The Midtown Murderer (6 page)

Chapter 15

Trent stepped into the men’s room with the skinheads in tow. Empty toilet stalls and cracked and grimy urinals stared back at him. He scanned for another exit, but there was none.

Utah stood like a gunslinger in an old Western movie. “Toss me your wallet. Then put your hands up.”

Trent did as he was told. Rough and calloused hands patted him down for a weapon or a wire.

“What’s the name of your game, asshole?” Utah yelled.

“Don’t have
—”

Right then
a steel-toed combat boot smashed into the side of Trent’s knee. A lightning strike of white-hot agony coursed through his leg. He folded to the floor, and the skinheads jumped him like angry pit bulls tearing chunks from a side of beef.

They kicked him repea
tedly in the kidneys and balls. Trent saw blinking stars as he cupped his crotch and rolled in a red haze of pain. He drew his knees tight to his stomach, but his attackers weren’t deterred; a hard shot to the stomach brought up his lunch. He was face down on the tile floor when one of the thugs dropped a knee into his low back. He shrieked in pain as the other thug swung the barrel of a heavy revolver across his eyebrow.

The knee was removed, and Trent rolled on
to his back. He opened his eyes slowly and saw Utah talking on a cell phone.

Utah snorted with satisfaction. “Hey, Palmer,
my boss wants to talk to you.”

Trent
pried himself to his feet like a new-born colt. He’d about had it with being beat up. “The fucking phone . . . Hand it to me.”

Utah tossed him the cell
phone and Trent snatched it. In the periphery of his vision he spotted the closest skinhead. “Palmer,” he croaked.

“This is
Eddie Garcia,” a male voice said.

Trent
took a deep breath to control his shaking. “Mr. Garcia, hold on for a second . . .”

He whirled on the closest skinhead
and kicked him hard in the balls; the thug dropped like a piano tossed out the window. Trent jumped knees first on his back, ecstatic to hear bones snap.

Trent
grabbed a large revolver from the thug’s waistband, thumbed off the safety, and fired in Utah’s direction. The shot cracked like lightning and the slug exploded a toilet tank. “No more games,” Trent said, waving the gun at Utah and the remaining skinhead.

“Jesus, Palmer!”
Utah said, turning white as salt. Skinhead raised his hands high enough to touch the ceiling.

Trent notch
ed the hammer and jammed the still-warm barrel under Utah’s meaty chin. “Wait in the toilet stall. Now!”

“
Don’t shoot,” Utah said worriedly, backing into the stall with his hands up.

“You too, white trash, in with your buddy.”

The thug gave Trent a pained, twisted look and mumbled a profanity, but he kept his arms over his head and followed Utah into the stall.

When
Utah closed the door, Trent put the phone to his ear. “Palmer,” he said, hobbling and favoring his bum knee.

“
It is essential, and in your best interest, that you say nothing to
anyone
about this conversation, starting right now,”

Garcia
said tonelessly.

“
OK.”

“
You’re looking for the child.”

“Can
you help me get a line on her?”

“
Perhaps. What do you have to trade?”

“A highly confidential Atlanta Police Department GI
D report. It’s current and chronicles their successes and failures against your organization, the Kings, and the Outlaws.”

A sharp intake of breath. “If it
’s authentic, it will be of great service to me. I have a lead for you, but you’ll have to perform a onetime errand for me.”

“Which is?”

Without changing the intonation of his voice Garcia said, “There’s a traitor in my organization; he’s working with someone at the Midtown Police Plaza to shut down my business. Find them by noon tomorrow.”

“
This may be hard to do.”

“
You have skills and stamina,” Garcia said. “Do it or you might end up in an ambulance that doesn’t make it to the hospital on time. Am I making sense?”

“
Yes.” McClure. Jake and Elwood. And now Garcia. Trent was thinking that he had a long couple of days ahead of him.

Wh
en they had worked out the details, Trent moved in front of the stall and kicked the door open. Utah was sitting on the bowl, and the uninjured skinhead was standing beside him. Utah rocked on the seat and gave Trent a slight nod.

Trent tossed him the phone. “I’ll be at the bar,” he said.

On his way out Trent kicked the prone skinhead square in the face then slammed the door. He sat on a bar stool and patted a folded handkerchief against a deep cut over his left eye.

A few minutes later Utah came around the corner and said,
“Come along, Palmer. Mr. Garcia wants us to take you on a field trip.”

Trent
pointed the business end of the revolver at Utah. “If you ever fuck with me again-even in the slightest-it doesn’t matter how long it takes me, I’ll come back for you. And if you have any plans, like Trent-doesn’t-come-back-here plans? Not that you’re that type of guy, but Garcia might be? You got any ideas like that; my partner on the I-75 hits will waste you both.”

Utah’s
face flushed, and a vein pounded in Winston’s temple.

Chapter 16

Trent
emerged from the bar as a thunderbolt ripped the dark sky apart with jagged blue lines. The crash of its thunder echoed along the street. Utah’s battered pickup truck, dusted with snow, was suddenly frozen by the flash of lightning.

