Chaser

by J. A. Konrath

  “Yeah. Stuff like that.”

  “Nope. Never think about the past at all. I already know what happened, and revamping it is boring as hell. It’s like stories where a character looks in the mirror to study himself, just so the reader can get a description, or has some boring conversation with his mother to catch the reader up on what happened in the last three books. Or all those movies that open with a pan across a dresser showing pictures of the main character’s family to immediately establish their relationships, and then it lingers on one and you know by the sad music that the person is dead.” He shrugged. “Shit like that is pointless.”

  “You don’t think it’s needed to draw people into the story?”

  “Screw that. I live in the moment.”

  McGlade stuck his fake finger in his nose.

  I wasn’t sure if he did it to shock and amuse, or did it because he lacks the internal censor that clues him in to what’s appropriate. Didn’t matter to me. I was immune to Harry.

  “Tell me about Plastic.”

  “Talk is cheap. I got pics. How’s Mom?”

  “Recovering. She asked me to tell you there’s no need to call her three times a day.”

  “No problem. I’ll cut it down to two. I should call her and tell her.”

  “Resist the impulse. Resist it hard.”

  We walked into the den through patio doors, past a gigantic stone fireplace (who the hell needs a fireplace in Los Angeles?), through a kitchen the size of my first apartment, past a panic room-slash-armory, and came to a room Harry had set up as his office.

  The giveaway was a sign taped to the door, written in crayon in child’s scrawl, which read OFFICE. The Fs were written backwards.

  “Your handwriting is improving,” I commented.

  “Funny. That masterpiece is Harry Jr. He’s visiting his whore mother for the weekend.”

  “Why do you think it’s okay to call the mother of your son a whore?”

  “We broke up, but I still pay her for sex. The definition of that is whore. Nothing negative about it. Women should be able to do what they want to with their bodies. I could call her a cocotte, but no one knows what that means. Including me.”

  He waddled over to an enormous desk, covered with papers and folders, and picked up a manila file. “I had my whore secretary compile it.”

  “She’s a whore, too?”

  “He. Only thirty words a minute, but he can suck the bristles off a toothbrush.”

  “Is there anyone you don’t pay for sex?”

  “I dunno. I’ll ask my whore accountant. You may want to sit down. This’ll take a while to get through, and you look ready to topple over in those hideous cripple polio braces.”

  I managed to plop onto a leather office chair, then locked my spring-assists so my legs didn’t accidentally snap out and kick something. Like McGlade.

  Real shame that would be.

  Harry handed me the file. “Need anything? Sparkling water? Bourbon? Coffee? Meth?”

  “You do meth?”

  “Hell no. But the whores love it. It’s like a drug to them.”

  “Coffee. Black. No meth.”

  “Have you tried meth? Keeps you thin. You could drop a few.”

  “Me? You look like you went to McDonald’s and ate Grimace.”

  “I just lost twenty pounds.”

  “Well, you found them again. Look down. Check out that big round thing preventing you from seeing your feet.”

  “Classic.”

  That was out of character. McGlade never acknowledged a burn.

  “Classic?”

  “Oh. It’s this new thing I do. I say classic whenever I pass gas. This is a bad one. You might want to leave the room.”

  Getting up was a hassle. Plus, I lived with a man and a five-year old. Farting was part of life, and I didn’t think it was—

  “Jesus! The stink!”

  Like rotten eggs and funky salami, and it clung to me and wouldn’t let go.

  I stuck my face in my shoulder, trying not to breathe, and unlocked my braces and got to my feet in record time, beating Harry out of the room, thirsting for fresh air.

  McGlade trailed behind me. “Tom will be here in about an hour.”

  I liked Tom Mankowski. Years ago he worked under me in Homicide, with his partner, Roy Lewis. Good cops, good people. But all too recently, while Phin and I dealt with an overzealous street gang, Tom encountered a serial psycho who almost killed him, and was currently being stalked by the psycho’s equally insane father.

  I wanted nothing to do with that. I had enough demons of my own. I didn’t want to get involved with the demons of friends.

  “I thought you were going to call him, tell him I don’t want to get involved,” I said into my shirt sleeve.

  “That’s right. That’s what you thought. You thought wrong. That was your face in that video, Jackie. You’re in this shit, whether you want to be or not.”

  “I don’t want to be. I never want to be.”

  “Classic.”

  “Again? Jesus, what the hell did you eat?”

  “Normal LA lunch; garlic bean salad, cabbage pot stickers, iced kombucha with extra scoby, and two bong hits of Red Dragon sativa. Potent combo, and I’m high as balls, which somehow makes the gas worse. Plus I’m having some health issues.” He patted his belly. “It’s like someone used a bike pump on my intestines.”

  “Hold it in next time.”

  “Can’t hold it in. That causes cancer.”

  “No it doesn’t.”

  “It could. Who knows? They used to say cigarettes caused cancer.”

  “Cigarettes do cause cancer.”

  “Exactly my point. Classic.”

  “Stop. My eyes are watering.”

  “There is certainly an acrid component. Like a chemical spill.”

  I threw up in my mouth and swallowed it back down, only because I didn’t want to open my mouth. “Can’t you buy gas pills?”

