The Merry Pranked (17 page)

She seemed to be comfortable with killing. Should he hold that against her? Maybe by the time he got to his last victim, the last of the four, he too would be comfortable with killing. Although, if he were to get to the last of the four and finish him off, that would be the end of his killing; if Gail were indeed a serial killer, as he had no reason to believe she wasn’t, this was a lifelong hobby of hers, at least until she slipped up and was eventually caught. He was judging her and didn’t know if he really had the right to do so; not with the anger in his soul. She still hadn’t told him about the pain in her past, that cataclysmic event that had set her on the path of killing. Without knowing about that, could he really judge her? And whether he liked it or not, had she not did him a favor last night? One of his family’s murderers had faced justice and paid for his sins. It was all very overwhelming. He really didn’t know what to think, and if he was honest, part of his concern was that deep down he was now also a little frightened by Gail.

“You feeling better?” asked Gail, as she made her way into the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her hair and wearing one of Leslie’s shirts. He had to admit, the shirt was always a sexy look, even on a serial killer.

“Working on it,” said Leslie as she moved over to the coffee maker and poured a coffee, before moving to the kitchen table and sitting down across from him.

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone,” she said, looking him squarely in the eye. “To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’, this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”

Leslie just looked at her; he had no idea how to respond.

“My favorite author again, Aldous Huxley,” she said.

“So last night was righteous?” he asked. “Who are you kidding?”

“Life, hell, life and death is merely a matter of perspective. That man last night was a killer. Would you say what happened to him was merely a matter of karma?”

“That’s not me, though.”

“But you’ve dreamt about it. Wanted it.”

“That’s not the same as actually doing it,” he said, the anger creeping into his voice. “Jesus. There are boundaries. There’s civilized behavior.”

“Societal boundaries,” she said, ignoring his anger, “imposed upon us. Is the world any better than the simpler days of an eye for an eye?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Crime still exists. Violence still exists. We may think we’re more civilized but in our hearts we’re still killers,” she said. “You know what being civilized has done for us; it’s just created a world where the criminal is better defended. Society and its rules have just made it harder for justice to prevail. Forget the victim or victims, let’s worry that we don’t trample upon the killer’s feelings or rights. We’ve changed the game. Evil cannot be allowed to reign unchecked. Society is evil.”

Leslie took a moment to let what she was saying sink in. On the one hand she was right; if there was a high profile murder, there’d be the usual outrage and call for justice; as time went by, however, that outrage would die down. Eventually, even if there was a murderer that’d been caught, memories of the victim would fade and all focus would be on the killer, trying to understand him or her and their motivation. Did they have a bad childhood? Were they somehow conditioned to kill based on their upbringing and environment? What had we done to drive them to commit the act of murder? What social programs were not made available that might have saved these poor souls? Were their rights being adequately looked after? The farther and farther it got away from the actual crime being committed, the less and less the innocent victim seemed to matter; by being murdered and not being around, it seemed the victims were destined to be forgotten, as we worried about the living – the killers and their rights. Morgan Neil and three of his thugs had killed his parents, decades had passed, and Morgan was still out there a free man with the blood of many others on his hands. Was that justice? We follow the rules and he knew how to play those rules to his advantage. In many cases, we set up the game so it seemed like the fix was in, and it favored the killers.

“The other murders,” Leslie finally said, “The ones in the papers. Was that you?”

Gail was impressed. He’d put two and two together and had actually come up with four.

“Both deserved what they go. Both were evil, disguised,” she said.

“Disguised?”

“You’re blinded by society and its rules. You’ve conformed to its ideas of what’s right and wrong,” she said. “Think back to last night. Revenge, true revenge. Look deep into your heart and tell me if somehow it doesn’t seem right. Society would say no, but what do you think?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“Then you better decide,” she said standing up. “Last night you embarked on a journey; you got blood on your hands. Righteous blood. There’s three more names on your list; three more killers who have escaped justice, and will continue to do so if you let them. Free yourself from your torment and embrace the clarity that will come by spilling their blood.”

