Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (16 page)

Their attitude was clear:
If you want the spotlight, Harrison, you gotta take the heat that goes with it.

They were right, of course.  He could have been working on a quieter case, like where all the winos were disappearing to.  He'd chosen this instead.  But he wasn't after the spotlight, dammit!  It was this case – something about this case!

He suddenly realized that there was no one around him.  The body had been carted off, Jacobi had wandered back to his car.  He had been left standing alone at the far end of the alley.

And yet not alone.

Someone was watching him.  He could feel it.  The realization sent a little chill – one completely unrelated to the cold February wind – trickling down his back.  A quick glance around showed no one paying him the slightest bit of attention.  He looked up.

There!

Somewhere in the darkness above, someone was watching him.  Probably from the roof.  He could sense the piercing scrutiny and it made him a little weak.  That was no ghoulish neighborhood voyeur, up there.  That was the Facelift Killer.

He had to get to Jacobi, have him seal off the building.  But he couldn't act spooked.  He had to act calm, casual.

*

See the Detective Harrison's eyes.  See from way up in dark.  Tall-thin.  Hair brown.  Nice eyes.  Soft brown eyes.  Not hard like many-many eyes.  Look here.  Even from here see eyes make wide.  Him know it me.

Watch the Detective Harrison turn slow.  Walk slow.  Tell inside him want to run.  Must leave here.  Leave quick.

Bend low.  Run cross roof.  Jump to next.  And next.  Again til most block away.  Then down wall.  Wrap scarf round head.  Hide bad-face.  Hunch inside big-big coat.  Walk through lighted spots.

Hate light.  Hate crowds.  Theatres here.  Movies and plays.  Like them.  Some night sneak in and see.  See one with man in mask.  Hang from wall behind big drapes.  Make cry.

Wish there mask for me.

Follow street long way to river.  See many light across river.  Far past there is place where grew.  Never want go back to there.  Never.

Catch back of truck.  Ride home.

Home.  Bright bulb hang ceiling.  Not care.  The Old Jessi waiting.  The Jessi friend.  Only friend.  The Jessi's eyes not see.  Ever.  When the Jessi look me, her face not wear sick-scared look.  Hate that look.

Come in kitchen window. The Jessi's face wrinkle-black.  Smile when hear me come.  TV on.  Always on.  The Jessi can not watch.  Say it company for her.

"You're so late tonight."

"Hard work.  Get moneys tonight."

Feel sick.  Want cry.  Hate kill.  Wish stop.

"That's nice.  Are you going to put it in the drawer?"

"Doing now."

Empty wallets.  Put moneys in slots.  Ones first slot.  Fives next slot.  Then tens and twenties.  So the Jessi can pay when boy bring foods.  Sometimes eat stealed foods.  Mostly the Jessi call for foods.

The Old Jessi hardly walk.  Good.  Do not want her go out.  Bad peoples round here.  Many.  Hurt one who not see.  One bad man try hurt Jessi once.  Push through door.  Thought only the blind Old Jessi live here.

Lucky the Jessi not along that day.

Not lucky bad man.  Hit the Jessi.  Laugh hard.  Then look me.  Get sick-scared look.  Hate that look.  Kill him quick. Put in tub.  Bleed there.  Bad man friend come soon after.  Kill him also too.  Late at night take both dead bad men out. Go through window.  Carry down wall.  Throw in river.

No bad men come again.  Ever.

"I've been waiting all night for my bath.  Do you think you can help me a little?"

Always help.  But the Old Jessi always ask.  The Jessi very polite.

Sponge the Old Jessi back in tub.  Rinse her hair.  Think of the Detective Harrison.  His kind eyes.  Must talk him.  Want stop this.  Stop now.  Maybe will understand.  Will.  Can feel

*

Seven grisly murders in eight weeks.

Kevin Harrison studied a photo of the latest victim, taken before she was mutilated.  A nice eight by ten glossy furnished by her agent.  A real beauty.  A dancer with Broadway dreams.

He tossed the photo aside and pulled the stack of files toward him.  The remnants of six lives in this pile.  Somewhere within had to be an answer, the thread that linked each of them to the Facelift Killer.

But what if there was no common link?  What if were all the killings were at random, linked only by the fact that they were beautiful?  Seven deaths, all over the city.  All with their faces gnawed off. 
Gnawed
.

He flipped through the victims one by one and studied their photos.  He had begun to feel he knew each one of them personally:

Mary Detrick, 20, a junior at N.Y.U., killed in Washington Square Park on January 5.  She was the first.

Mia Chandler, 25, a secretary at Merrill Lynch, killed January 13 in Battery Park.

Ellen Beasley, 22, a photographer's assistant, killed in an alley in Chelsea on January 22.

Hazel Hauge, 30, artist agent, killed in her
Soho loft on January 27.

Elisabeth Paine, 28, housewife, killed on February 2 while jogging late in Central Park.

Joan Perrin, 25, a model from Brooklyn, pulled from her car while stopped at a light on the Upper East Side on February 8.

He picked up the eight by ten again.  And the last: Liza Lee, 21.  Dancer.  Lived across the river in
Jersey City.  Ducked into an alley for a toot with her boyfriend tonight and never came out.

