A Killer Like Me (17 page)

Even if I gave you a tip, you wouldn’t get to spend it.

The killer turns around and leans against the bar. On the other side of the dance floor are a pair of side-by-side unisex bathrooms.

Only moments before, when he stepped into the bathroom on the right, he found two men in the same stall, pants around their ankles, one behind the other, grunting like pigs. He backed out quickly and peeked into the bathroom on the left. There was a line for the toilets but nothing vulgar going on. He urinated behind a locked stall door and got out as fast as he could.

Just to the right of the bathrooms is a short, narrow hallway, barely more than shoulder width, painted entirely black. At the end of the hallway is a single door, the only entrance to the Red Door Lounge. The inside surface of the door has been painted black to match the hallway, but the door’s outer surface is painted bright red. He assumes it is from that door that the club took its name.

The door opens onto a small wooden landing that stands at the top of a long, narrow flight of wooden stairs. The stairs are pressed between two walls, a wood-framed drywall on one side, and a brick firewall on the other side that separates this building from the building next door. Midway down the stairs is another wooden landing and a door that leads into the second floor. Past that landing, the stairs descend to a metal security door that opens onto Iberville Street.

The killer takes a sip of beer. The lime isn’t far enough down the neck of the bottle and his lips come away spackled with pulp.

To the left of the bathrooms is a steel door with a horizontal crash bar in the center and a lighted red sign above it that reads
FIRE EXIT
.

The killer has surveyed the fire escape from the outside. The steel door opens onto a small metal platform attached to the back of the building. A metal stairway leads down to an identical platform on the second floor. From there, a utility ladder embedded into the brick wall drops to the alley that runs behind the building.

As the killer stares out over the dance floor, he takes a long pull from his beer. In the heat of the club, the cool liquid feels refreshing as it slides down his throat. His tongue pushes the lime pulp around inside his mouth.

Beside the dance floor is a lounge area. Three sofas sit at right angles to each other, forming three-quarters of a square. In front of each sofa is a low-slung coffee table spread with glamour and fashion magazines. Next to the sofas are four short black wooden tables, each surrounded by a trio of matching chairs.

Every seat is taken. At the end of one sofa, two men, both dressed in tight-fitting black shirts and pants, are tonguing each other, one riding the other’s lap. The killer stares at the couple.

He finds their erotic public display . . . disgusting.

The killer’s right hand rests on the bar, his fingers wrapped around his beer bottle. He feels someone touch his hand. He looks over. A man, fifty-something at least, stands beside him, his left hand resting on the killer’s right.

“I’m Paul,” the man shouts over the music. A thin white line encircles the third finger of his left hand. A married man out for a homosexual fling. A walk on the wild side.

The killer pulls his hand away.

The man reaches over with his right hand. Between his fingers he holds an open matchbook. Scribbled on the inside cover is the name Paul and a telephone number.

The killer lets go of his beer and takes the matchbook. He flips the lid closed. The cover is black with red letters. It reads,
RED DOOR LOUNGE
* 604
IBERVILLE ST. * NEW ORLEANS.

“In case you want to get together later,” the chicken hawk says.

The killer shoves the matchbook into his pants pocket and stares straight ahead. A few minutes later, the man calling himself Paul walks away.

While he sips his beer, the killer watches the bar patrons enjoying themselves. His eyes keep wandering back to the two men kissing on the sofa. A bead of sweat runs down the side of his face.

By 11:30 he has seen enough. He squeezes the messenger bag against his right hip, then steps toward the dark hallway. On his way, he bumps into two men standing side by side with their arms around each other. One man is kissing the other’s neck. The killer pushes past them. He does not excuse himself. They are nothing but filthy sodomites.

At the end of the hallway, he pulls open the door and steps out onto the landing. For a moment he examines the door in the dim light from the stairwell. It’s solid wood but old, the exterior covered with a thick coating of bright red paint and fitted with a brass knob tarnished by years and thousands of hands. He pulls the door closed and starts down the stairs.