It all sounded so good; he was happy Harry was dead, and knew he’d be happy if the other three were the same. He was happy with it in one sense, but in another, some part of his mind was trying to remind him that what he had done, what he was considering to continue to do, was wrong. An eye for an eye was barbaric; it belonged to another, less civilized time.

“I am what I am,” said Gail. “I’ve accepted it and I make no excuses. If you can break down the walls within you and truly desire revenge on a very real level, call me. Tonight.”

Gail turned to the leave the kitchen.

“How do you know you can trust me?” asked Leslie.

She turned to look at him.

“What’s to stop me from going to the authorities and telling them what I saw? All of my actions last night were really in self defense; protecting you from two thugs.”

“There’s nothing stopping you, Leslie,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”

Gail left the kitchen, leaving Leslie to his thoughts.

chapter
SIXTEEN

morgan
NEIL
was not happy. Harry was dead and he hadn’t ordered it. If he disliked one thing, it was someone else committing a homicide in his city. He didn’t care about all those crimes of passion; husbands killing wives and vice versa, those were insignificant. There were a lot of murders in the city he could tolerate or care less about, but when his men were the targets, and he hadn’t sanctioned it, that was another matter. Anyone bold enough to take out one of his men – or in this case three – and one of them a longstanding soldier and confidant like Harry Madwin had been, definitely spelt trouble. Only someone confident enough he had the muscle to take Morgan’s rackets away from him would be foolish enough to draw first blood. It had to be a rival gang, someone he didn’t know about; had he left anyone even remotely associated with Joe Weldon alive? Could the threat be coming from within? They had drawn first blood, which he guessed was their way of making a statement, a confident statement. No matter how confident they felt, however, Morgan knew they’d pay the price. Over the decades a lot of suckers had come after him, and he always came out on top. If someone was declaring war, he was ready to fight – he was ready to kill and do so indiscriminately.

If there was one thing Morgan didn’t like, it was being out of the loop. He had to go to Harry’s house this morning; because he just couldn’t believe what he was being told was true. Harry was fierce; it would really take something for someone to get the drop on him. The fact Lou and Corrigan had been taken out with Harry suggested to Morgan that the killers had had the element of surprise; something they would no longer be able to count on.

Morgan knew Lou and Corrigan had been murdered along with Harry because he’d been informed of that through his back channels. The Detectives at the scene had given him a hard time, but he didn’t hold it against them; that was the nature of their relationship. They, however, thought they could keep the facts from him; a foolish assumption. Nothing happened in his city that was important to him, that he didn’t know about. Police officers and Feds were human. They lived as humans with all the concerns of humans, from paying the mortgage, to putting their kids through college, etcetera and etcetera. While many, if not the majority, were straitlaced and took their jobs seriously, if you looked hard enough and put the standard temptations of money, and lots of it, in front of some of them, you discovered they were many willing to play ball. Morgan longed for the old days when it seemed the Mob could corrupt entire police forces, judges and politicians; the days of Prohibition, when crime seemed so much simpler and corruption the rule as opposed to the exception. He figured that must have been a magical time. Today, things were harder, and while it would be impossible to corrupt an entire police force, there were enough wayward police officers and Feds to at least give him what he wanted, which was information. No sooner had he gotten back to the Raven Club, from which he conducted business, that he had reached out, through his Captains of course (he wasn’t about to get caught on wiretap saying anything), to his organizations contacts with a demand for information. He wanted to know everything that had happened last night; he wanted to know everything the Detectives would know and more – and preferably before them.

The benefit of being in power for so long was the fact you had the time to really build up those networks. As such, he didn’t have to wait too long for a full description of exactly what had been found in Harry’s house that morning. A detailed breakdown; it wasn’t what he had expected.

Harry’s body had been mutilated. That’s what several of his moles in the police force had reported. Based on what information he got from the four sources his men reached out to, he was able to put together a comprehensive picture of how his men had died. It didn’t make any sense; the method of killing wasn’t anything he recognized; many of the gangs, ethnic or otherwise he had gone up against for control of the city throughout the decades had been vicious, but had never killed like that. This was new.

