Tales of Jack the Ripper (29 page)

Who was in the chair?

Nate Custer.

Nathan Custer?

I think so. Yes.

Did you see the suspect’s face?

No.

Approximately how tall was the suspect?

I don’t know. Was dark. Was bleeding out. Confused.

Right. But you saw something. And you discharged your firearm.

Yes. It was him. I’m sure.

Him?

Him, her. The killer. My vision was blurry. They were a big, fuzzy shadow.

Are you admitting that you fired your weapon multiple times at… at a shadow?

No. I shot a goddamned psycho five times and killed him dead. You’re welcome.

How can you be certain, Ms. Mace?

Maybe I can’t. Killer could’ve been anyone. Could
be
anyone. The doctor. The nurse. Maybe it was you. YOU look fucking suspicious.

Calvin Wannamaker and his major domo Hendricks are bellied up to the bar at the Caribou Tavern for their weekly confab. They’ve already downed several rounds.

DeForrest is polishing glasses and watching the new waitress’s skirt cling in exactly the right places as she leans over table No. 9 to flirt with big Luke Tucker. Tucker is a longshoreman married to a cute young stay-at-home mom named Gladys. Morphine is playing “Thursday” on the jukebox while the village’s resident Hell’s Angel, Vince Diamond, shoots pool against himself. VD got paroled from Goose Bay Correctional Facility last month. He has spent nineteen of his forty-eight years in various prisons. His is the face of an axe murderer. His left cheek is marred by a savage gash, freshly scabbed. Claims he got the wound in a fight with his newest old lady. Deputy Newcastle has been over to their apartment three times to make peace.

The bar is otherwise unoccupied.

“Found a dead cat in the bin.” Wannamaker lights a cigarette. A Winston. It’s the brand that he thinks best suits his Alaska image. He prefers Kools, alas. “Neck was broke, eyes buggin’ out. Gruesome.” The super loves cats. He keeps three Persians in his suite on the first floor. He’s short and thin and wears a round bushy beard and plaid sweaters, or if it’s a special occasion, black turtlenecks. Hendricks started calling him “Cat Piss Man’ behind his back and the name kind of stuck. Neither man was born in Alaska. Wannamaker comes from New York, Hendricks from Illinois. They’ve never adjusted to life on the frontier. They behave like uneasy foreigners in their own land.

“Oh, yeah?” Hendricks says with a patent couldn’t-give-a-shit less tone. No cat lover, Hendricks.
Don’t like cats, love pussy,
he’s been quoted time and again. He’s taller than Wannamaker, and broad-shouldered. Legend says he worked for the Chicago Outfit before he got exiled to Alaska. Everyone considers him a goon and that’s a fairly accurate assessment.

“Floyd found it, I guess is what I mean,” Wannamaker says.

Floyd is the chief custodian and handyman for the Estate. He was also a train-hopping hobo for three decades prior to landing the Estate gig.

“The hell was Floyd doing in the bin?”

“Makin’ a nest. Divin’ for pearls. I dunno. He found a dead cat is all I know. Thinks it belonged to the Lugars. They split ten days ago. Must a been in a rush, cause they locked their doors and dropped the keys in my box without so much as a by your leave. Earlier and earlier every year, you know that? I don’t get why they even make the trip anymore. I get three or four calls a day, people looking for an apartment. At least.”

Hendricks sips his beer. He doesn’t say anything. He too is checking out the posterior of Tammy, the new girl.

“Yeah, exactly.” Wannamaker nods wisely in response to some ghost of a comment. “I hate snowbirds. Hate. Too cheap to pack their old cat and ship him to Florida. What’s Lugar do? Snaps the poor critter’s neck and dumps him in the garbage. Bah. Tell you what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna file a report with Newcastle. Sic the ever lovin’ law on that sick jerk. Shouldn’t have a cat. If he didn’t own his apartment I’d yank his lease faster than you can spit.”

Hendricks pushes his bottle aside. “That’s a weird story.”

“Lugar’s a weird dude. He sells inflatable dolls and whatcha call ’em, body pillows.”

“Is that what he does?”

“Oh, yeah, man. He flies to Japan every so often and wines and dines a bunch of CEOs in Tokyo. They’re nuts for that stuff over there.”

