American Devil (20 page)

‘First things first, you fucking loser. You make claims about me in public like that again and I’ll kill two a day. I can do it and you know it. I don’t need to do all the embellishments, I can just cut and go. You get me? So less of the disrespect and lies. I have got you boys pissing your pants and sucking your fucking thumbs because you don’t know who the hell you’re dealing with. Well, let me tell you who I am. I’m not no trailer park inadequate with a fucking speech impediment. I’m an artist. One day you’ll see my grand work,
The Progression of Love
. It’s taken years and years to put together. Some day soon I’m going to reveal it to you all. My name’s Sebastian, and I’m an artist. I’m the American Devil. I’m Abaddon - that’s where I am. But you’ll never find me. Open the door and I’ll be gone.’

The seven detectives stared at the small speaker. Williamson was not coming back. You could see that his head was empty. He drew some saliva back into his dry mouth. ‘Fuck you, you asshole,’ he said. It was his standard reply when he felt threatened. It was not a good move.

‘Okay, Detective, let’s be quite clear what we’re dealing with now. I’m in her apartment already. She is probably walking home as we speak. You can’t stop her, you can’t warn her, you can’t stop me, but you know it’s going to happen, as inevitable as the sun rising. I’ve got a blade here sitting on my lap and I’m going to dedicate this one to you boys. I’m going to give you a real show, but then again you only ever turn up after the show’s over. Like the cleaner in the movie house with your brush and scoop.’

‘Who is she?’ said Williamson.

‘I’m looking at her picture right now. Pretty girl, blue eyes, skin fine as silk. Her name, in case you’re interested, is Elizabeth. I’m going to pull her apart and put her back together again. When you see her, she’ll be transformed. It’s just the way of the world - angels become whores, whores become angels. It’s a damn shame you can’t save her. She’s going to be mine by the end of tonight. Sealed with a kiss. You know I like to do that, don’t you?’

Tom Harper was copying out every word into his small black notebook, under the previous note, which read:
Connecticut warbler, Red-eyed vireo, long-eared owl.

It was bad news - the killer was active again. Every two days. He was in there. There was a woman returning home with no idea of what was waiting for her and there wasn’t anything they could do. Harper looked at the technical staff. One guy was holding up ten fingers. They had to keep him on the line.

Harper grabbed the phone from Williamson. ‘Sebastian, it’s Detective Harper here. Sorry for the lack of courtesy. Truth is, we haven’t got a clue who or what you are. You’ve stumped every one of us and we’re scratching our heads. We don’t know how in hell you do it. You’ve got to give us something, or you’re just pissing on us from a great height. Tell me something, you feel bad afterwards, don’t you? You pose them because you regret it and you feel bad about hurting these girls.’

‘Bad?’

‘You feel bad for hurting these girls, don’t you?’

‘A curious word, Detective, but no, I never feel bad. They feel bad, not me. They feel fucking terrible, in fact.’

Suddenly, the dialling tone cut in. He had gone. The four technical staff could be seen leaving their seats in the next room and rushing out into the corridor. In a moment they entered the small interview room.

‘Did you get it?’ shouted Harper.

The lead guy was nodding. They were all nodding.

‘Well, what the hell have you got?’

‘We’ve triangulated the signal. We’ve got an apartment block on the Upper East Side.’

‘Okay, let’s move,’ said Williamson.

‘Any more information?’ said Harper.

‘The trace takes us right to the Laker Building, but we can’t get any more definite. The phone’s unregistered.’

The lead technical officer passed the read-out and address to Williamson. ‘Right,’ the detective said. ‘We’ve got an address and no time, let’s make like it matters.’

The team bustled out of the interview room and down to the station house parking lot. The bait had worked. They had the killer on the end of their line.

 

E
lizabeth was just turning into Roma Avenue. A daddy’s girl through and through. It paid to be a daddy’s girl in her family. It got her the Upper East Side apartment, the Mercedes, and the expense account, as Daddy called it. It got her expensive clothes, expensive treatments and all the trappings of wealth - just as long as she played the virgin daughter to her preacher father.

