FORTY-FOUR
Jerry pushed through the kitchen doors and entered the main dining room. It was as dark as a cave at midnight, but his eyes had adjusted, and he could see the shapes of tables with chairs pushed neatly around them. The bar was to his right. Behind it, a staircase wound up to an upper floor that contained rooms. He wasn’t sure he was actually seeing the details or remembering them from his last visit. He inched forward, not sure what to expect but having the feeling that he was being observed. The hair on the nape of his neck had been up since he’d entered Baker’s Alley, and was still hanging on like last night’s hangover.
Just then, the lights from a passing car passed through the front window and reflected in the back-bar mirror, momentarily bathing the room in staccato light. His pupils instantly squeezed down to the size of a pin, leaving his retina with a red image of the front of the restaurant. For an instant, while his eyes readjusted to the dark, the red image stayed on the back of his eyes. There was a man sitting at the front table near the door. He thought he’d been discovered, and crouched lower, his .357 at the ready. He looked again. Yes, even in the dark, he could make out the shape of a man silhouetted against the front glass. He wasn’t moving but that didn’t mean that he didn’t know Jerry was there. Jerry positioned himself behind a table, trying to visualize what he’d do. The standard “FREEZE, SCUMBAG, POLICE” was all he could come up with. He wondered whether the element of surprise was with him, but the hair on the back of his neck told him not to count on it.
He slowly rose his gun in front of him in a two-handed death grip. He didn’t say a word and the man didn’t move. Maybe he’s asleep, he thought, as he inched forward. He bumped into a chair and it scraped across the wooden floor like fingernails being drawn across a pane of glass. The man still didn’t move. Jerry’s instincts told him unless this guy was drunk and passed out, he was dead. Still, he pushed forward quickly and shoved his gun into the suspect’s back. “Police. You’re under arrest,” he whispered. Just then another car came around the block. Jerry tried to close his eyes, but he wasn’t quick enough. The momentary blindness caught him again, but not before he saw the suspect’s head. It was tilted backward at an odd angle. Jerry reached forward and felt the neck for a pulse. His fingers slipped in the sticky ooze that covered the front of the neck and chest. Before he could pull his fingers back they seemed to voluntarily probe the victim’s neck. The gash went all the way around the neck and head.
He had been killed with a garrote; of that he was sure. He thought back. Willy’s an expert with a garrote. Willy, Gunner, and I all trained with the garrote. What was it the rest of the team used to call us? “The vegetable killers,” that’s what they called us, while having a big laugh at our expense. He took the lighter out of his pocket and ignited it briefly in front of the man. It flared long enough for him to see that the dead man wasn’t anyone he knew. He was Vietnamese, but during the course of the investigation, Jerry hadn’t seen this guy. Vietnamese. Jerry checked the head. Both the ears were in place. It wasn’t like the slasher to not follow his pattern. “Serial killers are creatures of habit.” How many times had he heard that from Simon Cohen?
He wiped the sticky mess that had accumulated on his hands, on the sleeve of the corpse’s shirt, and looked back toward the staircase. Damn, it was quiet in here tonight. He hoped the cavalry was in place.
Willy was at the top of the landing. He looked down at Jerry and watched with glee as Jerry discovered the VC’s body. Willy had done the VC quick, just like Jerry had taught him. He had thrown his loop, then bent the VC over his back as he lifted him off the floor. It was all over in a matter of one minute. It was fun rearranging the body back in the chair and making it look like he was asleep. It was fun watching Jerry sneak up on a dead man. In the old days, Jerry had been much sharper than that. He would have never fallen for that gambit back in Nam.
Willy had set an ambush at the top of the stairs and was waiting for his quarry to fall into it. Willy loved the game. He loved to stalk and hunt. He was patient when it came to waiting for his prey. It was a patience borne of his invisibility and nurtured by his clandestine skills.