“Huh. I figured he’d be retired. Guy’s gotta be pushing seventy.”

“I guess when you love what you do it ain’t work.”

Words to live by.

Last words of Mark Ferro, aged thirty-three as he is executed by lethal injection for a homicide unrelated to the Frazier Estate Massacre: “It was meeeeeee!”

You’ve exercised a certain amount of restraint prior to the blizzard. That’s over. Now, matters will escalate. While everybody else has gathered upstairs for Snodgrass’ annual bash, you sneak away to share a special moment with Nathan Custer.

Does it hurt when I do this?
It’s a rhetorical question.

You don’t expect Custer can hear you after you popped his eardrums with a slot screwdriver. Can’t see you either. Blood pumps from the crack in his skull. Smack from a ball peen hammer took the starch right out of our hero. He coughs bubbles. Don’t need tongue or teeth to blow bubbles, though it helps.

It may not even be Custer under that mask of gore. Could be Deputy Newcastle or Hendricks. Shit, could be that arrogant little prick Wannamaker at this rate. True story, you’ve fantasized about killing each of them so often that the lines might well be erased.

Except, haven’t you wanted to end your existence? Sure you have. You’d love nothing more than to take your own miserable head off with a cleaver, string your own guts over the tree the way those cheap Victorian saps strung popcorn before Christmas went electric.

This is where it gets very, very confusing.

For a lunatic moment you’re convinced it’s you, slumped there, mewling like a kitten, soul floating free and formless while an angel of vengeance goes to work on your body with hammer and tongs. Yeah, maybe it’s you in the chair and Custer, or Newcastle, or Wannamaker, has been the killer all along. It ain’t pretty, having one’s mind blown like this.

You were certain it was Custer when you put him in the chair, but that was a long time ago. So much has changed since then. The continents have drifted closer together, the geography of his features has altered for the worse. It’s gotten dark. There’s the storm and your sabotage of the reserve generator to thank. You’ve gathered wool and lost the plot. Can’t even remember why you’d reserve special tortures for this one.

Why are your hands so fascinating all of the sudden?

Oh, Jesus, what if Snodgrass spiked the punch? He’d once threatened to dose his party-goers with LSD. Nobody took him seriously. But, what if? That would explain why the darkness itself has begun to shine, why your nipples are hard as nail-heads, why you’ve suddenly developed spidey-sense. Oh, Emmitt Snodgrass, that silly bastard; his guts are going to get extracted through his nose, and soon.

You detect the creak of a loose board and turn in time to see a snub-nosed revolver extending from a crouched silhouette. A lady’s gun, so sleek and petite. Here’s a flash of fire from the barrel that reveals the bruised face of the final girl. Don’t she know you’re invulnerable to lead? Didn’t she read the rules inside the box top? Problem is, it’s another sign that your version of reality is shaky, because you are sure as hell that you killed her already. Sliced her throat, ear to lovely ear. Yet, here she is, blasting you into Kingdom Come with her itty bitty toy pistol. What the fuck is up with that?

Double tap. Triple, dipple, quadruple tap. Bitch ain’t taking any chances, is she? You’re down, sprawled next to your beloved victim, whoever he is. Your last. The final girl done seen to that, hasn’t she?

Custer, is that you? you ask the body in the chair. He don’t give anything away, only grins at you through the blood. Luckily you’re made of sterner stuff. Four bullets isn’t the end. You manage to get your knees and elbows underneath you for a lethal spring in the penultimate frame of the flick of your life, the lunge where you take the girl into your arms and squeeze until her bones crack and her tongue protrudes. When you’re done, you’ll crawl away to lick your wounds and plot the sequel. Four shots ain’t enough to kill the very beating heart of evil.

Turns out, funny thing, the final girl has one more bullet. She hobbles over and puts it in your head.

Well, shit—

“Christ on a pony, what are you
dooo-ing
?” This plaintive utterance issues from Eliza Overstreet’s ripe mouth. She’s dressed as a cabaret dancer or Liza Minnelli, or some such bullshit. White, white makeup and sequins and tights. A tight, tight wig cropped as a Coptic monk’s skullcap. All
sparkly.

