Nocturnal (31 page)

“Hit ’em!” Aggie screamed. “Hit ’em!”

Hello Kitty grabbed Hector’s left arm as Darth Maul pulled a lead pipe out of his sleeve and swung it in a low, horizontal arc, aiming for Hector’s knee. The Mexican twisted at the last second, like those guys in that Ultimate Fighting stuff, bending his knee away from the pipe and taking the hit in the crook of his leg. His face wrinkled up — that hit hurt, but not as bad as if it had taken him in the kneecap.

God
damn
but that beaner was fast.

Hector reached out with his free right hand and ripped the wood pole out of Wolf-Face’s hands. Darth Maul brought the pipe back for another knee shot, but the Mexican jabbed the stick’s butt into Maul’s latex mask. Darth Maul let out a scream the likes of which Aggie had never heard — high-pitched and clicky. Black-gloved hands shot inside the hood as Maul fell to the ground, little feet kicking.

The Mexican put the end of the stick on the white floor, then drove his foot through the shaft, snapping it in half and leaving him holding a long, jagged shard of white wood.

Hector snarled. He jammed that shard right under the Hello Kitty mask.

Blood sprayed.

From the floor, Pig-Face grabbed Hector’s feet. Wolf-Face dove in and wrapped his white-robed arms around Hector’s chest. Demon-Face snagged the lead pipe off the floor — it went up fast, then came down faster in a vicious arc ending on the Mexican’s head.

Hector sagged. He disappeared beneath a flurry of white robes, punching black fists, kicking feet and a swinging pipe that did not stop.

Aggie couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop seeing, couldn’t stop
hearing
. Over and over again, the repeated
whiff-gong-crack
of the pipe coming down on the Hector’s shins, his knees, his feet, his hands. Each time the metal met flesh and bone, it was answered with a cry of agony.

Hector stopped moving, but the beating continued.

Infinite moments later, Wolf-Face and Pig-Face grabbed the Mexican’s shattered hands and dragged him out of the room. Blood-soaked pajamas left long red smears against the white floor.

Two more white-robed men appeared: the Joker and Jason Voorhees. They helped Pig-Face and Bug-Face drag away the still-twitching Hello Kitty and the unmoving Darth Maul.

Hello Kitty’s blood ran a zigzag curving path between the cobblestones’ low points until it drained into the same hole Aggie and the others used to shit and piss.

Hillary calmly rolled her Safeway shopping cart out the door. The wheels still squeaked, but only a little. She stopped and looked back at Aggie. “An
ouvrier
will come mop this up soon,” she said.

She shut the cage door behind her. Silence filled the bright room, broken only by the soft whimpers of the Chinaman.

Hector had fought like a motherfucker with nothing to lose. Aggie James also had nothing to lose, but he couldn’t fight for shit.

When the masked men came for him, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop them.

P
eople were going to start talking.

For the second night in a row, Pookie had to help Bryan to his apartment. The guy was beyond sick. How he’d managed to put on a good soldier face during the meetings with Biz-Nass and Zou was beyond Pookie’s ability to relate.

Three days of this sickness, yet Pookie still felt fine. Those flu shots came in handy.

“I feel like crap,” Bryan said. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want to dream anymore.”

Dreaming might be a necessary evil, because sleep was exactly what Bryan needed. The guy couldn’t keep going without rest. That kind of thing wore a body down.

So does jumping eight feet into the air, huh, Pooks?

No, Pookie wasn’t going to rehash that crap again. What he’d thought he saw couldn’t be, and that was that — just heat-of-the-moment memories playing tricks on him.

Pookie leaned Bryan against the hallway wall while he opened Bryan’s door. “Clauser, you’re a real rocket scientist, you know that?”

“Why?”

Pookie helped him inside. “Because you’ve got a fat Chinese dude with a Chicago accent taking care of you, when you could have a hot little brunette medical examiner giving you a sponge bath instead.”

“Really, Pooks? You want to ride my ass about Robin
now
?”

“You and Robin are made for each other,” Pookie said. “It’s like math.”

“You hate math.”

“My hate doesn’t make it any less accurate. And remember my grandfather’s advice: you can fuck your math teacher, but you can’t fuck math.”