Jerry mounted the stairs, not knowing what he expected to find when he got to the top, but the gnawing in the pit of his stomach told him it wouldn’t be pleasant. He took the twenty-three stairs one stair at a time. He held onto the polished wood handrail with his left hand, his gun held firmly and pointed up toward the landing, to his right. To say he was scared for his life would have been an understatement. Sweat streamed from his pores like a flash flood in the California desert. The thing he noticed most as he mounted the last few stairs was the utter silence of the building. He stopped, hoping to hear something, anything, even if it was something that would further prime his fear, but the restaurant had the eerie silence of the grave about it. Maybe Willy had finished his dirty work for the night? Some gut instinct told him that was wishful thinking and he was full of shit.
As he reached the second stair from the top, he noticed a glint of light reflecting off a thin piece of wire that had been drawn between the balustrades about six inches from the top of the stair tread. A classic trip wire, he thought. Willy had booby-trapped the stair, hoping to trip him up. Willy was smarter than he gave him credit for. He lit his lighter again to confirm his suspicions. He clicked off his Zippo lighter, the same lighter he carried when he was in Nam, as quickly as he ignited it, not wanting to give his position away any more than he already had. He was getting tired of this cat-and-mouse game. He should just call in the cavalry and flush the motherfucker out of hiding. But if he told them Willy was the prime suspect in the slasher case, no other officers would show Willy any mercy or consideration for what he’d been through. No, he had to keep looking before he called in the LAPD stormtroopers. He stepped high, making sure he cleared the wire with both feet.
It seemed like hours had passed. The last thing Jerry remembered was stepping over that damn trip wire with both his feet. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. In fact, he was feeling pretty cocky about discovering the wire—when he heard a thud and all the air was pushed out of his chest. He must have been hit or kicked. He remember that. Kicked in the chest by someone familiar with the martial arts. Anyway, he had tumbled over backward down the stairs, he’d hit his head on the landing and his lights had gone out.
He felt the back of his head—there was a hell of a bump, and the back of his neck was swollen.
“Shit. Where the hell am I?” Jerry shouted. Now that he had been discovered, the cat was out of the bag. It was as dark as a sepulcher in there. He tried to stand, but ran into something that felt like wooden shelving. He reached out and felt walls on all sides of him. “This must be what Willy felt like crammed into that tiger cage. Maybe he’s showing me what it felt like. That boy is real sick.” Jerry felt a wave of nausea rising in his throat. His head was pounding from the fall down the stairs. He began to think about the darkness and the cramped spot he was in. He began to feel claustrophobic. Willy had him in a cage and was free to do whatever he wanted. Jerry couldn’t even call in the cavalry from in here.
He told himself to calm down. He felt inside his coat. His gun was gone. It had been in his hand at the top of the stairs. Willy must have it, he thought. He reached into his coat pocket and found something Willy didn’t have—his Zippo lighter. He flicked it on to try and get his bearings. He held it out and moved it from side to side. Willy had locked him in a closet. He rummaged around and found that if he moved things around, there was almost enough room to sit down with his legs stretched out. There were some things that didn’t seem like they belonged and there were some things that were missing from what looked to him like a broom closet. Missing were the mops and brooms. Present was a nice pair of brown penny loafers, and hanging neatly from a nail in one corner was a tan polyester suit and a white silk shirt.
He fired off his Zippo again and checked around the floor. He found that if he stacked the cardboard bo
xes strewn on the floor, he could actually lie down in the closet. He found a blanket stuffed onto a shelf on the back wall and one of the boxes contained some loose shop rags. Didn’t he remember Mondo saying something about Willy having a place in the Little Saigon District? His head was hurting really bad, but he remembered him saying that just before he got into his car and started investigating Baker’s Alley. “You’re a smart son of a bitch,” he said. “Willy Beal, you’ve been living here all along. Living in a closet while you tried to kill every fucking Vietnamese in Little Saigon.”