They
had loaded his Ducati into the bed of the truck and were waiting in the cab; Utah sat behind the wheel and Winston was in the middle, having made room for him.

Trent slid onto a ripped seat with wads of rust-stained foam poking out. He kept the
revolver pointed at Winston’s ribs, worried that at any moment his companions might try to take his head off.

Utah gunned the accelerator, and the truck’s knobby tires kicked up
loose gravel that rattled under the fenders. He drove north, threading his way through twisting back roads that followed the contours of the rolling Georgia countryside toward Lake Lanier. The snow had whitened the rock-hard ridges of the empty land; there were crosshatched sections of landscape where thrashers, swifts, and cuckoos scavenged the land for insects and worms.

A
n hour later Utah turned onto a graded clay road that paralleled a tributary of the Chattahoochee River. He parked outside an abandoned quarry. “Palmer,” he said, “this is where we say good-bye; Winston and I are gonna unload your bike.”

Trent backed stiffly out of the truck
. His gun came up. “You’re not coming?” he said, taking a two-handed stance and aiming alternately at the men. Now the sky was cloudless and clean. The sun had turned the horizon a bright orange as its light reflected off the snow and ice.

“Our orders are to leave you here,” Winston said
, his gold tooth catching a glint of sun.

Utah
’s attention was on the truck-bed floor where he’d bent over the side to retrieve something.

“Stop
. Or I’ll shoot,” Trent yelled. “Hands up, Winston. Killing two more pricks won’t bother me in the least.”

Utah stood up straight. Winston raised his hands.

Trent stepped carefully in a wide, quarter arc to the rear of the truck then backed off ten feet. “Utah, drop the tailgate.”

Utah complied and Trent glanced in the bed. He nodded at Utah who leaned into the bed
and grabbed a shovel.

“
Who was your partner on the highway hit?” Utah said, tossing the shovel onto the ground.

“
Wouldn’t be much of a threat if you knew who he was,” Trent said, listening to the cooling metal of the truck’s engine ticking like a time bomb.

Utah pursed his lips.
“But he helped you kill Triple’s brother?”

Trent
’s gun continued to swivel between the men. “That’s the rumor.”

“Some rumor.”

“Best be leaving now,” Trent said, keeping the front gun sight hard on Utah’s chest. “I won’t miss from this distance.”

“
Be seeing you around, Palmer,” Winston said, crawling into the cab. Then Utah slammed the tailgate shut with a clattering of chains.

Trent watched tensely as the mud-splattered
truck bounced across the deeply rutted road. He heaved a sigh of relief when they were out of sight. Then he then rolled the cylinder from the revolver and released the bullets into the brush, wiped his prints, and buried the gun in the sand.

Whittled gray clouds raced in from the north. The wind tore through him
as he stepped over strands of rusting barbed wire and into a grove of pines. He used the shovel for a walking stick to favor his sore knee. Along the way he disrupted a fox chasing a rabbit. The fox hid behind a pine and glared angrily at Trent as the rabbit dashed away.

W
ithin minutes he found a heavily-wooded swamp that was the end of the tributary. Trent concentrated on why Garcia had agreed to help him. It wasn’t out of sympathy for the child, or because Trent had killed his chief adversary’s brother. It was because Trent had the GID report; and how Garcia wanted that report
.

Garcia
swore that the Apostles did not have Chloe and on good faith had tipped Trent to a lead buried deep in the woods. Trent knew if he found the mystery he would be indebted to Garcia; he regretted the circumstances, but had no other options.

He w
orked his way around thick trunks and gnarled and twisted branches that touched the sluggish water. Eventually he came upon a small clearing at a sharp bend in the slow-moving, muddy river.

With his back to the trees, he kicked at some leaves and debris and concentrated on the
red soil. This was where Garcia had told him to dig. With each fall of the shovel, he thought about his encounter with Garcia. If he reconsidered, quit, and called the police, he knew he’d be on the run from those thugs for eternity. Keep digging. This is for Chloe.

Within minutes he had made a horrific find
; he felt as though he would faint from the pain of the beating as he leaned against an oak branch and stared at a decomposing cadaver lying in a shallow grave.

Trent
had seen death before, but never like this. The rats had feasted on the internal organs like tender morsels; the stomach, kidneys, liver, and eyes were gone. Cockroaches crawled through matted hair, and the skin on the face was gone revealing a line of dark teeth. A hideous black mush crawling with worms oozed from the sinus cavities and eye sockets; yellow mucus drooled from the sagging jaw.

Holding his breath
against the smelly decay, he knelt in the shallow grave and cut a lock of hair and an article of clothing as proof of his find
.
Then he said a silent prayer for the deceased, stood, and shoveled the loose earth over the body.

The
setting sun fanned coppery hues across the cold sky. He could hear coyotes up in the rolling brown hills as he started his long walk back through the woods. His feet felt frozen and his muscles burned as he struggled up the icy hillside; he wiped sweat from his face with the backs of his hands and stopped often to rest his protesting knee.

He found his
Ducati-just visible in the falling dusk-and secured his grisly souvenirs under the seat.