To the killer’s right, the interior wall is unfinished, just bare two-by-fours and unpainted drywall. Brushing past his left arm is the brick firewall. The dim stairway is lit by a pair of naked low-watt bulbs jutting from the interior wall, one midway between the third and second floors, the other between the second floor and the first.

The killer hurries down the stairs, his feet scraping on the worn wooden steps. At the second-floor landing he pauses to press his ear to the door. He hears nothing. He tries the doorknob. It’s locked. He moves on.

On the ground floor, three feet of concrete separate the last step from the steel door that opens onto the street. The killer pushes the crash bar and steps outside.

Standing on the sidewalk, he watches a thin line of cars thread its way along Iberville Street, a narrow, one-way avenue on the Canal Street end of the French Quarter. The walkways on either side of the street bear the usual combination of tourists, drunks, and locals.

The killer walks to his right a dozen steps and rounds the corner onto Chartres Street. He strolls half a block and turns into the alley behind the building. The alley smells of urine and beer.

After pausing for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, he creeps forward. At the end of the narrow alley, he comes to the fire-escape ladder bolted to the wall. The bottom of the ladder is five feet above the ground. The killer grabs the highest rung he can reach and hauls himself up. His rubber-soled shoes scrape the rough brick surface of the wall as he struggles to crawl high enough up the ladder to step on the bottom rung. When he does fully mount the ladder, he pauses for breath. Above him the third-floor fire-escape landing is half hidden in shadow.

At the second floor, the killer steps off the ladder and onto the metal landing. By the time he hoists himself up the steep stairwell to the third floor, he is panting. He sits down to rest for a minute.

As he waits for his breathing to return to normal, the killer scans the alley below. He sees no indication that anyone has noticed him. And if he was noticed, no one stopped to investigate. Not without reason is New Orleans called the City That Care Forgot.

He grabs the metal rail and pulls himself to his feet. From inside his messenger bag, the killer pulls out a bicycle lock made from a four-foot length of rubberized steel cable. On one end of the cable is a three-number combination lock. On the other end is a ridged shackle.

The fire door has a vertical metal handle on the right side. The killer gives it a tug. It’s locked. Only the crash bar on the other side will open it. He threads the steel cable through the handle, then loops it around the landing’s metal rail. He pushes the ends of the cable together and hears the shackle snap into place inside the lock. He spins the combination wheels, then tries to yank the two ends apart. They are locked into place.

The landing rail has a vertical support bar a foot from the wall. The cable can slide along the rail from the wall to that support, but no farther. With the cable locked, the fire door can’t open more than a foot. People trying to get out will have to squeeze through the door one at a time, and then only a few skinny ones will make it.

The killer digs a black Sharpie from his bag. Using his left hand, his nonwriting hand, he draws three block letters on the outside of the metal door—
LOG
.

He descends the stairs, crawls down the ladder, then drops into the alley. He strolls down Chartres Street, then rounds the corner onto Iberville. Standing in front of the steel door at the foot of the stairs that lead to the Red Door Lounge, the killer waits until there is a long gap in foot traffic on the sidewalk. Then he pulls open the heavy door and slips inside.

As he bolts up the stairs, he again reaches into the messenger bag hanging at his side. In the bag are three plastic quart-sized bottles of lighter fluid. He pulls out one bottle and pops open the plastic lid.

At the top of the stairs, he moves fast, squirting the amber liquid on the outside of the red door, on the wall, and on the landing. The thick petroleum smell of the lighter fluid fills the narrow space.

He drops the empty plastic bottle and reaches for another.

The killer backs down the stairway, squeezing the contents of the second bottle in an S pattern on the wooden steps and both walls. The brick wall to his right won’t ignite, but the burning liquid will radiate additional heat. He coats the wooden second-floor landing and door.

At the bottom of the stairs, he empties the third bottle, making sure to soak the wood and plaster inner wall, the concrete floor, and the inside of the metal door. Like the brick firewall, neither the concrete landing nor the steel door will burn, but the blazing fluid will create a temporary firestorm, stopping anyone from going in or out. He drops the last bottle on the floor, turns around, and pushes open the steel door just enough to squeeze out.