Bryan fell onto his bed, lay there for a second, then started sitting up. “I don’t think your grampa said that.”

“Well, someone did. Maybe it was me.”

“I’m so surprised.”

Bryan slid off the bed. His knees wobbled and he almost fell.

“Bryan, go to sleep.”

He shook his head. “I told you, I’m not sleeping. I can’t, Pooks.”

If Bryan didn’t get some serious rest, the dreams and Marie’s Children
and the murders wouldn’t really matter to him anymore — he’d die from exhaustion. Pookie had to talk him down.

“Tell you what,” Pookie said. “Your bad dreams usually come in the wee hours of the morning. I’ll wake you up at midnight.”

Bryan stared out from sunken, bloodshot eyes. His dark-red beard had been borderline unkempt three days ago. Now he was starting to look like Charlie Manson; not a good image, considering.

“Midnight? You promise?”

“Yeah,” Pookie said. “And I’m staying right here. Just don’t walk in your sleep and try to get some, because we both know you’ve been after me for years.”

Pookie eased Bryan back onto the bed. A sweaty head hit a cool pillow. Pookie had cast his lot with his partner. He would ride this out to the end.

“I got your back, brother,” Pookie said. “I won’t fail you.”

Bryan didn’t answer.

“Bryan?”

A snore. He was already asleep.

Pookie turned off the light, stepped into the box-strewn hall and closed the bedroom door. Another night on his friend’s couch. Pookie hadn’t slept on couches this much since he’d been married.

He turned on Bryan’s TV and watched a little local news. Jay Parlar’s death led. The anchor looked so upset. And the street reporter outside of Jay’s place, yeah, she looked real somber as well. Reporters were fucking vampires that lived off the blood of others.

Pookie turned off the TV. He took off his jacket. Might as well get comfortable. He pulled his notepad from his jacket pocket.

Things were crazy, his partner was a total mess and there might very well be a murderous conspiracy afoot in the San Francisco Police Department, but that didn’t mean Pookie could just ignore his other vital duties.

“Blue Balls, Blue Balls, take me away. In Hollywood, everything works out just fine for the cops.”

He started scribbling notes for his series bible, hoping the work would let him tune everything out, at least for a little while.

R
ex drew.

Alex Panos this time. No axes, no chain saws, and no monsters. Just Alex.

Alex, and Rex.

It felt good to draw it. Rex felt his dick stiffen as he sketched a look of pain in Alex’s eyes.

The pencil flew, a
skritch-scratching
sound so fast it was a constant hiss. Shapes formed — circles, ovals and cylinders that became faces, chests, arms and legs.

Curves became blood.

Yeah, yeah it was good it was
good
.

Rex’s breaths came faster, shallower. His face felt hot. His heartbeat hammered inside his head. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to get turned on by this, but he didn’t care anymore. The blood and pain and death spun him up and now he knew why the boys at school talked about porn all the time.

More lines. Rex grabbed a colored pencil. Alex’s severed hand took shape, flash-frozen in a spray of red. Rex drew with his right hand. His left hand reached down, unzipped his pants and slid inside.

This would be his best drawing yet. His best drawing
ever
.

Moments went by and time vanished. Rex saw only lines to be drawn and shapes to be made.

His bedroom door opened, breaking the trance.

Rex’s head snapped up.

There stood Roberta. She was already holding the belt. Her gaze slid down, her forehead furrowed. Rex looked down as well — his little, hard dick was in his hand.

Oh no
.

“The school called me,” Roberta said. She stepped into his room, slammed the door shut behind her.

Rex was trapped.

“They said you skipped school,
again
. So I came to teach you better, and what do I find? I find you being a
nasty
boy. Dirty,
nasty
, touching yourself.”

“But Mom, I—”

“
Don’t
you call me mom! You’re no son of mine, you nasty,
nasty
thing!”

Rex looked down and started to zip up when he heard a
crack
sound and felt the sting across his left cheek. He sucked in a half-breath of surprise. His hand touched his face. The skin hurt.

“That’s right,” Roberta said, the belt dangling from her right hand. “I’ll teach you to be a dirty, sinning boy in my house.”

The belt snapped out again. Rex ducked away but tripped on his desk stool. He and the stool fell — the back of his head
thonked
against the floor.

