Bubblegum Smoothie (13 page)

My heart pounded and my face felt hot as Hell. If I didn’t hate Lenny before—which I did, I really did—then I absolutely hated his guts now. He didn’t have his badge. The inept bastard didn’t have his badge, and therefore we weren’t going to get inside The Town Hospital.

Dr. Parsons was going to cut the bodies of the girls open, and they were going to go boom.

I listened to Lenny bicker with the guards. Listened to him tell them about his “rights,” while they shouted back at him, stepped closer to him. I listened, and then I saw him.

Dr. Parsons walked across the reception area of the private hospital, iced donut in hand.

My stomach rumbled with fire. Just nerves, really, but fire sounded fancier. I got a weird tunnel vision, where everything else around me blanked out. Everything but Dr. Parsons, everything but the need to stop him.

I held my breath. Ground my teeth.

And then I threw myself over the metal barrier.

I heard commotion and shouting behind me but I was already halfway through the reception area. People looked at me with wide eyes, all of them moving and turning as I passed. Another harsh truth about humanity—we might think we want to stop somebody who looks suspect, but really, we’d rather just wait for the next person to do it.

Or the next.

Or the next.

I sprinted as fast as I could through the double doors that Dr. Parsons had gone through. I could hear the guards running behind me, their footsteps so close that I couldn’t bring myself to look back. I knew I had one shot at this. One shot, or the whole building would explode.

If I failed, I’d explode with it.

Bloody shit. What had I gone and got myself into?

“Dr. Parsons!” I shouted, as I saw him take a left through a door. He didn’t hear me, though. He closed his door and disappeared inside.

I threw myself at the door. Turned the handle, ran through.

Another door closed ahead of me. A door to a windowed room.

“Dr. Parsons!” I called.

I threw myself at the door. Turned the handle.

It was locked.

My arms and legs went weak. In this room with me, I hadn’t even noticed the bewildered-looking woman in a surgical mask working on a sleeping person beside me.

I didn’t say a thing to her, not as the footsteps got close behind me.

I threw myself at the glass window of Dr. Parsons’ office. Banged against it.

“Dr. Parsons!” I shouted. “Don’t open that body!”

I watched as he finished off his iced donut in one bite. As he pulled back the white sheet, revealed the mutilated body of the second victim. As the door behind me swung open, as he brought the knife towards her skin…

I knew I should get away. I knew I should duck for cover. I knew my life was fucked.

But I couldn’t help but bang on the window.

I felt the guards grab my arms, felt sharp pains all through my back and my shoulder as they dragged me away.

And I saw Dr. Parsons slice open the girl’s skin.

TWENTY-TWO

I closed my eyes and prayed I’d go to some gadget-laden heaven when Dr. Parsons sliced away at the bomb-rigged body.

The pain in my arms and my back as the guards dragged me away from the surgical area of The Town Hospital was strong. It was still there at least, which meant I wasn’t dead yet. Maybe my life was just going in slow motion. Maybe I was having one of those cinema moments, so aware of my inevitable fate, so in touch with my senses, that the final seconds of my life were dragging on, stretching out.

“Come the fuck away from that door,” one of the guards said, and yanked me out into the corridor.

I listened for an explosion. Waited for it to engulf me. Shit, how did these IEDs work, anyway? Were they rigged so that exposure to air triggered them? Or was there a wire attached to the flesh? And damn—how had the killer even got the bombs inside the bodies in the first place? Technically precise, that’s what he was. The police could do with someone like him to set them straight. Pity he was a homicidal maniac.

I opened my eyes as the guards dragged me further away from the surgical area of The Town Hospital. I passed by people who stared at me, shook their heads like I was a naughty kid who’d been caught stealing sweets.

“You don’t understand,” I said.

The guards tightened their grip, cut out my speech. “We understand one thing—we’re kickin’ you out of here. You’d better understand it too.”

A part of me wanted these idiots to explode, but I knew what it meant if I let that happen. “There’s—the bomb that blew up the police station. It was inside the girl—argh!”

“You can explain that to the cops,” one of the guards said. “Now shut up and keep moving.”