A quick glance up and down the street.

He reaches into his bag for the igniter he prepared, the plans for which he found on the Internet. A simple but clever device with a built-in delay mechanism, made from a Zippo lighter, a plastic sandwich bag, and a wad of tissues soaked in lighter fluid. Then the killer remembers Paul, the chicken hawk upstairs, and his Red Door matchbook. How perfect, the killer thinks, to use this den of iniquity’s own advertising to destroy it.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the black matchbook with Paul’s cell phone number scribbled inside. He pulls one match from the book and strikes it. The match head pops and flares. He holds the matchbook over the flame until the cardboard cover catches fire. Paul’s name and phone number disappear in the fire.

The killer pulls the steel door open a crack and tosses the matchbook inside. Then he shoves the door closed and walks away.

Thirty seconds later, the killer can already hear the start of the commotion echoed in the surprised, uncertain voices of passersby. He strolls a block up Iberville to Royal Street and turns left. Just around the corner, he stops and peeks back the way he has come. No one has followed him. No one is staring or pointing in his direction. No one has noticed him.

Down the street, some Good Samaritan has pulled open the steel door. Flames leap from the doorway and attack the wall above it. The Samaritan who pulled open the door is on the ground, writhing in pain. A small crowd has gathered. Several in the crowd point to the third-floor windows of the Red Door Lounge.

The killer watches.

Minutes pass and the third floor becomes a raging inferno. A fire truck bellows its approach, but for many of the sodomites it is already too late. Some who have caught fire try to escape the conflagration by crashing through the windows. Their flaming bodies arch through the air like Roman candles.

Others try to claw and squeeze their way through the narrow windows, but the fire is too hot for such a slow method of escape. The killer hears the screams from one man who, half-hanging over a windowsill, bursts into flames. He flails for several seconds then collapses and appears to melt into the brickwork. A second man tries to climb over the first, but he too catches fire.

To the killer, the burning building is a fantastic sight. As he watches, his crotch stiffens uncomfortably against his jeans.

A police car screeches to a halt on Iberville Street, on the other side of the fire. The cops begin to cordon off the block even before the first fire engine runs out a hose. Then a policeman appears, seemingly from nowhere, across Iberville, less than half a block away. He is looking straight at the killer, but only half of the killer’s face is visible around the corner of the building. The policeman walks toward him.

The killer whirls toward Canal Street. He takes a running step and slams into a Lucky Dog cart.

Friday, August 3, 6:10
AM

The stench pouring down from the open doorway was horrendous. Beyond anything Sean Murphy had experienced in his thirteen years on the job. Worse than a floater in the river with his guts burst open. Worse than the stink of Zack Bowen’s French Quarter apartment when Murphy and Gaudet kicked open the door and found the chopped-up, cooked remains of his girlfriend on the stove and in the oven.

“I don’t know if I can take this one, brother,” Gaudet said, his voice muffled through a handkerchief pressed against his nose and mouth. As usual, Gaudet wore an eight-hundred-dollar suit and a hand-painted silk tie.

Murphy spoke through his own handkerchief. “I thought you were a homicide man.”

The two of them stood on Iberville Street at the bottom of the burned-out stairwell that led up to the Red Door Lounge. The fire had destroyed the stairs, leaving only small pieces of charred wood bolted to the walls.

To the east, the sun was just rising across the river, but already more than a hundred people had gathered outside the crime-scene tape to stare at the destruction. In the street, TV reporters were doing their first stand-up broadcasts for the morning news shows.

Gaudet let out a long breath and nodded at Murphy. “Lead the way, hero.”

Murphy turned away from the soot-blackened door and walked toward a fire-department ladder truck parked next to the curb. The hose jockeys had knocked a five-foot-by-three-foot hole in the brick wall on the third floor and run the truck’s extension ladder up to it. Other than the metal fire escape bolted to the back wall, it was the only way up.