some had officially been “sealed,” we simply chose to ignore that legal designation. Ghoul’s life had started in foster homes, where he set fires and even mutilated a family dog. He moved on to a detention center, where the records stated he’d sodomized another boy. Soon after his eighteenth birthday, he’d been charged with his first sexual assault and was briefly sent away to big-boy prison. What we found out about his medical condition opened the door for our opportunity. Ghoul had a bad heart. He suffered from potentially deadly arrhythmia. Nerd had brought up images for me of a surgery showing an implantable cardioverter defibrillator being placed in a patient’s chest.
“It’s like a pacemaker,” Nerd had explained. “Regulates the electrical field of the heart.”
And how did that help us? Ghoul’s last ICD implant was overdue for a replacement, meaning his heart was vulnerable. All I had to do was disrupt its electrical field to send him into sudden cardiac arrest.
When Nerd had finished showing me the images of the ICD implant, he had produced a taser. It was shaped like a gun, but was the type with the shiny metal nipples. I’d need to get up close, actually touch the target to deliver an electrical shock.
“I boosted it too,” Nerd told me then, a smile brimming across his face.
“What do you mean, boosted it?” I asked, intrigued.
“Stun guns are normally set to deliver a fixed charge—eighteen pulses per second, lasting five seconds. So I dialed it up. A lot.”
“How much?”
“I reworked it so that it delivers all the juice in under two seconds. That’s almost three times the power with a delivery that is three times shorter.” His smile was easy and satisfied, but I heard hesitation in his voice.
“But?”
“It also means that you’ve only got one shot,” he answered, turning the stun gun around to hand it to me. “One shot. But it’ll be a hell of a shot. And hit him in the chest too. Just to make sure.”
Pain wasn’t our usual thing, but ensuring delivery in entirety was paramount. Nerd could immediately tell I was uncomfortable with the plan. I preferred poison, which had worked well for us in the past.
“And you boosted this to make sure he dies?”
“Of course. Quicker delivery too. Could even be considered more humane.”
“Won’t I get a shock?” I asked, not wanting to sound stupid but also not wanting to die trying to kill the mark.
“Doesn’t work that way. His muscles will absorb all the electricity. None of it should pass to you.”
“None of it should?”
“None of it will pass to you.”
“I’ll make the shot count. What should I expect to see?”
Nerd sat back, closed his eyes. He was thinking. “If I had to guess, it should look like a heart attack, but I really don’t know. It could be bad, though, as in Green Mile bad where the French dude caught on fire and burned up in the electric chair.”
“What?” I had asked, lifting my brow. “Seriously?”
Nerd had waved off what he had said with a quiet laugh. “Kidding. But he’ll feel some punishment before his heart gives out.”
“A punishment would be fitting, indeed,” I whispered now, emptying my mind and concentrating on Ghoul, concentrating on the hit. I felt the outline of the stun gun, recalling all the instructions Nerd had given me. Full delivery meant both steel nipples had to touch him—not just one. B
oth.
Press firmly and pull the trigger, I heard in my head. Lean him against a wall if you can.
A distant rumble sounded, taking Ghoul’s attention away from the playground. Cold air rushed over my skin as a shiver of pollen blew from the trees. A storm front was coming, and the first drop of rain hit my arm, blooming into a small wet flower before dripping away. Bruised clouds spiraled, folding into one another, turning the sky green, and filling it with a humid electrical charge. A mix of hail and thick, wet drops tinkled on the tops of cars and the pavement. The pour was slow at first but then sped up like a game-show countdown, adding to the urgency of my situation. I only had a few minutes before the heaviness of the rainstorm would wash away my chances by driving Ghoul inside.
Parents rallied from the benches, surrounding the playground, clapping their hands, and calling out to gather their babies. The sizzle of electricity became audible as white tendrils arced rhythmically from one side of the sky to the other like a ballet dancer crossing a stage. A bright-blue charge flashed overhead and staggered downward, ripping through the air before crashing into a stand of trees just beyond the playground. Ghoul jumped, startled by the electric burst, but I kept my head down and my eyes level with his body. Parents yelled above the frightened shrieks of their children and Ghoul slumped his shoulders, realizing his opportunity was lost. His paced slowed, the enthusiasm gone from his step.
