Jesus, Jerry wished these people would learn proper English. Talking to the deskman was like being in Pleiku all over again. If he spent much more time conversing with this guy, he’d probably have a flashback and murder the son of a bitch. “Thank you very much,” he said as he walked out the door.
The trips to L.A. were a nice respite from Gunner’s normal activities, dealing drugs with the scum of the earth, but that was the life he’d chosen and he’d learned to live with his decisions. Besides, this wasn’t so bad. The Thai Airlines jet roared out of LAX, taking him back to his adopted home, and Gunner looked out his first-class portal at the receding skyline that he would not see again until the next shipment was ready for delivery to Colonel Vinh Ho.
He pushed back into the plush seat and had a passing thought of Lin Chin, the chauffeur that Colonel Ho provided him with during his stay in L.A. What a fine piece of ass she was. A smile crossed his lips and his dick began to get hard again just thinking about her. Fucking her was like riding the mechanical bull at Gilley’s. She spurred him on until he felt sure his dick would drop off, she would sleep with him until she got horny, then it was off to the rodeo again. He should have asked Uncle Vinh to give her to him. She would be a nice acquisition for his stable back in Bangkok, but then again, he needed more pussy in Bangkok like he needed a hole in his head.
He just sat and relaxed in the large overstuffed seats. He had no cares or worries, just as long as the drinks kept coming. He finally floated off into a dream-filled, fitful sleep.
It seemed that every time he closed his eyes he entered the jungle again. His worst recurring nightmare featured fifty-five-gallon drums floating on a raft on which he was a passenger. It was ungodly hot, he was sweating profusely, and he had no water to drink. He thought about drinking the filthy water the raft was floating in, but it was surrounded by the drums, and each one contained the body of someone he had killed. He had thought about seeing a shrink about his nightmares, but that wasn’t his style. He was no pussy, not like some of his teammates. Shit, he thought, I’ll bet Jerry Andrews would go to a shrink in a New York minute. Yeah, he’s just pussy enough to take his problems to someone else to solve.
When he woke up, he was drenched in sweat. He asked the flight attendant for some scented towels and a rocks glass full of scotch. He looked at his watch. It was an expensive Rolex, given to him by Colonel Ho. He remembered how grateful he was when he received the watch as a gift from the old gentleman. Colonel Ho had looked right into his eyes, through those fucking dark shades that he always wore, and told him, “It is not a gift so much as an investment. The watch is to make sure you are never late for the meetings that I schedule.”
He took a long pull on his scotch and laid back against his chair again. He glanced at the Rolex. Only five more hours to Bangkok, he thought.
Jerry stopped by Simon Cohen’s office on the off chance that he could talk with him. Madeline was there, and was her same vivacious self. Jerry was sure that she was a prick teaser: it was the way that she crossed her legs, revealing a lot of thigh, and making that sexy sound that nylon rubbing on nylon always makes. “Let’s run away and be nasty, Maddie,” Jerry muttered through clenched teeth, hoping that one day she would take him up on his advances.
“Excuse me, Jerry, I wasn’t aware that you had an appointment to see Dr. Cohen?”
It was obvious she had discovered him staring at her legs by the piercing glance she gave him. “I was on my way to the office and wanted to discuss a few things with Dr. Cohen, Madeline. Do you think you can arrange it?”
“I’ll see what I can do, but you’ll have to do something for me.”
This was the moment he’d been waiting years for. Why, even before the divorce, he’d had fantasies of what he could do with Madeline. His moment had come. He was anxious, but maintained his cool, trying to repulse the rise in his Levi’s.
“And what might that be, Maddie?”
“You look like shit, Jerry. Please go home and take a bath, then I’ll see if I can squeeze you in.”
Jerry’s ego and pud were simultaneously bashed, leaving both as flat as a rubber with a hole in it. “Tell the doctor to give me a call at the office; it’s important. Madeline, just so you won’t think that I’m letting myself go—I’m undercover. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is a disguise.”