Emmitt Snodgrass cackles, and pops another tab of acid. The rest of the batch he crushes into the rich red clot of punch in a crystal bowl shaped as a furious eagle. The furious eagle punch bowl is courtesy of Luke Tucker, collector of guns, motorcycles, and fine crystal. The suite is prepared—big Christmas tree, wall-to-wall tinsel, stockings and disco balls hung with care. Yeah, Snodgrass is ready for action, Jackson.

Eliza gives him a look. “Everybody is going to drink that!”

He grabs her ass and gives it a comforting squeeze. “Hey, hey, baby. Don’t worry. This shit is perfectly safe to fry.”

“But it’s all we’ve got, you crazy sonofabitch!”

The doorbell goes ding-dong and the first guests come piling in from the hallway. It will be Bob Aickman, bare-assed and goggle-eyed on acid, who will eventually trip over the wires that cause the electrical short that starts the tragic fire that consumes the top three floors of the Estate.

Deputy Newcastle operates two official vehicles: an eleven-year-old police cruiser with spider web cracks in the windshield and a bashed in passenger side door, and an Alpine snowmobile that, by his best estimate, was likely manufactured during the 1980s. Currently, he’s parked in the cruiser on Main Street across from the condemned hulk that is the Frazier Tower. The sun won’t set for another forty-five minutes, give or take, but already the shadows are thick as his wife’s blueberry cobbler. It’s snowing and blowing. Gusts rock the car. He listens to the weather forecast. Going to be cold as hell, as usual. Twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit and sinking fast. He unscrews the thermos and has a sip of cocoa Hannah packed in his lunchbox. Cocoa, macaroni salad and a tuna sandwich on white bread. He loathes macaroni and tuna, loves cocoa, and adores dear Hannah, so it’s a wash.

His beat is usually quiet. The geographic jurisdiction extends from the village of Eagle Talon to a fourteen-mile stretch north and south along the Seward Highway. Normally, he deals with drunks and domestic arguments, tourists with flat tires and the occasional car accident.

Then along came this business with Langtree and the slaughterhouse scene at his shack on Midnight Road. A forensics team flew in from Anchorage and did their thing, and left again. Deputy Newcastle still hasn’t heard anything from headquarters. Nobody’s taking it seriously. Langtree was a nut. Loons like him are a dime a dozen in Alaska. Violence is part of the warp and woof of everyday existence here. Takes a hell of a lot to raise eyebrows among the locals. The deputy is worried, and with good reason. The angel on his shoulder keeps whispering in his ear. The angel warns him a blood moon is on the rise.

Despite the fact his shift ended at three o’clock, Deputy Newcastle has spent the better part of an hour staring at the entrance of the abandoned Frazier Tower. Should have gotten leveled long ago, replaced by a hotel or a community center, or any old thing. Lord knows the village could use some recreational facilities. Instead, the building festers like a rotten tooth. It’s a nest for vermin—animals and otherwise—and a magnet for thrill-seeking kids and ne’er-do-wells on the lam.

Custodian Floyd is supposed to keep the front door covered in plywood. The plywood is torn loose and lying in the bushes and a hole led into gloom. This actually happens frequently. The aforementioned kids and ne’er-do-wells habitually break into the tower to seek their fun. Deputy Newcastle’s cop intuition tells him the usual suspects aren’t to blame.

“I’m going in,” he says.

“You better not,” says MJ. The King of Pop inhabits the back seat, his scrawny form crosshatched by the grilled partition between them. His pale features are obscured in the shade of a slouch hat. He is the metaphorical shoulder-sitting angel.

“Got to. It’s my job.”

“You’re a swell guy, deputy. Don’t do it.”

“Who then?”

“You’re gonna die if you go in there alone.”

“I can call someone. Hendricks will back my play.”

“Can’t trust him.”

“Elam.”

“Your brother is a psychopath.”

“Hmm. Fair enough. I could ring Custer or Pearson. Heck, I could deputize both of them for the day.”

“Look, you can’t trust anyone.”

“I don’t.” Newcastle stows the thermos and slides on his wool gloves. He unclips the twelve gauge pump action from its rack and shoulders his way out of the cruiser. The road is slick beneath the tread of his boots, the breeze searing cold against his cheek. Snowflakes stick to his eyelashes. He takes a deep breath and trudges toward the entrance of the Frazier Tower. The dark gap recedes and blurs like a mirage.