He knew about the supposed serial killer the newspapers were getting all worked up about; the one who mutilated bodies; he’d glanced over the articles on those two murders; he wasn’t much for reading about killing and death; when he went home at night and wanted to put his feet up and relax, he’d opt for a Stephen King or Elmore Leonard novel; something fictional. Reading about real murders was too much like taking his work home with him. One of his police contacts had suggested Harry’s killer might just be the work of this serial killer and added that if it was this serial killer he was one mean bastard because instead of taking down a couple of suits who’d probably never been in a fight in their life, he had now taken down three killers who knew how to dish out pain and death themselves. Morgan also knew about the murders because the serial killer had done him a big favor; it wasn’t long after Joe Weldon’s body had been found in the trash compactor that the serial killer had struck; the nature of these killings quickly overshadowed Joe’s death, knocking him off the front page of the newspapers. When the second murder was discovered, it all but consigned Joe’s murder to the newspapers equivalent of Siberia; no one cared anymore about the death of a hoodlum, when there was a juicer crime to zero in on.

Could Harry, Lou and Corrigan really just be the victims of a serial killer?
he wondered.

It seemed farfetched. Nevertheless, Morgan had his men reach out to his police contacts once more; he wanted everything the police had on the original two homicides. If there was a connection, he wanted to know; he’d start his own investigation, find the killer and dish out his own idea of justice. These informants were also told he wanted updates on everything, even that which they might personally consider
insignificant. He lined their pockets to provide him with information, not to think; they obviously weren’t that bright he figured, or why would they get in bed with him?

That same morning word went out on the street that Morgan wanted information regarding the murders of Harry and his men. Anyone who had anything to tell him could count on a future favor; and he always paid his debts. He wanted his men to spread the word that the police were to receive no help whatsoever; anyone with any information was expected to lie to the cops, but report what they knew to him. It was a simple matter in that you could report to him and receive a future favor or talk to the cops and expect to be disciplined by his men for your insolence.

Morgan was not happy, but he was confident; he was sure he could get to the bottom of the matter long before those dimwitted Detectives he’d met. All he had to do was be patient.

Carlos was nervous as hell; he was sitting in a booth at the Raven Club, a social club he had passed by numerous times, but had never entered, and never dreamed of entering. Everyone in that part of town knew it was Morgan’s hangout and office, and unless you belonged there, you stayed away. But he had information.

He’d wrestled with what he knew for most of the morning. Word was spreading quickly on the streets that Morgan wanted information about the events of last night; he had information. He knew the smart thing was to probably just shut up and keep everything to himself, but he had also heard, through some of the guys he worked with, that anyone turning over information to Morgan could expect a favor from him in the future. That was a very tempting proposition. Carlos was pretty much a law-abiding citizen, but he was also smart enough to know the score; he lived in a rough neighborhood; he was raising a family in a rough neighborhood, and was unlikely to escape that neighborhood any time in the near future. The streets were rough and as far as he had seen the police ineffective. Knowing that, he didn’t see the harm in earning some good will with a man like Morgan; he controlled the streets and the thought of someone as powerful as that owing him a favor excited Carlos. He would be seen as a stand-up guy and maybe he and his family would be left alone. He had two daughters who were getting older, and it would be nice to know that Morgan had personally guaranteed their safety from all the lowlifes who might just decide to pray on them. Having considered all this, Carlos decided for the first time ever, to visit the Raven Club on his lunch break.

He sat in the booth nursing a half-empty pint of beer. The club itself was empty, except for a few menacing-looking guys milling about at the end of the bar. Carlos figured they were killers so he tried not to look their way; he focused hard on the table in front of him and his beer. The less eye contact he made in this place the better.

“You got something to say?” asked Morgan as he came out from a back room and approached Carlos in the booth.