  “Allergic.”

  I heard a squeaky sound, like air being let out of a balloon.

  Christ, no…

  “Classic.”

  “Leave the room or I’m going to break your nose.”

  “Violence never solved anything, Jackie.”

  “This time it will.”

  “Okay, I’ll leave. But there’s something I need to tell you first. Something important.”

  I waited.

  McGlade stared at me, eyes wide.

  “Classic,” he said.

  I raised my fist and he spread his hands. “It’s cool. I gotta go stream anyway.”

  I half-wondered what kind of stinking biological function streaming was, but as Harry scuttled away I realized he was talking about his webcast.

  I escaped the gas attack and began to wander through the house. A familiar shiver took me, courtesy of the folder I carried.

  Policework. I’m doing policework again.

  Even with all the pain my career has caused me and the people I cared about, there was something about being on a case that I missed.

  A crazy masochistic streak?

  Maybe. But there was also a sense of purpose. Something I hadn’t felt in a while. Like I’d just come home after a long trip and was immediately greeted by my faithful dog, who missed me.

  Not sure who played the dog in that analogy.

  I found an overstuffed leather sofa in the fireplace room, and plopped onto the couch, thrilled by the clean air. Then I dug into the file.

  I was old enough to remember handwriting and typewriting police reports. When the Chicago Police Department fully embraced computers, we used an internal network, so our data was limited to the information that our department acquired and entered. It required a lot of skill and determination to keep up with crime paperwork.

  Even today, there was no such thing as an all-inclusive national criminal database. The closest thing was the National Crime Information Center, hosted by the FBI. It collected property crimes and criminal offender d
ata, so a cop at a traffic stop could check if the car had been stolen, or if the suspect was wanted out of state.

  Last I heard, the NCIC still required state and local law enforcement to upload their data voluntarily, in a specific manner that involved extra work without any extra monetary compensation. So criminals could just move to a new state and not have their past follow them.

  Since information had recently surpassed fossil fuel and telecommunication as the world’s biggest money maker, the government-funded crime database had been surpassed by private companies, who scoured the Internet for arrest records and compiled them to sell the information. Some of these worked pretty well, even better than NCIC.

  And these days you could find anything about anyone by simply searching for them on the Internet.

  Harry’s file was collated into fourteen sections, each a dozen or so pages paper clipped together, each compiled information about a different victim. McGlade had gotten local police reports, done NCIC and private background checks, aggregated info from their social media, and also interviewed each victim.

  He also had a profile of the perp, courtesy of ViCAT. The Violent Criminal Apprehension Team was also run by the feebies, and also involved voluntary submissions by local and state law enforcement. Rather than compile property crimes and criminals, ViCAT focused on unsolved violent crimes, which helped cops try to break down specific offenses and modus operandi to link cases together.

  I began with the first victim, and when I saw his picture I reached around for something, anything, finding a scented candle in a large glass vase and letting my stomach go.

  The candle scent went from vanilla to puke.

  This was going to be an awful one.

  ERINYES

  Not Too Far Away

  The scrawl is childish, frightening. Years of torture and malnourishment and constant pain have atrophied his arm muscles, and he barely has the strength or coordination of a nine-year-old child.

  But Walter Cissick is happy with the results of his efforts; a handwritten note for his best friend in the world.

  Chicago Homicide Detective Tom Mankowski.

  Tom saved my life.

  He’s the son I always wanted.

  Only he truly understands who I am.

  Which is why he has to die.

  I know that doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to.

  Because I’m completely insane.

  Cissick reread the note for the seventeenth time, checking for errors.

  tom i will visit you soon

  until then i am sending another mix tape

  love always

  erinyes

  Cissick didn’t sign the note ERINYES (pronounced erin-ees) in blood, though that would have been cool. He used a red marker instead. Still, cops knew all about DNA, and Cissick wanted to make sure that Tom could trace this note back to him.

  So I’ll send him some DNA.

  Cissick painfully extricates himself from his rocking chair (apart from the videotapes, one of the few things salvaged from the old, burned house) and shuffles into the kitchen, over to the cricket pen. He gives the plastic container a flick with his finger (which hurt because his fingernails haven’t ever fully grown back), and crickets retreat to the darkness of the square tubes, protruding from the sides.

  Cissick removes the nearest tube, lifts it to his toothless mouth—

  —and taps it, filling his cheeks with insects.

  As they dance across what’s left of his tongue, he can’t help but relish the moment.

  Decadence.

  Indulgence.

  Magic.

  After spending so much time in captivity paying for his sins, a chained prisoner who hunted down crickets in order to survive, having a mouthful seems like gluttony. An embarrassment of riches.

  He chews slowly, crushing the crickets with his gums, prolonging the acrid taste, enjoying their frantic, dying struggles as much as the protein.

  Wiggle, wiggle, little crickets.

  So so yummy in my tummy.

  Walking back to his desk, he swallows, trying to savor the flavor, then immediately swallows again, unable to exercise the self-control he hoped for.

  His mouth coated in cricket parts, Cissick clears his throat and spits a big gob onto the letter he’s written Tom.