They dragged me out into the reception area, where more disapproving eyes stared at me. I prayed to God Lenny didn’t see me like this—being dragged away like a rabid animal. I’d never hear the end of it.

My prayers were shat on right away.

“Jesus, Blake! Why did you have to go running in there? Think you’re Rambo or something?”

I turned around, shuffled away from the guards. I saw Lenny standing by the metal barriers, smile twitching at the sides of his mouth. Martha was behind him, looking similarly bemused. And beside Lenny, there was a chubby officer with one of the most miserable faces known to man. The closer I got to him, the more I smelled his nasty alcohol breath. A boozer, no doubt about it.

“Blake, McDone. McDone, Blake.”

I nodded at McDone. McDone nodded back at me, eyes glassy and distant.

The guards prepared to toss me over the barrier.

“Now before you toss this man, guards, you might want to take a look at our identification here.”

The guards waited. Looked at one another. And then looked at the black wallet this McDone guy handed over to them.

“Detective Inspector Kole,” he said. “Like I said, I left my badge at the station. McDone here kindly picked it up for me before the place turned into a fireball. ‘Cause that’s what buddies do for each other, right, McDone?”

McDone shrugged. Barely even looked at Lenny. I figured he probably hated him as much as anybody. Having to work with him day in day out… I pitied the guy.

“So you put my man down. On the floor just there would be fine.”

The guards sighed. Hesitated. “But—”

“You put him down and you get everyone out of this building immediately.” He looked past the guards. Raised his voice. “We believe there’s several explosives on the premises.”

The people in the reception area didn’t need any extra encouragement to get the hell out of here. Fire alarms went off. People screamed, flocked together, stormed out of the fire escapes, climbed out of windows. If it weren’t terrifying, it would actually be pretty funny.

“Put my man down and let us through before you put anyone else at risk.”

The guards tutted. They lowered me down, rested me on the cold floor of reception. I stood up right away, brushed myself down.

“Thank you,” Lenny said. “Now let us pass.”

After some more hesitation, the guards parted and let Lenny and Martha inside.

“Um, Kole, I’m gonna get off,” McDone mumbled.

“Oh, yeah, cheers again, McDone. A drink later, maybe? A drink or two?”

McDone scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, I… Maybe another time.”

“Another time. Always another time. Great. Bye!”

The pain in my shoulder and my back was at an all-time high after the guards dragged me along.

“Great man, McDone. Great man. Anyway, what’re we waiting for, John McClane? We gonna stop a bomb exploding, or what?”

“It’s—it’s too late,” I said. “I saw him… I saw him cutting the body open. This place is gonna blow any second. We need to get out.”

Lenny puffed out his lips. “And lose every last bit of evidence? I don’t think so, Blake. Besides, this place is still here. Maybe it’s a sign. So lead the way, Johnny Bravo.”

I exchanged a glance with Martha. She looked terrified and pale.

Again, probably a mirror image of myself.

I led the way. Moved quickly through the double doors that led to Dr. Parsons’ surgical room. I slowed down every now and then—slowed down at the realisation that I was walking in the direction of a bomb, in the direction of my death.

Bloody hell. What the frig had I signed up for?

“You do realise I’ll be requesting two million if we survive the next hour,” I said, as I opened the first door to the surgical rooms.

“And I’ll be kindly rejecting the request,” Lenny said. “Anyway, what did you expect? A million for chasing a few bunny rabbits? Saving some cats from trees? Funny story, I saved a cat—”

“I didn’t expect for my home to burn down. For a killer to try to murder me. To be walking into a bloody bomb site.”

“Nice and calm, Blake. Nice and calm. Wouldn’t want to set any explosives off.”

“I’ll set something off,” I mumbled.

We walked across the surgical room towards the glass window, which Dr. Parsons was behind. In the current room, the nurse with the surgical mask had fled, leaving her anaesthetised patient to sleep in the middle of a war zone.

“At least she’ll be resting in peace,” Lenny said.

“Or pieces, if we don’t hurry,” Martha added.

I held my breath as I approached the glass. Raised a fist to bang on the window. Prepared to watch Dr. Parsons explode in front of me.

