Iceman (25 page)

Afterward Donna wouldn't leave him alone. She started playing with him. Teasing him very gently with her hand, barely touching him with her fingers. Letting her fingertips flutter over him intimately, and there was some response and she said, in her sexiest whisper, “I want more,” and he told her, “You expect a lot of a dead man,” but she knew how to inflame him and he rose to the occasion.

He was very relaxed, nude under a sheet listening to Donna shower, and two words forced their way in before he could slam his brain shut and block them out. Two ugly, bloodred words that had no business here on this nice day, intruding on their playtime, forcing their way into his bedroom:

E N T R A N C E W O U N D

is what he saw with his mind's eye. Then, instantly visualizing his mental checklist, which he reconstructed anew each time a memory assailed his waking thoughts.

E N T R A N C E W O U N D / E X I T

L A T E N T P R I N T S

B A L L I S T I C S

H A I R & F I B E R S

E V I D E N C E / D O C U M E N T S

M O T I V E

and on down through the two dozen awful wet and slippery places where a man could step and suddenly his feet were out from under him and he was flying through the air and heading for the open window and it was such a long fall to the bottom...

How many times would he have to run through that horror of a day? Sit in that car again watching Scum-wad leave. Knock at that big, ornate door and hear the thing inside screech. Muscle in and get the name on the suicide note folded under a fake Miranda. Obtain a print on the bullet, and later the rounds for the magazine. Load that first one surreptitiously. Get the angle just so. Pressure on the trigger. Note the position of the brass. Check for blood and gore on the clothing. The ballistics box is in the sack with the other stuff. Put the clip back in, force the skinny fingers around the drop-gun, push it into the hole in the box and fire. Spent brass in the sack. Prints on the note. Note nearby. Type the note again and the paper goes in the sack. Did he remember to put some of the pocket lint on the shells that went in the magazine? Did he remember not to forget to remember what it was he wasn't supposed to forget?

Witnesses. Time disparities. Surveillance logs. Cutouts. Warrant timing. What a fucking land mine this was becoming inside his head.

On the other hand, it had been more than three weeks since the last Iceman murder, assuming Diane Taluvera had been a victim. Each day he nagged the C.A.'s office about Schumway, just to keep his hand in.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Donna came in, wrapping a towel around her head, another bath towel bulging with woman.

“You'd lose money,” he said. Oh, I was just thinking about a transvestite I shot dead a couple of weeks ago.

Squinting his eyes, he saw the open bedroom door as the balcony of the lonely Vegas hotel room, and there in the imagined darkness he could imagine that the thrum of the house was the noisy air-conditioning, and the sounds of the outdoors and the screaming from the patio were the constant noise level that is Lost Wages after dark. Nicki, the man, had lived there with Arthur Spoda as lovers of a kind. A pair of killers. Both crippled in their own way. And he flashed on the white high heels and forlorn phone directory on a rooftop far below.

Some woman had once told him she had, as one of her duties for a Nevada hotel, the job of removing all the church listings from the directory's Yellow Pages. Presumably if you were in the house of worship of your preference, you couldn't be in the casino spending. Spoda/Schumway and his mutation of a lover would have been right at home there. Drawing power from the sickness that would cling to them like smoke.

Before he could block it he saw the words DREW POWER FROM materialize on the material from Arkansas, and the details from the
Journal of Retribution
homicides coursed through him in a shivery gush of blood. His own words still haunted him, and in that heartbeat of horrified weltanschauung he saw his own description of the maniac in South Blytheville.

“—other New Mexico aliases included J. Baptiste, The Baptist, a/k/a Snakebite. He believed that he drew power from consuming the breasts, penises, and testes of his victims, especially of children. Part of the rituals involved the ingestion of eyeballs, excrement, and—"

Penny for your thoughts. I dream of entrance wounds and torn babies, and I wonder if this thing I have done has made me one of THEM. Have I drawn too much power?

“
J
inx, I never saw such a fucking rat's nest,” the whore with the crooked teeth said, smiling. “Find it for me,” she whined.

“Will you give me a goddamn break for five fucking seconds?” the other whore said, her hand over the phone mouthpiece. “Look for it yourself, you're in such a hurry."