  So you know it’s really me.

  Then he folds up the note, shoves it into an envelope, and licks the flap, cricket legs sticking to the spit and glue. As he seals the letter, Cissick glances up and stares into the mirror above his desk.

  The whole apartment is covered with thrift store mirrors.

  So I can look at the redeemed sinner.

  Punished for his sins.

  Penance received.

  He’s hideous.

  He’s perfect.

  All God’s children are perfect because they are forgiven.

  I am forgiven.

  I am Erinyes.

  “Hello, handsome.”

  Cissick giggles, and his monstrous reflection giggles back. He finds the nearest bottle of Oxycontin, shakes and hears nothing, then hunts through his desk, rummaging through empties until he locates one with a few pills left.

  He dry-swallows two.

  After I go doghouse-shopping, I must go doctor-shopping.

  And doctor-shopping-shopping.

  Then he lopes over to the computer to check if the VHS has finished recording.

  It has.

  Cissick checks the .avi file, using the program they gave him to rewind to the spot where the sinner died. A prostitute. Young. Polluted.

  And look how young I am!

  How fit and unscarred!

  Cissick knows he doesn’t have the strength to strangle anyone like he’d done to the saved soul on the video file. He’d choked her so hard his fingernails dug into her throat.

  A shame about the video quality.

  The VHS tape had been one of dozens, hidden within the walls of his old house. The years haven’t been kind to the videos, the colors muting, sharpness degrading, sound warbling, tracking lines blurring some of the best parts of the Penance.

  Amazing how things have changed.

  The latest sinner, a lost soul with a name Cissick couldn’t recall, has been recorded using her own cell phone, and the quality is incredible. Cissick finds the video file in his SINNERS folder and opens it in his editing program, skipping to the part with the paring knife.

  So real…

  I can almost taste her blood again.

  He cuts (in the scene and in the program) and then pastes it to the end of the VHS file he’s just copied.

  Mix tapes are the best.

  He turns up the sound, listening to the whore scream just before she dies and goes to heaven, cleansed of sin.

  She reminds me of Kendall.

  Dear Kendall…

  No!

  I must stop thinking about Kendall!

  I have a new child now.

  The one who took Kendall’s place.

  Tom Mankowski.

  “Soon, Tom. Very soon…”

  TOM

  Los Angeles

  Through his khakis, Tom Mankowski rubbed the scar on his right knee, feeling the outline of the artificial joint.

  Strange to not have kneecaps. During surgery, his doctors removed the shattered fragments, and Tom had been told that they didn’t do patella replacements.

  Tom hated how his legs looked since his injury, which remained the prime reason he always wore pants, even when the California heat got sickly humid. The scars had faded, but his lack of kneecaps gave his knees a weird, pinched appearance.

  Joan told him they looked fine, and refused to admit she noticed the difference.

  She was a Hollywood producer, and a good one, and required traits for that job included perpetual optimism, and an artistry for bullshit.

  She’ll never tell me how stupid I look.

  Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

  Tom glanced up from the overstuf
fed leather sofa and stared at his wife, who paced the open kitchen, looking schizophrenic as she talked and gesticulated to herself.

  Her eighth phone call that morning, and it was her day off. Talent, complaining about something. Again. Joan talked so many people off the ledge, she would have made a dynamite hostage negotiator.

  Stallone, their Doberman, barked a greeting, and a moment later a guy in a Hawaiian shirt walked up, staring at Tom as he petted the dog on the head. Roy Lewis, Tom’s business partner and best friend.

  “You look like a bully just took your milk money.”

  “Good to see you too, Roy. How’d the Ramirez charter go?”

  “Took them to Santa Catalina. Guy’s ten-year-old daughter spent over an hour hauling in a ninety pound bluefin. Never saw a man so happy. Tipped a hundred bucks.”

  “Where’s my fifty?”

  “In the gas tank.”

  Made sense. Their 20 foot beam DuChamp Cruiser yacht guzzled fuel like the tank was full of holes.

  Stallone endured enough of Roy’s head pats and trotted off, searching for home invaders to maul.

  “Got pics?” Tom asked.

  Roy tugged out his phone and handed it over. The fish was bigger than the girl. And the father did, indeed, look happier than anyone Tom had ever seen.

  The girl looked like she’d marched through hell.

  I know the feeling.

  Roy took his phone back and pointed with his chin. “Joan coming with?”

  “I think she got roped into work.”

  “Some ten mil actor having a breakdown because craft services don’t have any gluten free falafel?”

  “Falafel?”

  “No, man, I’m feeling pretty good.”

  Tom could swear he heard that joke before. “They’re filming the big love scene and one of the leads doesn’t like how the other smells.”

  “Who’s in it?”

  Tom named two actors.

  “Which one stinks?” When Tom told him, Roy whistled. “Day-am. Always looks so squeaky clean on the big screen.”

  Tom didn’t want to interrupt Joan during a call, so he texted her. “Cya later.”

  When Joan got the text she blew him a kiss and waved at Roy.

  Tom grabbed his laptop and they left Joan’s house.

  Scratch that. Our house, not just Joan’s.