“You could have fooled me, Jerry, but if it’s all the same to you, please take a bath before you come back to this office. I’ll tell the doctor to give you a ring in about an hour. Oh yes, is that a red tie you have on or a wine stain down the front of your tee shirt?—A nice touch, Jerry. You look like a yuppie street vagabond.”
As Jerry walked out the door, he took one look back in her direction. He knew she could tell what he was thinking as she sat back down, crossed her legs, and hiked her skirt real high, a smirk crossing her upturned lips this time. What a bitch, he thought. He felt like abandoning his disguise, going home, taking a hot shower, putting on a nice sports coat and tie, then coming back and fucking the bitch’s brains out. “I’m going to hold that thought till I solve this case,” he said to himself as he walked back out onto the hot L.A. sidewalk.
His head was pounding as he made his way through the front entrance to Rampart and headed toward the detective’s bullpen. He needed some aspirin so bad that he wished he had the speed of Carl Lewis, so he could get to his desk faster. But before he could sit down, he heard Captain Davis bellowing from his office cubicle, “Andrews, get your ass in here—now!”
His head would have to wait. He wound his way through a maze of desks and into Captain Davis’ office. “What’s the problem, Cap? You sound disturbed.”
“Jesus, Jerry, you look like shit. Where the hell have you been, on a bender?”
Captain Davis was only the third person today that had told Jerry he looked like shit. While it was probably true, Jerry was sure getting tired of hearing it. “It’s just my disguise, Cap. I’m undercover.”
“I don’t remember assigning you to the drunk recovery squad, Jerry, or putting you undercover as anything. You look like shit. Is that a wine stain down the front of your shirt or your idea of a yuppie tie?”
“Lighten up, Captain, I can explain. You see, the surveillance team could only cover one suspect in the serial murder case I’m on, and I needed to find a way to cover some of the other hunches I had. Undercover was the best way to handle it. I’m staking out the Club Saigon from a flophouse across the street.” Jerry reached into my pocket and pulled out the roll of film he’d shot. “This is my first roll of film. I brought it in to have it developed. I think I know the identity of one of my suspects, but other than that, I have no hard evidence to book anyone.”
“Well, that’s great, Jerry, just great. It explains everything, especially you looking like a combination of Wayne the Wino and Freddy the Freeloader. Could you at least take a bath?”
“Can’t do it, Cap. Might blow my cover.”
“Here,” the captain said, slapping the newspaper into Jerry’s stomach. “Read all about the latest serial killer, The Saigon Slasher.”
“The Saigon Slasher? Where did you get that moniker?”
“That’s what the newspaper reporters have dubbed him. The story has plenty of details, supplied, of course, by a reliable source. That’s what it says, reliable source. I’m getting real pissed at the leak we have here. We need to book some suspects and book them soon, or both of us will be taking early retirement.”
As Jerry went back to his desk, he noticed that the squad room was empty. I really should take a bath, he thought. He threw the paper down on his desk without opening it and walked up to the board. He got a red marker from the tray and added the word “SURVEILLANCE” next to the note on Willy Beal, then wrote “CLUB SAIGON-COLONEL VINH HO” and drew an arrow connecting the two.
Jerry sat down and stared at the board, hoping the answers would jump out and bite him, but they didn’t. He opened the newspaper and what jumped out and bit him w
as the banner headline. GIRL LATEST VICTIM OF SAIGON SLASHER. Jerry quickly scanned the story to glean the details that the informant had leaked to the newspapers. The victim was a girl. The serial killer had never offed a girl before. An unrelated crime, Jerry thought, until Jerry read further. “Her right ear was severed and her throat cut.” It could still be a copycat crime, Jerry reasoned. The killer had never murdered a girl before, and the last newspaper story mentioned the fact that the killer severed ears. Just what Jerry needed, a fucking copycat killer to cloud the investigation.
The paper identified the victim as Ke Son Nu, a part-time seamstress, and student. Jerry made a note to check with the coroner’s office in the morning and see if they had gotten a positive ID of the victim and some details that would link her to the string of deaths. In the meantime, Jerry cut her picture out of the paper and tacked it up on the board. The last two faces stared back at him as if trying to tell him something. Intuition is a funny thing. We all have it, and most of the time we don’t listen to what it tells us. Jerry had a gut feeling that if he listened real hard to Ke Son Nu and Johnny Hong, they might tell him in death what they couldn’t tell him in life—who viciously murdered them.