He knew he couldn’t sit on what he had found, so he
decided to call Priest when he arrived home; he also planned to stash the bag and never tell anyone he had been to the grave.

The sky was
bright and clear and bursting with stars that gave Trent confidence as he navigated with authority toward the Atlanta skyline.

Chapter 17

At ten-fifteen that evening
, Trent limped into the all-night Midtown Medical Clinic. The waiting room was neat and clean with wood furniture and hanging plants. And it was warm. Trent was grateful for the heat; and that the lobby was empty.

He stood at the admissions counter and drummed his fingertips.
A young male nurse with a feminine face, slicked-dark hair, and imploring eyes slouched in a chair reading a glossy video-game magazine. He had a small goatee, and Trent thought he was a perfect postcard Jesus: the only thing missing was a red-jeweled heart that glowed.

Trent
tapped on the Plexiglas with a ball-point pen. Postcard Jesus dropped the magazine and slid the panel aside. “A stickup, right?” he asked softly. “Did you call the police?”

“A motorcycle accident,” Trent lied. “I wasn’t wearing
a helmet.” He dropped his Visa Platinum on the nurse’s magazine hoping to speed up the process.

Trent frowned inwardly when Postcard Jesus handed him a clipboard with several forms to fill out. When he had completed the paperwork, the nurse led him down a hall and ushered him into a
tiny examination room that smelled of spearmint.

Postcard Jesus pulled the door shut. “Have a seat on th
e table,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Like a million bucks.”

He wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Trent’s upper arm in preparation for the blood pressure test. “A motorcycle accident, eh?” he asked, pumping the cuff full of air with a rubber pressure ball while holding a stethoscope against Trent’s forearm.

“Yes. I should have known better. Those bikes are dangerous.”

He slowly released the air. “You weren’t in a bike accident,” he said with a knowing smile. Then he rested two fingers on Trent’s wrist.

“How’s my heart?”

“Appears normal,” Postcard Jesus said. “Although slightly fast.” He tapped Trent’s leg with a tuning fork. “Still sticking to your story?”

“Yes.”

The nurse opened the door. “Your vital signs appear normal.” He reached up and pulled a color-coded plastic marker out from the wall. “The doctor will be in shortly.”

Trent was thumbing through a
well-worn
National Geographic
when the doctor breezed in without knocking. He was a short, slim Arab with wavy hair, boney angular features. “What happened to you?”

“I was riding my dirt bike,” Trent lied. “I hit a dip and went head first over the handlebars
; my lower back hurts the most.”

The doctor laughed. “Try not to blink,” he said, using a lamp to peer into Trent’s eyes.
The doctor gave him a local anesthetic then cleaned and stitched the tear above his eyebrow; then he placed a large Band-Aid over the wound and administered an anti-tetanus shot.

Trent screamed
at the drilling pain when the doctor poked and prodded his lower back. The doctor crossed his arms and said, “Mr. Palmer, as a precaution, I’d like to rule out any spinal damage by taking a series of x-rays.”

“O
K by me,” Trent said, feeling too miserable to make a fuss.

An hour later the doctor returned to the examination room. “
The X-rays revealed no spinal damage,” he said. “Though you suffered some serious bumps and bruises, I’d say you’re a very fortunate man.”

“
Great news.”

Trent politely declined
an offer to spend the night in the hospital for observation, but he accepted a shot of Demerol that softened the pain and made his legs wobble like a pair of Slinkys.

He
stood at the admissions window while Postcard Jesus prepared his statement. When Trent had signed his exit paperwork, the nurse escorted him out of the building. He wrote Trent a prescription for Percocet and gave him strict orders to do nothing strenuous for a few days. And he advised him to sleep with a cold compress over his eye.

Trent stepped out w
hen the pneumatic doors opened. The cold night poured in off the sidewalk. Then he stepped back in and buttoned up his coat. “When did it start snowing?”

“An hour ago,” said Postcard Jesus. He looked at
Trent wryly. “Drive careful on that motorcycle.”

#

Fifteen minutes later, Trent was seated at his desk, sipping Gray Goose on the rocks, hoping the alcohol would help sooth his throbbing back. He picked up his cellular phone and called Priest.

“The Priest residence,” said a female voice heavy with sleep.

“Hi. Trent Palmer here. Sorry to bother you at this late hour, but would Inspector Priest be available?”

Trent could hear muffled voices in the background. “Palmer,” a curious voice said. “What is it?”

“Something very important has come up. We need to talk.”

“Does it have any bearing on the park murder or Chloe Lee’s abduction?”

“It could.”

“Talk now
; or we’re going to have problems.”

Out came a cautious explanation of why he had driven to the
Whiskey A-Go-Go Lounge and how Garcia had tipped him to the location of a body.

A short silence followed
. “You’re kidding, right?”

Trent gave him the location of the body and a few other juicy details. “It’s the real McCoy,” he said. “I have no doubt whatsoever.”

“I’ll call Chief Clay. You and I will need to meet face-to-face.”

“I can
—”

“
Tomorrow at lunchtime,” Priest said. “I’ll stop by your apartment.”

“I’ll be waiting.”