Three blondes, three brunettes, one redhead.  Some stacked, some on the flat side.  All caucs except for Perrin.  All lookers.  But besides that, how in the world could these women be linked?  They came from all over town, and they met their respective ends all over town.  What could–

"Well, you sure hit the bull’s eye about that roof!" Jacobi said as he burst into the office.

Harrison
straightened in his chair.  "What you find?"

"Blood."

"Whose?"

"The victim's."

"No prints?  No hairs?  No fibers?"

"We're working on it.  But how'd you figure to check the roof top?"

"Lucky guess."

Harrison
didn't want to provide Jacobi with more grist for the departmental gossip mill by mentioning his feeling of being watched from up there.

But the killer
had
been watching, hadn't he?

"Any prelims from pathology?"

Jacobi shrugged and stuffed three sticks of gum into his mouth.  Then he tried to talk.

"Same as ever.  Money gone, throat ripped open by a pair of sharp pointed instruments, not knives, the bite marks on the face are the usual: the teeth that made them aren't human, but the saliva is."

The "non-human" teeth part – more teeth, bigger and sharper teeth that found in any human mouth – had baffled them all from the start.  Early on someone remembered a horror novel or movie where the killer used some weird sort of false teeth to bite his victims.  That had sent them off on a wild goose chase to all the dental labs looking for records of bizarre bite prostheses.  No dice.  No one had seen or even heard of teeth that could gnaw off a person's face.

Harrison
shuddered.  What could explain wounds like that?  What were they dealing with here?

The irritating pops, snaps, and cracks of Jacobi's gum filled the office.

"I liked you better when you smoked."

Jacobi's reply was cut off by the phone.  The sergeant picked it up.

"Detective Harrison's office!" he said, listened a moment, then, with his hand over the mouthpiece, passed the receiver to Harrison.  "Some fairy wantsh to shpeak to you," he said with an evil grin.

"Fairy?"

"Hey," he said, getting up and walking toward the door.  "I don't mind.  I'm a liberal kinda guy, y'know?"

Harrison
shook his head with disgust.  Jacobi was getting less likable every day.

"Hello. 
Harrison here."

"Shorry dishturb you, Detective Harrishon."

The voice was soft, pitched somewhere between a man's and a woman's, and sounded as if the speaker had half a mouthful of saliva.  Harrison had never heard anything like it.  Who could be–?

And then it struck him: It was
three a.m.  Only a handful of people knew he was here.

"Do I know you?"

"No.  Watch you tonight.  You almosht shee me in dark."

That same chill from earlier tonight ran down
Harrison's back again.

"Are…are you who I think you are?"

There was a pause, then one soft word, more sobbed than spoken:

"Yesh."

If the reply had been cocky – something along the line of And just who do you think I am? – Harrison would have looked for much more in the way of corroboration.  But that single word, and the soul deep heartbreak that propelled it, banished all doubt.

My God!  He looked around frantically.  No one in sight.  Where the fuck was Jacobi now when he needed him?  This was the Facelift Killer!  He needed a trace!

Got to keep him on the line!

"I have to ask you something to be sure you are who you say you are."

"Yesh?"

"Do you take anything from the victims – I mean, besides their faces?"

"Money.  Take money."

This is him!  The department had withheld the money part from the papers.  Only the real Facelift Killer could know!

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Yesh."

Harrison was asking this one for himself.

"What do you do with the faces?"

He had to know.  The question drove him crazy at night.  He dreamed about those faces.  Did the killer tack them on the wall, or press them in a book, or freeze them, or did he wear them around the house like that Leatherface character from that chainsaw movie?

On the other end of the line he sensed sudden agitation and panic
: "No!  Can not shay!  Can not!"

"Okay, okay.  Take it easy."

"You will help shtop?"

"Oh, yes!  Oh, God, yes, I'll help you stop!"  He prayed his genuine heartfelt desire to end this was coming through.  "I'll help you any way I can!"

A long pause, then:

"You hate?  Hate me?"

Harrison didn't trust himself to answer that right away.  He searched his feelings quickly, but carefully.

"No," he said finally.  "I think you have done some awful, horrible things but, strangely enough, I don't hate you."

And that was true.  Why didn't he hate this murdering maniac?  Oh, he wanted to stop him more than anything in the world, and wouldn't hesitate to shoot him dead if the situation required it, but there was no personal hatred for the Facelift Killer.

What is it in you that speaks to me? he wondered.

"Shank you,"
said the voice, couched once more in a sob.

And then the killer hung up.

Harrison shouted into the dead phone, banged it on his desk, but the line was dead.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" Jacobi said from the office door.

"That so-called 'fairy' on the phone was the Facelift Killer, you idiot!  We could have had a trace if you'd stuck around!"

"Bullshit!"

"He knew about taking the money!"

"So why'd he talk like that?  That's a dumb-ass way to try to disguise your voice."

And then it suddenly hit Harrison like a sucker punch to the gut.  He swallowed hard and said:

"Jacobi, how do you think your voice would sound if you had a mouth crammed full of teeth much larger and sharper than the kind found in the typical human mouth?"

Harrison took genuine pleasure in the way Jacobi's face blanched slowly to yellow-white.

You’ll find t
he rest of “Faces” (along with many other stories)…
The Barrens and Others

199
0

COLD CITY