Another lightning bolt came with a sharp clap of thunder, landing close enough to raise the small hairs on my arms. The sudden severity of the storm distracted me now. I almost let Ghoul walk by. I quickly ducked into a store’s doorway and called out to him, extending my arm into the pouring rain, pleading for his help, trying to play him like my first mark, the homeless man, had played me.
Maybe he liked women too? Maybe he liked taking advantage of a damsel in distress? One could hope.
I’d put the hook out for him to see, waving my hand, my white skin glowing in the storm’s green light. Then I baited the hook. Ghoul slowed when he reached me, staring long and hard at my dangling fingers. He ran his tongue over his lips and glanced around, uncertain. His curiosity got the better of him, and he stepped close enough for me to grab his loose collar. The doorway I had ducked into was a generously ideal fit, an alcove with all the privacy of a hidden closet. It was perfect, and it would become the scene of Ghoul’s murder.
“What? What’re you doing?” he asked, his shoes skittering along, heel to toe, as I yanked on his shirt, manhandling him in a way that took him by surprise. “Please. Please, I don’t have very much. You can have it. You can have it all.”
“Shut it,” I snapped. I had already drawn the stun gun from inside my jacket. I held the power of lightning in my hand—his dying grunts would supply the thunder. I wasted no time. I shoved Ghoul against the wall, as Nerd had instructed. His lungs deflated from the hard crash. I coughed and gagged at his stale-tobacco smell, but managed to drive the stun gun into his chest. The world slowed as I began the act of murder. I’d rehearsed how to do this a hundred times: lift the stun gun to the level of his chest, flip the safety, drive the metal posts into his heart.
“What are you doing? Please—”
Ghoul’s chest exploded in bright light and his body rocketed up and back, flattening against the alcove wall. I jumped at the sharp snap of electricity, the flash lighting up the space between us and burning the air. The smell of ozone filled the alcove as the gun’s last pulses fired. When the stun gun was spent, I dropped it to my side and pocketed it. I’d rehearsed that part too, knowing I’d take it to Neshaminy Creek later that day.
As if knowing this was a punishment was for what he’d done, Ghoul lifted his hand and placed it onto mine. His breath was staggered and came in chops that sounded like rippled water lapping against a rocky shore.
“Thank you,” he said as his eyes fluttered and began to close.
“What?” I asked, nearly shouting. “What did you say?”
His body lurched upward again, and he clutched at his chest. Nerd was right. The sudden shock had interrupted Ghoul’s ICD, sending him into cardiac arrest. He was in the throes of a massive heart attack.
I eased him down until he sat leaning on his side. He patted my hand again, nodding slowly as if agreeing with what I’d just done to him. A short wave of emotion came over me but I quickly dismissed it, reminding myself that the world would not miss him.
“You did for me what I—” he began, but then lost his voice.
I didn’t wait to hear him finish. I left him in the small alcove. As I walked across the street, I turned to look back once, but couldn’t tell if his breathing had stopped. We’d already had one failed case, and I had sworn that I’d see every case through to the end from then on. I needed to stay in the area. I needed to watch and make sure Ghoul was dead.
A diner next to the playground provided the perfect vantage point. The small building looked like a shiny metal box with large glass windows wrapped around it. I couldn’t help but pause when I reached the front, thinking the restaurant had been magically transported from the past. The diner’s sign proclaimed the restaurant as Suzette’s with curvy lettering in big, bold, red letters across the window. I decided to go in.
A bell above the door rang out. I stopped when the smell of chicken and waffles came to me. It had been years since I’d seen the inside of a diner. This was a treat. I glanced through the window, locating Ghoul. I fixed my bearings, my line of sight. He hadn’t moved. An older black woman offered me a quick hello and motioned to one of the empty booths facing the window. Her name tag read “Ms. Potts.” I took her suggestion.