The phone rang and he picked it up on the second ring. “Detective Andrews speaking.”
“Jerry, this is Dr. Cohen. Madeline said you stopped in to see me. What’s the problem?”
“Two problems, Doc. Remember our talk concerning serial killers and the general traits they have in common?”
“Sure, I remember. What about it?”
“Do you think our killer could, after seven male victims that we know of, switch gears and kill a woman?”
“It’s entirely possible. Was there a rape involved?”
“Not to my knowledge, but the body is at the coroner’s being autopsied, so I don’t have all the details.”
“Remember, your killer is sadistic and driven by fantasy. Sure, he could switch gears and start murdering women, which isn’t good news for you. It will increase his ‘killing pool’ and make your job all the more difficult.”
“Doc, on a personal note, my migraines are back. Can you give me some medication to control the intervals and the pain?”
“I think we need to schedule you for an appointment, Jerry. When can you get over here?”
“Not for a while. I’m undercover and Maddie said not to come to your office until I take a bath, which means the way this case is going, I’ll be able to see you professionally when surf music comes back.”
Jerry’s beeper was buzzing so hard he could feel the vibration in his toes. He looked and saw Fleming’s operational number looking back at him from the beeper’s face. “Sorry, Doc, I’ve got to get going. An important call just came in.”
Jerry phoned Fleming, hoping there was a break in the case. Fleming answered on the second ring.
“What’s the word, Fleming? This is Andrews.”
“The word is, your buddy Beal gave us the slip last night and we haven’t been able to pick up his trail.”
“Great. Just fucking great. How the hell did a heavy juicer like Willy B. give your specialists the slip? If your boys wouldn’t spend so much time in the donut shops, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Shit! Are you aware there was another murder last night?”
“No, I wasn’t. What time did it happen?”
“Don’t know yet, still waiting for some word from the coroner. What time did our boy give your specialists the slip?”
“It was just after dark, about eight o’clock. We’ve been searching for him ever since. You got any ideas?”
“Yeah, I’ve got an idea. Tell the winners of the Keystone Kops look-alike contest that they have four hours to find Willy, or I ask the chief to replace you all.”
“Sorry, Jerry, we’ll get right on it. Shit, I’m really sorry about this, it won’t happen again.”
Jerry had been thinking about taking some vacation time and lying around on a Mexican beach somewhere, and if things kept going the way they had today, he might have to extend that right into his retirement. Maybe he and Captain Davis could get adjoining villas. With friends like Fleming and the “clown convoy,” he didn’t need any enemies.
Jerry couldn’t get the thought out of his mind that he knew the guy who went into the Club Saigon and came out a short time later. It was a premonition, the kind of thing that tickles your scrotum until the answer finally comes to you. He found that if he didn’t think about memory-related things real hard, the answers came to him quicker, so he tried to repress the thought process that told him over and over again that he knew this guy. He was sure that the photo’s he’d taken would jog his memory, and he only had to wait until tomorrow to get them.
His beeper went off and he looked down at the LCD and noticed the number for the 44 Magnum. He got into his car and patched through using the police dispatch line. “Yo, Jerry, it’s Mondo. What it is, man?”
“Mondo, I’m on a police dispatch line. Try to contain yourself and stick to business.”
“Yeah, sure, Jerry. You know your friend Willy? He’s back. Sitting at his usual table, looking as shitty as ever.”
“Keep him there, Mondo. Send him over some drinks and put them on my tab. Whatever it takes, just keep him there.”
“Should I put my tip on your tab also?”
“Yeah, whatever it takes, just keep him at the 44 until I get there.”
“Maybe I should tell him some of my jokes. What do you think, amigo?”
“I think if you did that, he’d leave and I’d be forced to kick your Hispanic ass all the way back to Tijuana.”
“Okay, no jokes, just a big tip. See you later, Jerry.”
No sooner had the phone gone dead in his hand than Jerry called dispatch back and asked them to patch him into Fleming’s number.