Hey, but she was also doing well on her own, wasn’t she? Never put a foot wrong. Straight-A student. Graduated top of her class at Princeton. But it was love she really craved tonight. Firelight, candles and strong arms. Love she wanted and love, she thought, she was going to get.

She fished in her handbag for her entrance card, but couldn’t find it. Damn. When she reached the apartment building she signalled to Marvin, the concierge, and waited for him to release the heavy door for her, rewarding him with a smile. Marvin turned and followed her with his eyes as she headed for the lift. Elizabeth was used to attention. The elevator travelled quickly to the twenty-second floor.

Elizabeth was thinking about Anthony. He was an investment banker. All gaunt cheeks, awkwardness and sparkling eyes. Gorgeous. And he made love like a man who wanted you to remember it.

She walked up the thickly carpeted corridor to the door of her apartment and took out her keys. They were on a little Tiffany lock charm shaped as the letter E.

She looked at the lock. It was covered in small scratch marks. She put in her key but the door was not locked. The killer heard the key in the lock. She opened the door and was surprised by the sudden scent of flowers. She raised her eyebrows, tossed her handbag aside.

Anthony had got in somehow. Maybe he was planning something special. ‘Is that you?’ she called.

She walked towards the bedroom. The phone started ringing and she hesitated, but then she saw it. The bed had been turned down and a small box lay on the pillow. It looked like the kind of box you’d put a ring in. A dress was all laid out. Was this Anthony’s big secret? Was he going to propose?

From inside the wardrobe, the killer watched her. Beauty and wealth were so strange, so very strange. You could see them, but you couldn’t ever grasp them in your hand. They were in her, somewhere. He was going to find out where.

She opened the lid of the black velvet box, and her smile drained away. An eye stared back at her. He had decided to use one of Mary-Jane’s eyeballs. Elizabeth suddenly felt terribly vulnerable, a feeling she’d not experienced before. Her legs began to shake. She couldn’t move as the door of the wardrobe opened. She couldn’t move at all. He appeared and stood before her. Over six feet and holding something that shimmered and caught the light. She held up her hand, open-palmed in a gesture of conciliation, as if that tiny little protest would be enough to stop the American Devil.

He walked up to her and put his other hand out to touch her golden hair.

‘Remember me?’ he said.

Elizabeth recoiled from his touch, her body frozen in shock, her eyes staring at the blade he held by her cheek.

‘You’re just perfect,’ said the killer. ‘I watched you for a long, long time, Elizabeth. I need you to cooperate with me. We haven’t got much time.’

 

T
he crossroads outside the Laker Building were burning with flashing light, but there wasn’t a siren going. The dispatcher had called all patrol cars to go silent to the glitzy building overlooking Central Park. There were seventeen cars parked at angles within ten minutes of the call. Several squad cars, Dodges and Chevrolets were kerb-parked forming a semicircle around the entrance to the building. The Emergency Service Unit Hummers were just beyond. Uniforms were keeping the civilians away. This was the one. The big endgame.

As Harper and Kasper pulled up, the enormous SWAT trucks arrived. They’d got a team together in advance, just in case, and the squad was jumping out of the back of each truck in their black armour and helmets. They were about as well armed as a man could be.

Williamson was directing the operation from a TARU truck. The concierge was in the truck with him already and they had a list of the registered owners of the apartments within minutes. Williamson ran his finger down the list. ‘Here we go,’ he spat excitedly. ‘There’s only one Elizabeth in the building, thank God. We’ve found her.’ He took the map of the layout of each floor and circled the apartment, then called it through to the rest of the team over the shortwave.

The captain of the SWAT team moved close to the map and then looked up at the building. ‘We got to hit this quick,’ he said. ‘No telling what he’s done already.’

‘Then get going!’ shouted Williamson.

Outside, the patrol started cutting off the scene, several officers skirting the edge of the building from both sides, making sure no one left and no one got in. Harper looked round at the flashing lights and then up at the windows. He turned to Eddie. ‘Well, if he didn’t know we were coming he does now.’

‘What do you think? You don’t look convinced,’ said Eddie.