Air wheezed from the booth’s seat as I sat down. Before Ms. Potts could even place a glass of water in front of me, I’d given the alcove another long and hard stare. Ghoul lay motionless, his body slumped over, but I could see a subtle rise and fall in his chest. He was alive. A harsh cold sat in the pit of my gut.
Did I fail?
When I’d crossed the street, Ghoul’s legs had been tucked up beneath him, and now one leg was stretched out, protruding from the storefront like a tree limb. A crack of lightning lit up the inside of the diner. Thunder rumbled next, shaking the plates and the glasses above the counter. The rain beat down on the glass, twisting and blurring Ghoul’s body, making it difficult for me to tell if he’d moved again.
“What can I get for you, honey?” the waitress asked. She put on a smile for me and pushed the thick frame of her glasses up before they slipped off her nose.
“Sorry,” I said, picking the menu up. “Haven’t looked yet.”
“No worries, honey. You take your time. Lord knows that rain will take its good old time.”
I smiled back in agreement.
The waitress stood at my booth, staring through the rain’s stretches and pulls, and for a moment I thought she’d seen Ghoul. I swallowed, held my breath, and waited. A beautiful young woman with red hair and soft green eyes approached us and placed her hand on the older waitress’s shoulder. She leaned in and whispered a few words. The two erupted in laughter. I leaned back, pressing the air from the vinyl seat again, surprised by the sudden gaiety. It was hard not to smile at them—the sound was contagious.
“Suzette, girl, you go on back over there and set them kids right,” the older waitress said as she motioned to a booth where I saw a teen girl crying. Her friends were clearly trying to console her. “Ain’t no coffee and tears, just some silly teen angst.” The young waitress laughed again and fixed me with a courteous nod before leaving us. I opened the menu and began to read, but it didn’t take long to find what I wanted. The menu said that Suzette’s Diner served all sandwiches on doughy bread—baked fresh, daily. I was sold. I ordered my favorite: pastrami on rye with spicy mustard.
By the time my elbows were propped up and I was eating the best pastrami sandwich I’d ever tasted, I heard the first screams. The rain had eased, and the flashes of lightning were soon replaced by dancing blue and red as an ambulance circled aro
und the block and stopped in front of the alcove. They shut off its siren but kept the lights spinning, I noticed. I stared, mesmerized by the lights bouncing off the wet glass. The warbling sound of more sirens turned on and off as police cars passed. Some slowed, some stopped, some moved on in the steady flow of traffic. I bit down on my sandwich, letting the doughy bread invade my mouth as two men pushed a gurney out of the back of the ambulance. When the police cars began to leave, I felt better.
That certainly meant that Ghoul was dead, didn’t it?
If Nerd was right, his death would look like a heart attack and an autopsy would show that he’d had a failing ICD.
Burn marks!
A distant flash from the storm lit up the diner and all I could see were burn marks in my mind’s eye.
Could the stun gun’s metal posts burn flesh? Would they show up on the autopsy?
I tried to shrug off my concern by taking another bite of my sandwich. The stun gun would soon face a watery grave—just as soon as I got to the bridge over Neshaminy Creek.
Ghoul’s life was officially over. I saw the EMTs pull a white sheet up to cover his head. The hit was complete. My task was done.
I could have left then, but I decided to finish my food instead. The older waitress stopped at the end of the table and motioned to the empty booth seat, asking for permission to join me without saying a word.
“Of course,” I told her as I sipped at my soda.
“Would you look at that?” Ms. Potts said, sitting and moving closer to the diner’s front window. “Probably some drunk from that bar over there. Got himself in a bad way, I’m guessing. Seen it time and again . . . never made it home.” By the inflection in her voice, I guessed the Irish pub on the street’s corner didn’t have the best clientele.
“Could be,” I answered as I peered through the wet pockmarks on the glass. “Never can tell.”
“Mmm hmm. You got that right,” she added, nodding her head. “Hope the unpleasantness isn’t too much for you, honey.”
Affair with Murder The Complete Box Set Page 25