“Shut up and do it,” Milo said, taking one step forward, reaching for his knife.
The pretty bitch had stopped crying, but her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and now they widened with his approach. “I’m afraid if I move him the wound will start bleeding again. I don’t think he can afford to lose much more blood,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper.
“Well, he should have thought about that before he attacked me with a fucking chair!” Milo was trying to control his temper, but the very sight of this little bitch pissed him off to no end, and her back-talking and sassy attitude were making it immeasurably harder to do. “So I don’t give a fuck about his little razor-nick. If it bleeds, it bleeds. Now drag his ass over here and dump him in the chair.”
“No.”
Before he even realized what he was doing, Milo had taken three long steps across the room. He yanked the knife out from behind his back and knelt down next to the dim bitch. She leaned away from him but otherwise held her ground. Milo waved the knife in front of her face, then placed it against the unconscious man’s throat and smiled at her. “Your choice,” he said, speaking slowly. “Put him in that goddamn chair or I’ll finish him off right here and now.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, and got to her feet, then leaned down and hooked her arms under her boyfriend’s armpits, much as Milo had done with the dead cop a few minutes ago. With a grunt she began dragging the slack body of the much-larger man across the room.
Milo nodded his approval. “Good choice,” he said, and observed the blood, indeed, begin once again to bubble through the already-soaked shirt. The process of the young woman pulling the body to the chair was resulting in a gush of blood every time she yanked. It was like watching an EMT doing chest compressions on a patient with a hole in his chest. It was almost dreamily hypnotic. Pull, bubble, rest. Pull, bubble, rest.
Finally the chick reached the empty chair. Milo looked at the older one again and now her eyes were open wide. She stared in horror at the scene being played out just inches away. Milo felt a surge of savage excitement and almost laughed out loud.
The younger woman leaned her boyfriend onto the chair. His bloody chest was laid across the seat and his head flopped down on his arms. The girl was breathing heavily, almost panting from the energy she had expended moving him. He probably weighed close to two hundred thirty pounds and she was a tiny thing, probably no more than one-ten, so obviously it had taken all of her strength to drag him across the room.
“I can’t get him up there by myself,” she said, looking at Milo pleadingly. “Just let me lie him on the floor on his back to minimize the bleeding and I’ll do whatever you say, I promise.”
“Let me get this straight. You’ll do whatever I tell you to do, as long as I don’t make you put him in the chair?”
“That’s right. I promise,” she whispered.
“Well,” Milo replied. “That’s quite the generous offer. Let me see…” He crossed his arms and cupped his chin in his hand, pretending to be deep in thought. He knew he should be hurrying things along thanks to the complications that were bound to arise from the dead cop lying on the floor, but this was just too much fun to pass up.
“Uhhh…no,” he said after a satisfying pause.
“Please.”
“Here’s the problem,” Milo answered. “In order to bargain, you need leverage, and you have none. You say you’ll do whatever I want if I only let your dying boyfriend stay on the floor, prolonging his suffering, but the fact of the matter, missy, is that you’re going to do whatever I want, anyway. I have all the leverage.
“So drag his ass into that chair and tape him in. He’s probably not going to regain consciousness and that’s a damned shame, but just on the off chance he does suddenly pop his eyes open, I want to be sure he has a prime view of the display of performance art to come.
“However. Just to show you I’m not unreasonable, I’ll help you. Hold this,” he said, flipping the knife into the air and catching it by the blade in the fingers of his bare hand. It was an impressive trick, one he had mastered years ago. He offered it, handle-first, to the young woman.
Her eyes grew wide and she froze, confused, then reached hesitantly for it. At the last moment, Milo yanked it away like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. He had always thought that comic-strip gag was stupid, that there was no way in real life Charlie Brown would actually fall for it, but apparently the guy drawing the cartoon had known a little bit about human nature.
The dumb bitch moaned and Milo laughed companionably. This was too much fun. “I guess I’ll just hold on to this for now,” he said. “You don’t mind, do you?”
She looked away and didn’t answer.
“Now, let’s get on with it. I’m afraid our time will be cut short thanks to this guy.” Milo nodded toward the body of the dead cop. “Once he fails to check in at headquarters on his hourly donut run, they may send someone to look for him.”
He grabbed the unconscious hero wannabe by the shoulder with both hands, holding the knife handle nimbly in the fingers of his right. Then he flipped the man over so that his back was leaning against the chair seat. A great swell of blood bubbled out of his chest and the young woman gasped and quickly reached for him as well. Together they lifted him—she wasn’t kidding, he really was quite solid—head lolling, into the chair.
The girlfriend held him steady while Milo reached for the duct tape, expertly rolling it around his ankles and wrists, taping them to the chair. He added a couple of long swaths, securing the man’s waist to the chair-back and the tops of his legs to the seat for support. His head still rested on his right shoulder, but Milo supposed there was nothing he could do about that. This would have to suffice. The odds against the hero wannabe ever regaining consciousness were astronomically long anyway, especially after his eventful trip across the floor. Besides, the clock really was ticking.
He clapped his hands together and smiled at his two other companions. The conscious ones. “What do you say we get started?”
CHAPTER 42
Holland Montvale had been a homicide investigator for longer than he cared to remember, and over the course of his career had seen the bodies of hundreds of murder victims, all suffering various desecrations and all in varying stages of decomposition. One thing they all had in common—maybe the only thing—was the ugliness of the crime’s aftermath.
Gruesome injuries, tissue breakdown, a stricken look etched on the victim’s face, the stench of bowels and bladder being voided, all served to make the act of leaving the world via violence even messier than entering it had been. Learning to compartmentalize the reaction to that messiness was essential for any homicide dick and Holland Montvale had long since become accustomed to doing so.
But Holland had to admit this scene was worse than most. The young woman had suffered, and terribly, from the wounds inflicted upon her small frame, and it was clear, even this early in the investigation, that death had come slowly. His gaze lingered over the ravaged body and he said a fervent prayer that when his time came, it would be over quickly.
The CSI techs were busy doing their CSI tech stuff. Holland tried his best to stay out of the way until their work was done. He stood off to one side of the room, waiting patiently, watching the flurry of familiar activity with a professional detachment as he tried to put himself inside the killer’s head while the crime was taking place. It was awful to contemplate.
A full complement of BPD officers had descended on the tenement building and fanned out in all directions, canvassing the area, searching out potential witnesses and, as unlikely as it seemed, hoping to get lucky and retrieve the murder weapon. Holland knew he would have to wait for the coroner’s report to be sure, but he felt confident the wounds had been caused by a common kitchen knife. What else would someone use to strip skin from bone?