He didn’t know how long he’d been out at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t know for sure how he’d gotten here, but he had a pretty good idea. He looked at his wristwatch but the glass was shattered so badly he couldn’t even tell the day or date, let alone the time. In any event, it had stopped running. That’s all he could tell for sure. He had to get out of this prison. He tried the obvious, but the door was locked from the outside. His Zippo was running out of fluid, but he needed to look around some more. There had to be something in here that he could use to help him make an escape. It pissed him off, but Willy had turned from the hunted into the hunter, from prey to the predator, and Jerry wasn’t waiting around for it to be his turn in the barrel. Willy hadn’t killed Jerry when he had the opportunity, so maybe Jerry wasn’t a target, but with psychos, especially when they think they are trapped . . . there was no telling what he might do.
He rummaged in the back corner of the closet. His lighter was nearly out of fuel now, but he needed to see everything. He saw a reflection that looked metallic. It was the lid of a large jar sitting inside a cardboard box full of rags. He slid the box toward him and pulled the rags out. The top of the jar was clearly marked with a black felt marking pen. The words PROPERTY OF GUNNER MCCONNELL, A-255 stared back at Jerry’s shocked eyes. He remembered Gunner used to have a jar that he kept ears in and . . . “No shit. Willy stole Gunner’s fucking ear jar!”
Gunner had almost gone off the deep end before the Tet offensive of ’68 when he found his jar missing. He’d accused everyone on the team of taking it and sworn if he ever found out who did it, they’d be dead meat.
Jerry looked at the jar and saw the ears floating in the formaldehyde bath. “No shit! Willy took Gunner’s jar.” He just shook his head, mostly in amazement at the feat that Willy had pulled off, but also in disgust at what he was holding. He started to put the jar back where he found it. It made sense to him that some of the ears might be from the murders and would be needed for evidence at the trial. If I don’t get out of this black hole there’s not going to be any trial, he thought.
As he pushed the ear jar back into the corner he heard a metallic sound again. He only heard it for the briefest second. It was like metal scraping against the glass. The sound corresponded to his putting the jar back onto the floor. It happened just at the moment that the glass jar tilted and the ears sloshed around in the bottom of it.
Maybe it was the detective in him that made him fixate on things that were just marginally out of place. Maybe he was just inquisitive and curious by nature. In any case, he pulled the jar roughly back out again. His ears picked up again. There was the same metallic sound he thought he’d heard before. It was out of place. It seemed to be coming from the disgusting ear jar.
As difficult as it was, he picked the heavy jar up by the lid with his right hand and flicked his Zippo with his left. He held the jar over his head and looked into the bottom of it. There, glinting back at him through the sputtering flame, was a key. “No shit. The son of a bitch is hiding his door key in the bottom of the ear jar.”
Jerry felt like freedom was close at hand. He only hoped that the errant key fit the inside door lock of his prison. He hoped that this wasn’t some macabre joke that Willy was playing on him. The thought of thrusting his hand into the ear jar to pick out the key would normally have been enough to make him sick, but after what he’d gone through in OR 5, this should be a piece of cake.
The thought of being free of this black dungeon spurred him to extricate himself as quickly as possible. He cracked the lid and heard a sharp hiss, then smelled the overwhelming odor of formaldehyde. He twisted the cap around several times until it came free of the glass jar. He held his nose with one hand to quell the stench, while he fished through the jar with his other hand. After pushing what seemed like a hundred slimy ears out of his way, his fingers finally came to rest on the key. He scooped it up with his thumb and forefinger, but before he could get it out, it slipped through his wet fingers and fell to the bottom of the jar. He cursed the gods for making him go through this again, but finally, on the third try, he managed to get the key out of the jar. He put the lid back on the jar real tight and put the jar back in the corner to preserve its status as potential evidence.
One of the longest moments of his life came when he tried the key in the door lock. His extended hand seemed to float forever across the closet in search of the elusive keyhole. His heart felt like it was in his throat as he inserted the key into the slot and slowly tried turning it. Relief was all he felt when he felt the key turn in the lock and heard a loud and resounding CLICK, and with a turn of the knob, the door swung open.