But inside the room, I didn’t expect to see what I did.

Dr. Parsons wasn’t cutting at the body. He’d already cut it open, bits of blood and flesh all over the blue sheet on metal table it was propped up on. He was at the other side of the room inspecting something. Inspecting it very closely.

I banged on the door. Martha and Lenny joined me, too. Ignorant bastard was either deaf, or just plain rude. How had he not noticed this piercing fire alarm?

But after a few seconds of banging and shouting, Dr. Parsons came to the door.

He looked at us all with bewilderment, holding an iPod headphone in one hand. So
that’s
why he’d been oblivious. “Yes?”

I gathered my thoughts. Tried to work out what to say, the raging alarm making my head spin. “Dr. Parsons, the body. The body you’re working on. We’re—we’re worried there might be an explosive inside. There was—was an explosive inside another victim at the police station. You… you need to stop cutting at it. You need to—”

“Explosive?” he said. A little smile appeared on his otherwise bored face. “Believe me, pal, I think I’d know if I was cutting into an explosive. We have some perfect tracing systems in place, security measures. Better than… better than the police station’s, no offence.”

“None taken, Doc,” Lenny said, his Tom Cruise grin beaming.

I tried to figure out why only one of the girls would be rigged with an explosive, and what this meant. I couldn’t understand it.

“Why would a killer only rig one body with explosives?” Martha asked, echoing my thoughts. “If… if they’re lashing out at the authorities, why only one body?”

“What about the second body?” I asked.

“The second body?” Dr. Parsons said. He chewed at his nails. Filthy bastard hadn’t even washed his hands yet. “Oh, I inspected that one earlier. And no, I haven’t gone boom yet.”

I couldn’t understand. Couldn’t get my head around it. But it was good news, I suppose. At least identification procedures would go ahead.

“I don’t know a thing about explosives,” Dr. Parsons said, turning away, “but I did find these halfway down their throats.”

He turned back with two small black boxes, like jewellery boxes, in his hand.

I backed away.

“Jesus! They could—they could be the explosives. They could—”

“They’re not explosives,” Dr. Parsons said.

He lifted the lid of the first box.

“But they are interesting. Very interesting.”

He lifted the lid of the second.

We stood there, all four of us, in total silence.

Fingers. Index fingers, one in each box, curled up and resting on a reddened foam bed.

A weight lifted from my aching shoulders.

Fingers meant identification.

And identification meant discovering our killer’s motive.

Discovering our killer’s motive meant catching the fucker, and catching the fucker meant a whole new addition to the Fun Funds.

We waited. Stood in silence a little longer.

Lenny broke the silence: “Are… are those the funny plastic fingers you buy from a magicians’ shop?”

TWENTY-THREE

He watches from a distance.

He knows his next victim will be finishing work soon. He knows because he has watched his victim for days, weeks even. And unless his victim has had a sudden promotion, a sudden change in lifestyle, they’ll leave their offices at five p.m. Make their way down the street towards McDonald’s.

His victim will be getting picked up today. Getting a ride.

And they won’t be getting a McDonald’s.

His arms tingle as he grips the steering wheel tightly. Between his fingernails, he picks off pieces of rubber, rolls them around as he clutches the wheel. He always picks things when he is stressed. His therapist told him it was a nervous tic a while back, back when he thought that help was possible.

He knows now help isn’t possible. He is too far gone for help.

Besides, he enjoys letting his impulses run wild.

He watches the offices as the rain bolts down, rattles against the roof of his car, fuzzing out his music. More people should follow their impulses. Today is an age where too many people seek therapy at the expense of fun.

Too many people try to curtail their desires when experiencing them is much, much better.

He plucks more rubber from his steering wheel. Feels his smooth molars pressing against one another. He knows why he is stressed. He knows the exact reason why. And what’s worse is that he shouldn’t be. Right now, he should be happy. He’s sorted three of his victims, he only has four left.

And he’s saved the best four ‘til last.

But the explosions. Yes, the explosions. The two homemade IEDs that had taken months of training to perfect, months of grainy YouTube tutorials to master. They went well enough. They exploded, so that was something.