“Don’t you duck, you
sinner
! You take what’s coming to you!”

He tried to get up. His arms and legs seemed to move in slow motion.

Crack
across his forehead, then on his nose; he brought his arms up in front of his face.

“Dirty!”

Crack
on his shoulder, a deep stinging.

“Nasty!”

Rex grabbed the overturned stool, tried to use it to help him scramble to his feet.

Crack
across his back, the flash of pain so bad he cried out.

“I’ll teach you, you worthless little—”

Rex stood and swung, did both things so fast he didn’t even know what he was doing. There was a sound like a bat hitting a softball, then he heard something crash on the floor.

Rex blinked away tears. He opened his eyes.

He was holding his stool by the base of one leg. The edge of the rounded seat … it had blood on it.

And on the floor, Roberta. Moving slow, like she was drunk. Bleeding bad from her right cheek, her eyes glazed and unfocused.

The belt was still in her hand.

“Nas … tee,” she said. “Getting my … paddle …”

This pathetic
thing
was the woman who had beaten him so many times? Why had he let her do that? For the same reason he had allowed BoyCo to ruin his life — because he’d been a coward, because he’d been
afraid
.

But Rex wasn’t weak anymore.

“You’re a bully,” he said quietly. “I
hate
you.”

She puckered her lips and then puffed out, like someone trying to blow away a long strand of stray hair. Flecks of blood sprayed from her lips. She tried to sit up.

She didn’t get far before Rex put a foot on her chest and pushed her to her back. He reached down and tore the belt from her hands.

Roberta blinked; the glazed look vanished. She looked up at him with enraged eyes, grabbed his leg and tried to push it away.

His leg didn’t move. How had he once thought of her as strong? Her hands and arms, so
weak
, they couldn’t even budge him.

“Let me go!” She dug her fingernails into his calf.

This time, Rex saw the pain coming. He let it happen and found it wasn’t that bad. He pressed his foot down harder.

Her eyes widened. She dug deeper with her nails, so he pressed harder still. Now her eyes scrunched tight, her mouth opened in an airless scream. Her hands slapped at his foot and leg.

Rex smiled. How
exciting
. All the things he’d felt when he made the drawings, they were nothing compared to the thunderstorm in his chest, the hurricane in his head.

He dangled the belt so that the end slid across her face.

“You like this belt,
Roberta
? You like it so much? Let’s see how much you
really
like it.”

He took his foot off her chest, then swung the belt as hard as he could. The leather
cracked
across her face, leaving an instant red mark.

Roberta screamed. She flipped onto her belly and scrambled for the door, crawling even as she started to rise.

She’s running!

His excitement spiked up to an impossible level. Rex ran after her. She stumbled into the hall and almost reached the front door before he kicked her feet out from under her. She fell hard, her face hitting the hardwood. He moved in front of her and blocked the door.

“Where are you going,
Roberta
? Aren’t you going to teach me a lesson?”

She lurched to her right, crawled into the TV room.

He followed her. He caught her next to her TV chair. She started to beg, but only got out a few words before Rex wrapped the belt around her neck. Her eyes bulged, her hands shot to the cracked black leather.

Yeah, yeah that’s it, come on, comeoncomeoncomeon
 …

Rex pulled the belt tighter.

T
he department’s electronic records of the Golden Gate Slasher case had been spotty, at best. That didn’t surprise John Smith. The case was old enough that all initial reports had been done on typewriters or word processors, before the SFPD implemented a database.

Reports that old had to be scanned or hand-coded into the system. With hundreds of thousands of pre-database cases, even high-profile records didn’t always get transferred. Vast amounts of the SFPD’s records still existed only on paper: slowly fading, degenerating, slipping away into the untouchable realms of lost history.

The Internet didn’t give up much, either. The Golden Gate Slasher wasn’t even on Wikipedia. In a culture fascinated by murderers, a culture that celebrated crime, this serial killer had gone surprisingly unheralded.

So John had come down to the archives to see the real McCoy. A white cardboard box in a climate-controlled room was all that remained of one of San Francisco’s ugliest summers. Crime-scene reports, medical examiner notes, evidence tags … a ton of information, although it seemed very scattered and disorganized.