“Eyeglasses case, wallet, pen, notebook, lipstick, knife, Jesus Aitch! Hair spray, compact, Esgic, deodorant tampons for a sweet-smelling pussy, powder blush, makeup bag, more lipstick, what a fuckin’ RAT'S NEST.” The whore named Jinx slammed the door—that is, she reached for the handle to slam the door but there wasn't any handle because there wasn't any door.

“This is Jinx.” She smiled into the phone. “Hidee. Any calls?” She waited. “Okay.” She said over her shoulder, “Brandi! Bring me my purse. Come on. Hurry.” The whore with the crooked fangs got up on her high-heeled boots and clacked over with the outstretched purse. The woman on the phone rummaged for her datebook. “Did you take my pen ou—"

She saw the pen. “Oh.” She handed the purse back. “Go ahead,” she said, speaking into the phone.

“Breath mints, Trojans, coin purse, rain scarf, hand lotion, gum, keys, a fucking rat's nest in here, I tell you. Aspirin, Kleenex, FINALLY the fucking Tums.” She popped a couple and removed something else from the depths of the purse with a smile.

When the whore named Jinx came back over to the table, she said, “Hidee, Heidie, any calls?” She stuck the beat-up joint in her mouth and posed.

“You dumb bitch, get that outta your mouth.” They both laughed. “You crazy fool."

The sleek car cruised the streets of Mount Olive's Strip, a notoriously high-crime-rate area populated by people who had almost anything that discretionary income could buy—the sort of goods not offered in your normal in-store product-and-service operations. But if it was a bit warm, chances are it would find its way to the Strip: dope, stolen merchandise, illicit flesh. These were the staples.

In this eight-block section of urban decadence you could seek out a variety of ways to rid yourself of surplus disposable income. As long as you were willing to pay for your thrills, there was very little that you couldn't buy—or at least order. Purloined laser discs. China white. Night people for sale in the full range of makes and models.

By the time the car pulled slowly past Cup's Bar, Jinx and Brandi were out in front, gossiping, giggling, and shaking tail for the cruising johns. He saw the one he liked and hung a right, quickly circling and making another pass. Stopping this time. He lowered the window and slid over where they could see his face.

“Hey, pretty girl,” he called, and they both came over anxiously.

“Hi. Wanna go out on a date?” the crooked teeth said. He ignored her and said to the girl beside her. “Hey, Blondie. How much to get down?"

“Wanna party?” the other girl said, sticking her face in the window suspiciously. Smile, you stupid cunt, he thought as he said, “Yeah, baby. How much?"

“What chew got in mind?"

“Let me think about it some and I'll let you know,” he said, quickly pulling back out as he changed his mind.

The other woman had been too interested in him. She'd seen his face. Even with the wig and the poor light he wasn't taking any chances. Too many people knew his face.

“Think about this, too,” the one named Jinx said, pulling up her short skirt and brazenly mooning him as he drove off. “Fucking cheesedick fag."

He liked the next one he saw alone. Walking fairly fast and young enough, but it was hard to tell. Very short and with the heels he figured yes but you got everything around here. Housewives tricking on weekends with hubby gone. College girls. One-night stands of any possible combination. Undercover cops. You name it. It was all out here. Even a boy or two.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She had a nice smile with her mouth closed and from a distance.

“Listen. I'm kind of alone and ... you know."

“You want a date?"

He breathed a small sigh of relief. “Sure. How much?"

“What do you want to do?"

“We could go look at my stamp collection. But I think I'd rather go get between some clean sheets and do the horizontal mambo. You know, fuck, and suck, and do the hucklebuck."

The girl laughed and opened the door, looking him over in the car light.

He smiled warmly. “Get in."

She did, but left the door open.

“Sixty—for you to suck it?” He pulled out a roll and she shook her head.

“A hundred for that.” He didn't speak right away. “I'm worth it."

“Sure, beautiful. I don't doubt it.” He peeled the money off. When she spoke, he had seen her teeth and she'd reminded him of Fang a minute ago. Did all these cunts have fucked-up teeth?

“What's your name, darlin'? Mine's Tanya.” He thought of an outcall ad. Tanya is young, long-legged, and busty. Dominant Wendi is slim and very pretty. We will fulfill your fantasies.