Gunner had seemingly just dozed off into the dreamless sleep that the alcohol produced for him when he heard the loud THUD outside his door. He jumped several feet off the bed, his heart pounding in his chest. Gunner moved quickly to the door and pressed his ear to it. Nothing. His foggy brain, just awakened from a restless deep sleep, thought about Nguyen. Yes, that was it. “Nguyen. Nguyen, is that you? You all right?” he called through the closed door.
Gunner got no response. It was unlike Gunner to not just leap into the fray, but tonight, one day away from all that money, he was not about to jeopardize his one shot at living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. He took the half-full whiskey glass off his vanity, drank the contents, then held it to the door, listening for something that would alleviate the fear that was creeping into his body. He heard a THUMP, THUMP, THUMP as sharp and distinct as a drill sergeant’s cadence.
It had been a long time since he’d experienced fear, but Gunner was definitely experiencing it now. On the one hand, the warrior in him wanted to rush out into the hall with his nine-millimeter blazing. The mental side of his character was thinking about the money and all the pussy he’d be into if he could just get on that plane in the morning. It told him to lie back and be careful, and in so doing, allowed the fear to creep in.
Shit, he thought, it was just bad luck that today’s flight to Australia was all booked. Sure, he could have hung around the airport and hoped for a cancellation, but with that fucking psycho Willy Beal on the loose, he felt it was better to just lie low. Hell, what did he have to worry about? Nguyen was guarding his flank.
Fear is like a sine wave on an oscilloscope. Each sine wave has a peak and a valley with a smooth transition between the two. Gunner felt that he’d already peaked when he first woke up, and his mind was conjuring all sorts of scenarios. His physical signs pounded out a message to his brain that told him fight or flight was inevitable. Because of his newfound financial position, he preferred flight. He was scared for the first time since he could remember and it was a feeling of dread. Dread rhymes with dead, that’s what his brain told him. Fright rhymes with flight, that’s what his legs told him. If he wasn’t in this room with his back to the wall, he’d be gone.
Gunner didn’t hear anything through his Jack Daniels stethoscope. He checked the door to see if it was securely locked. It was. He moved back across the room and peeked out his tiny window that overlooked the alley. It was pitch black, but he didn’t sense anybody moving down there. He knew if he had to, he could jump, but it looked like a painful fallback position.
Sergeant Madison looked through the night scope of his M-16 from his concealed position in the back of the alley. He turned the scope adjustment knob on top of his weapon and brought the crosshairs high on the chest of Gunner McConnell as he stood backli
ghted in the window. “I’m in position, Captain,” he whispered into his portable handset. “I can take him out right now if you give me the word. Easy shot.”
Captain Davis had stationed himself in front of the Club Saigon on the roof of the dry-cleaning shop. Two of Madison’s marksmen were in place and had the front of the restaurant under surveillance. “Don’t go jumping the gun on this, Madison. Nothing’s coming down yet. We don’t even know if the guy you got a bead on is the perp.”
Madison spoke lower yet, not wanting to give his position away. “Are the boys in place?”
“Yeah. Everything’s set out here. I’ve also got a squad of regulars hanging out in the alley just in case we need them. Fitzsimmons, you copy our transmission.”
“Ten-four and five by five, Captain. I’ve got two unmarked cars and four men waiting for your instructions.”
“Okay, I’ll just say this once. Nobody moves except on my orders. Now until I give the word, we’re on radio silence.”
The cavalry had arrived.
FORTY-FIVE
Willy knew that Jerry would eventually get out of the closet. He never intended to kill Jerry. After all, it was Jerry that had led the assault on the VC prison camp that saved his life. Willy did need to slow him down enough so he’d have time to take care of Gunner. He remembered through tear-shrouded eyes the day of his return to his team. The VC had beat and tortured him unmercifully but he took everything they dished out and gave them nothing in return. He would never forget each and every man that risked their lives to save his, just as he would remember the one team member who was not there. For that, for scarring his face, and for making him an accessory to murder, William Baines Beal had never forgiven Gunner McConnell.
Club Saigon Page 41