Harper was reading through the notes of the phone call. ‘He’s not stupid, is he?’

‘No, he’s smart.’

‘Does a smart guy let us know his location with a cell phone?’

‘No, he’d be mad to do that.’

‘Yeah, so what’s his game?’

‘I don’t know. You think this is just a red herring? He’s gone already?’

Harper took off his jacket and pulled on a Kevlar vest. Kasper started getting kitted up too. ‘No. I think he’s here. But if he’s up there with her, they need to go in now.’

Kasper looked across to the first SWAT team. They had assembled at the great marble entrance to the Laker Building. Six black-clad officers in body armour were heading in the door. Each one had a face mask, Kevlar helmet and either a Heckler and Koch sub-machine gun, a Benelli M3 shotgun or a semiautomatic rifle. They looked formidable. The SWAT teams worked as small units with a leader taking the team forward: two assaulters with the heavy weapons, a scout to go on ahead and a rearguard. The team entered the building.

Harper and Kasper ran across to Williamson at the TARU truck. ‘What you got? What’s the plan?’

‘We got one Elizabeth in the building,’ said Williamson, breathing heavily. ‘Elizabeth Constantine. We’re lucky this time. I’ve sent the SWAT team to storm the apartment. We’re going to get this bastard. I just hope he’s not got to the girl yet.’

‘What’s the layout look like?’ asked Harper.

‘The building’s got an elevator and two stairwells. They make their way to the apartment up the stairs, take the door off its hinges, then take him down.’

‘Simple as that,’ Harper said.

‘That’s how it’s going to be. What’s the problem?’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Harper.

‘What? That I’m going to take him down?’

‘No, Nate, I don’t like the situation. He’s too smart to give us such an easy lead.’

‘He’s not smart, he’s spooked - the press statement panicked him. He doesn’t know we can trace his cell phone. He thinks he’s indestructible.’

‘Maybe, but he didn’t sound like it. Give me a look at the residents’ list.’

‘Sure, look all you like, but there’s only one Elizabeth living in this building. I’m going into the lobby,’ said Williamson. ‘I need to be there when they bring the bastard out.’

Harper leaned over the list of residents. He called the concierge to his side. ‘Hey, what’s your name?’

‘Marvin,’ said the concierge.

‘Is this list up to date?’

‘Sure is,’ said Marvin. ‘I only just got the latest list yesterday.’

Harper stared down the list. He was working through the angles. The killer’s call had been triangulated and he’d given them a name, Elizabeth, but maybe the name was phoney. They couldn’t know for sure. The triangulation meant only one thing and that was that twenty minutes earlier the killer had been somewhere in the building. But that was all they knew.

He turned to Marvin. ‘Tell me about Elizabeth Constantine.’

Marvin sucked his teeth. ‘Like I told Detective Williamson, she’s pretty, all right. About twenty-four. Nice lady. Quite a small woman, but she’s very polite.’

‘What colour hair?’

‘She’s blonde.’

Harper nodded. Williamson’s instincts seemed to be right. ‘Well, I hope she’s all right.’

‘So do I,’ said Marvin. ‘She’s a real nice addition to the family.’

‘What did you say?’ said Harper.

‘We’re like one big family here.’

‘No,’ said Harper, ‘you said she was a nice addition.’

‘Yeah,’ said Marvin. ‘She’s only been here a couple of weeks.’

‘Where did she live before?’

‘I don’t know that kind of stuff, but it’d be on her registration documents. You’ll have to see the building manager.’

Harper ’s finger stopped halfway down the resident list. Elizabeth Constantine was new to the building. The question troubling Harper was whether she was also new to the city. ‘Get yourself back to the building and find me those documents,’ he said.

Marvin jogged back towards the Laker Building. Harper looked up at the building. Eddie sidled up. ‘You’ve got that look on your face, Harps.’

‘Elizabeth Constantine moved in two weeks ago.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘I don’t know. He’s a careful bastard. We know he stalks them for a long time, sometimes years. If she’s just moved here, he’s not had long to get to know this building. I don’t know. And if she’s from out of town, how the hell has he been stalking her?’