Carlos looked up nervously and jerked, almost knocking over his beer. He watched as Morgan Neil – the big man himself – took a seat across from him in the booth. He had the urge to flee but reeled it in.

“I saw you this morning. At the murder house. Harry’s house,” Carlos said, although not as fluently or smoothly as he’d hoped. He was even more nervous now in Morgan’s presence than he had been while waiting for him.

“You know something about it?” asked Morgan. He could see the man was frightened; he liked it that way.

“I don’t know. I think so. I just thought that I should...”

“Time to get to the point, Mr.?”

“Diaz,” said Carlos, “Carlos Diaz, sir.”

“All right, Mr. Diaz,” said Morgan calmly, “I’m here and I’m listening.”

“The killers, there were two of them, a man and a woman,” said Carlos. “They drove a black Honda Civic. At least that’s the car they left in.”

“Have you ever seen them before?” asked Morgan.

“No, no. Just last night.”

“What’d they look like?”

“The woman, she was there longer. She showed up with Harry,” said Carlos. “He’s good with the ladies, always coming home with somebody. Anyway, she had long dark hair, slender, very beautiful; very trashy looking. The man, I didn’t get a clear look at him. He was watching the house for a long time. I thought he might be the police or something like that. He ended up leaving with the woman.”

“Did you get the license plate number?” asked Morgan.

Carlos looked defeated; that probably would have been a good idea.

“Figured not,” said Morgan. “What else?”

“That’s all. That’s all I saw. I...I...I just thought you should know.”

“Have you told this to the cops?”

“I say nothing. I only tell you Mr. Neil.”

Morgan smiled. He loved it when a plan came together.

“And what do you want?” Morgan asked. Everyone wanted something, time to get to the heart of the matter.

“Nothing, Mr. Neil,” said Carlos, “nothing. In our neighborhood we look after our own. We look after our own, not the police. I knew Harry to say ‘Hi’ to him. He was our neighbor. I just thought you should know.”

Morgan smiled. He didn’t exactly buy all that shit, but he had promised a favor for information, so when Carlos was ready to come clean and tell the truth about his motive for talking, he would keep his promise, unless Carlos got a little too carried away and needed to be taught a lesson. Some people got greedy with the idea of a favor and he just couldn’t tolerate that.

“You think of anything else, you let me know,” said Morgan. “In the mean time, don’t say anything to anyone else, got it? I mean absolutely no one.”

“Okay, Mr. Neil,” said Carlos, “Whatever you say.”

Without saying another word, Morgan got up from the table and made his way into the back room. Carlos suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom, but first things first; he wanted to get the hell out of the Raven Club.

Leslie arrived at the newspaper mid-afternoon; he had toyed with the idea of calling in sick, but then realized if he stayed home all he’d be doing was sitting around and obsessing about Gail and the events of last night; staying at home would do more damage to his psyche then going into work and pretending everything was normal. So he went into work.

Along the way he tried to seriously and honestly evaluate his situation. He knew Gail was a serial killer, not only responsible for Harry’s death, but also those two others; last night, although he had been staking out Harry with the intent of working up the nerve to kill him – thinking about killing a person wasn’t a crime as far as he knew – his involvement in the murders
had
been self-defense; he was coming to the aid of his friend whom he thought was in trouble, and despite the fact she was a killer, she had been in trouble when he broke through the door. It was clearly a case of self-defense on his part; no one could blame him for his actions. So, knowing that, he could turn Gail in; it wouldn’t be like in doing so he was confessing to any crimes of his own. She was a killer.

Leslie figured he’d make up his mind by the time he finished his walk to the newspaper and his office; by that time he’d know what to do. When he finally sat down at his desk, he picked up his phone with every intention of calling the police, but something was keeping him from dialing the number. He just couldn’t do it; he really didn’t know why, but he couldn’t do it. Leslie got up from his desk and made his way out of his office.

“I was wondering when you’d get around to stopping by,” said Walter as Leslie appeared in his doorway, “what with three Morgan Neil henchmen getting killed early this morning. You want to know what I have on the murders, right?”