“Tanya. What a sexy name,” he said. “Mine's R.G."

“Hi, R.G."

Hi, you stupid bitch. The mouth. He finally realized who all these whores were reminding him of, these cunts with the fucked-up teeth, these fang-mouthed sluts—they were reminding him of Nicki when he'd first met her. I'll make em PAY for what they did to you, baby, he thought.

“You look like somebody I used to know."

“God. Really? A lot of people tell me I look like—you know—the one on that TV show. Donna Mills?"

“Yeah. You look exactly like Donna Mills. She's the one I was thinking of.” You look like GENERAL Mills, maybe. Stupid cunt.

“There's a nice place just a couple blocks from here,” Tanya said. She had a slight malocclusion that actually enhanced her smile, made it sexier, like Cher's before she had her teeth fixed. As if the woman's mouth was sexier for being flawed, figuratively or metaphorically more open, penetrable, accessible. More vulnerable.

“Negative.” He peeled off another twenty. Her whore eyes fastened on the roll of greenery. “I live six blocks away. Let's go there. We can shower or whatever—get nice and clean, you know?” She shook her head. She didn't think much of the idea.

“I know a nice dark street. Pull around the corner up there.” She reached for the money. He let her take it and she reached over and pulled the car door shut. He started the car and moved out.

“My place, babe."

“I don't go to private houses, R.G. Come on, hon, you just pull around the corner and I'll show you a great time. Okay, handsome?"

He kept driving straight ahead, talking to her gently, smiling his good-looking salesman's smile. She had a very short micro of a denim mini and a low, scoop-neck T-shirt. He reached his right hand over and put his fingers on the inside of her left thigh.

“Hey!” Her voice was grating when it was loud in his ear like that. “I toldja pull around the corner. Come on, now. Pull up there in the shadows and I'll really make you feel good, lover.” Without asking him, she pushed the power button on the radio/tape deck and one of his tapes began to play as the antenna slid up.

“Fuck THAT,” she said, punching the music off and twisting the dial to rock radio. “Lemme hear some JAM!” Loud formula rock blasted from the speakers and she immediately started moving in the seat. “Pull over up there."

He was so enraged he didn't even wait. He just turned in the seat and hammered her with his fist. A fast reflexive blow to the head. Hammered her again. POW. Reached over and pulled her closer, the powerful muscles of his upper body rippling as he took the metal object from its case and stabbed it down into her skull, rubbing himself with his other hand, mashing down on the brake light—having forgotten he hadn't even turned the engine off—ejaculating over Tanya's dying form.

“—fucking slut CUNT WHORE BITCH FUCKING SHIT—” Coming, the front of his trousers soaked, his hot splatter of ejaculate all over the car interior. He was still hot. He would take this one home and improvise with her for a long time before he threw her away.

E
ichord's round-the-clock on Schumway had been smothered in the crush of the numbers—man-hours, pounds of computer printout, phone logs, faxes, real time, cop time, time since the last Iceman murder. Also, the joker had a way of getting out of Schumway Buick without being seen. Closed maintenance bays, a constant flow of traffic onto the big lot, two large entrance/exit ramps on either side of the vast Parts Department, which ran the full length of the dealership, which was housed on four and a half acres of Buckhead business district.

He had access to too many cars, trucks, and rvs, not to mention the possibility of disguises, and ruses no more complex than lying down in the back of somebody else's car when they left. He would do that for spite first time he spotted police watchers. They were his employees, too, and the likelihood of complete cooperation, considering the weight of a paycheck in the balance, was less than slim. Schumway was now in the habit of routinely disappearing two or three times a week, sometime between the early afternoon and closing. So, by the end of the fourth week when nobody else had turned up dead or missing, spoda-schumway was just a grimy box full of paper in the still-open investigation on which Jack Eichord spent his working days.

When he got the telephone call that morning, he'd been across the street. He still felt numbness in his left arm and shoulder from what he believed was something that had been sent down the phone cord to get him. A guy on the duty desk in Mt. Olive on the other end, pouring poisons into the phone, the stuff burning down the line somehow, pouring through AT&T and working its way into his fingertips, the hand touching the phone, a foul, smoking thing that shot up his hand and arm and into his shoulder like a hundred icepicks.