Van was in position.
Ian stepped closer to the reclining girl, a runaway, by the looks of her, her large, oversized woman's handbag stuffed to bursting with her few possessions. Ian saw that she was indeed black. He felt reassured. They would have their black scalp after all, along with other choice selections. Already the thrill of the red hair now hanging on their wall was gone, cooled like sexual excitement after a climax.
Ian thought of all the countless scalps he had taken from people to appease Van and his insatiable gods; it was not dementia driving them, but an honest-to-God demon, an army of them, in fact, a legion bent on living out their hatred of mankind through Van. Ian had been told what to do by Van so as to prove himself worthy of the respect of the gods, who one day would speak to Ian, too. Van could make it happen with enough scalps.
Scalp-taking was pleasurable, besides. Van had always been right. In fact, it was what had gotten Ian through those awful years of separation from Van during the war, for always brother Van was close at hand, telling him what to do next: what to eat, when to get up, when to go to sleep, where to go, what to study, where to hunt, why they hunted, why they took the hair sometimes, the scalps of others. He knew so much, and Ian did, after all, owe him everything and could never repay him, not after saving him from a life of unimportance and boredom.
For the first eleven years of his life, Ian was kept away from Van, Van locked in a cellar below the house, deep in the remote woods where no one but the family knew. He was described as a demon, an evil and hideous monster, by Ian's parents, and Ian was beaten whenever he dared go near the sounds coming from below the house. But Ian managed to sneak down at times, and while shaking fearfully, he smuggled into his “retarded” little brother magazines and a special treat whenever possible. Ian felt the cruelty shown his brother as if it were shown to him; he felt the pangs and torture, and sometimes he was so carried away with empathy for Van that they seemed, the two of them, of one mind.
Deep within the ugly folds of Van's face, the eyes shone back at Ian and they were his eyes, his very own.
The girl on the bench saw Ian standing over her and she suddenly sat upright, realizing her situation. “Whatcha want, Mister? A little fun? You got any money, ‘cause it'll costs you plenty."
"Sure, sweet thing,” Ian said, pulling out a wad of bills. “How much do you think you're worth?"
"Go all night with you for...” she considered the wad of money ... “a hundred dollars."
"A hundred? Come on, you're just a kid."
"Some people like kids."
Ian tried to remain calm. He knew the transaction of words and coin was necessary to get her from point A to point B. If she got skittish for any reason, things could go badly, and they'd had enough of that tonight “All right ... how about fifty."
"Sixty-five."
"Sixty."
She looked at him as if she hadn't seen him before. “You're going to bust me, ain't you? You're a cop, ain't you?"
"Hell no, honey.” He tried to soothe her suspicion, but a look of panic flitted across her brow. She was pretty, her skin smooth. Too much deep red on her lips and the layers of three pairs of earrings gave the appearance of a Zulu girl, but the scalp, that above all was a beauty.
She began to move off and he cursed aloud. “Damn it, I just want a fast fix, honey, in the bushes over there. How about it? Sixty-five then ... sixty-five.” He pushed the cash at her.
She could not resist, and Ian wondered if it hadn't all been part of her act to get her price. She secured the money in her clutch purse and tucked that deep into her larger bag. “So, you got a place nearby, Sugar, or what?"
"I like nature,” he said, pointing to a thicket and some trees nearby. When they reached the woods, he spun her around and kissed her romantically, to which she responded with a sound like, “Yum."
"Howdya like it, baby?” she asked, rubbing her body into his.
"Dead,” he said, “I like it dead."
Her hand had reached his crotch and it startled her to find he was not hard. He grabbed. Then she saw the blade come up. “Jesus, no! No! God, God, no! Please, Mister, pleeeeeease!"
Then she felt something heavy and hairy lob from the tree above onto her shoulders with a horrid thud. It was perched on her shoulders, its legs over her breasts, kicking, bucking. It gave out a piercing little laugh. Ghastly-smelling, hairy hands held her hair back with a painful tug, her mouth clamped shut by the John. She believed her throat was about to be cut when she felt the blade slice into her forehead. Somewhere among the stomach-numbing fear, the sudden loss of blood, and the loss of consciousness—drifting so mercifully off—she recalled having seen something in the newspaper about some crazed nut going about the city scalping people.
Now that she was unconscious, they could continue without hurrying and have their various ways with the whore who had turned her last trick. What they couldn't take from the other black woman they would take from the whore-child.
"A fulfilling night after all."
"And a fulfilling breakfast to look forward to."
FOUR
Dean had said nothing to Sid the entire way over to Mercy Hospital, and Sid had returned the favor. Both men were tired and irritable, and filled with thoughts and questions. If Dean had had the strength, he might well have taken Sid to task over his method of having involved Dean in all this.
But Dean chose to hold his hostility in check, until a time when he could muster the energy it deserved. One thing Dean could not stand in a friend was lying, or telling half-truths.
At Mercy, Officer Peggy Carson had been in such agitation and trauma on arrival that she'd been given a strong sedative, and as it happened, she was unable to speak coherently to anyone. Dean managed a look at her, however, and both he and Sid recognized the familiar cut to the forehead. It certainly looked like the work of their madman, or men.
"How about taking me to my hotel, Sid?” Dean asked as they paced the length of the hall.
"Nonsense, you're staying over at my place."
"Sid, I think we'd both be more comfortable if I stayed at the hotel."
Sid frowned, but didn't argue the point. “All right, Dean, if you're sure."
Park and Dyer, the two cops handling the case, were at the end of the hall. Park's eyes were piercing, and Dean was beginning to dislike the man intensely. Dyer, by comparison, had soft, warm blue eyes that welcomed you. Dean and Sid nodded and joined the two detectives at the coffee machine, Dean fetching himself a cup.
"Anything?” Sid asked the cops.
"Not much, no,” replied Park, hiding something.
"You're sure?” pressed Dean.
Dyer shrugged. “She was kinda’ hysterical when she was brought in, saying something about midgets."
"Midgets?” asked Sid.
"She didn't say midget, midget-head,” Park said to Dyer. “She said she saw some small person, like a kid or a midget, acting as a decoy of some sort when the assailant caught her from behind."
Thank you for clearing that up, Dean thought. His attention, however, was on the secondary cuts on the body he'd autopsied. Dean now wondered if Sid was thinking along the same lines. The secondary cuts hadn't had as much force behind them, and the angle of attack was quite odd, sometimes upside down, with the serrated edge of the knife at the top. This might indicate an assailant straddling a victim about the midsection and stabbing at the lower body, upside down. He'd thought it a special kind of knife, perhaps a fishing knife, but now he wondered if the second killer could not be a small person, even a boy. A sick thought, to be sure, but a possibility they could not overlook, not anymore.