“Sgt. Fleming here, Jerry. I’ve got good news for you. We picked up your boy’s trail again. We got him staked out at a bar.”
“Yeah, the 44 Magnum.”
“How’d you know that, Jerry? Are you psychic?”
“No, I know the bartender. I’m on my way over there to interview Willy. Don’t you or the Three Stooges interrupt me. Just stay cool and undercover.”
“Sounds good to me. Say, Jerry, stop being so hard on my boys. They’re good cops, even if they do eat too many donuts.”
It wasn’t too hard to find Willy B. He was the guy slouched over the back table drowning in a sea of foam. Jerry sat down, uninvited, and pulled Willy’s empty mug from his hand. That move always was guaranteed to wake up a lush. Mondo came back to take Jerry’s order. “Yo, Jerry, you should’ve driven faster. A speeding ticket would’ve been cheaper than your bar tab.”
“Thanks for the good news, Mondo. Bring me a scotch rocks and make it a double.”
“Want me to bring something else for your buddy? I guess he tried to imitate Johnny Weissmuller and do a few laps through the foam on the table.” Mondo laughed at his own joke, which Jerry thought was more pathetic than funny.
“Coffee. Bring Willy a steaming mug of hot coffee. No sugar, no cream, and no jokes. Got it, Mondo?”
“Yes, sir, boss, I sure do,” Mondo said sarcastically in his best Southern accent.
“Willy. It’s me, Jerry. You awake?”
Willy started to sit up, bleary-eyed, his face sticking for a brief second to the beer-saturated table top. He blinked his left eye hard, trying to clear the remaining foam from it. His bulbous red nose began to twitch wildly as he focused on Jerry. “Hey, Jerry, is that you?” he said as he cut wind and belched at the same time. Jerry couldn’t figure out which was worse, his breath or the beer fart. “Jesus, Jerry, you really ought to take a bath, you look and smell like shit, my friend.”
Great. Here Jerry was, talking with a down-and-outer, a street derelict, and a wino, Willy Beal, a guy that took his last bath on top of this table about thirty minutes ago, and he was telling Jerry that he stank. Maybe Jerry was carrying this undercover gig too far. “Willy, c
an you answer a few questions for me?”
“Sure. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Jerry thought. Probably the incoherent ramblings of a beer-breath alcoholic that had seen too many lizards crawling on the walls during his episodes of the DTs. “Where have you been hanging out for the last forty-eight hours?”
“Can you ask me something simpler? Maybe where I’ve been for the last six hours?” he slurred, followed by another beer belch and a long, rumbling air biscuit.
“Think hard, Willy, it’s important.”
Mondo arrived with Jerry’s drink and a hot mug of coffee, which he placed in front of Willy. “Irish coffee, minus the Irish. Drink up, Mr. Beal, it’ll make you feel a whole lot better.”
Mondo ran a wet rag over the tabletop, then scurried off to tend to his back-bar patrons.
“This tastes like you smell, Jerry, like shit,” Willy said as he spat the mouthful of coffee back into the cup.
“Nice shot, Willy. Now how about answering my question?”
“What question?”
“Your whereabouts for the past forty-eight hours. Where the fuck have you been hanging out, Willy?” Jerry was losing patience with his old teammate and his anger and frustration were beginning to show through his unbathed veneer. It was then that he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Fleming’s minions had entered the 44 Magnum. They weren’t hard to spot. He just had to look for the three guys that looked like Pillsbury Doughboys with ties on. Jerry looked back in Willy’s direction, hoping for an answer to his question.
“Lighten up, Jerry, you’re beginning to sound like a cop.”
“Willy, in case you’ve forgotten, I am a cop.”
“Sorry, Jerry, your vocation slipped my mind. A lot of things have slipped my mind lately. I should stop drinking so much, but when I stop, the headaches and the nightmares come back. I think I’m in Nam again. I can’t sleep more than a couple of hours a night, and when I do manage to fall asleep, the jungle floor comes alive and my mind is a sea of green leaves, snakes, red blood, and dead babies. You know how it is, Jerry.”
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