Pure Hate (18 page)

Captain Kelly was watching James’s Romeroesue
shuffle/stagger over to his squad car and was about to intercept him and
suggest that he have one of the officers drive him home when Detective Nellis
ran over to him in a panic.

“Captain Kelly! Sir, I can’t get Vargas and
Johnson on the radio. They‘re staked out at Mrs. Davis’ house!” Nellis was
holding his balding head in his hand and his eyes were jittery and frightened.

“Now I can’t get them on the radio. I
can’t think of a reason they’d be out of their car.”

“There ain’t no toilet in that car is there?”

“No, sir.”

“And you can’t think of one reason why they’d be
out of their car? Try them again before we call SWAT.”

Nellis looked like he was about to cry as he
raised the cell phone to his lips. The Captain was playing it cool even though
the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. If he lost any more
officers tonight he’d probably be looking for a new job.

“Damn it, Tony! I thought something
happened to you. Why aren’t you guys answering your radios?”

Captain Kelly snatched the phone from Nellis and
barked into it at Detective Tony Vargas.

“Vargas, we just lost one of ours tonight. This
shit has gotten serious. No more disappearing acts from anyone. I want everyone
on their toes. Malcolm is now a cop killer. If you see him, do not try and
apprehend him yourself. Call for backup and stand by. Maintain visual contact.
Nobody try to be a hero on this. I don’t want any more funerals.”

Captain Roy Kelly spoke loud enough this time for
all the other task force members to hear. Minutes later, the same message went
out from police dispatch citywide. Every cop in town was now after Malcolm’s
scalp.

At the end of the block, slumped down
in the front seat, peering out through the Jeep Cherokee’s dark tinted windows,
Malcolm watched. The coroner’s van drove past his Jeep, followed by James’s
white Dodge. The headlights from the Intrepid momentarily illuminated the
inside of the Jeep. Malcolm slipped down even lower in his seat. He saw the
Detective’s face—a cold, hard, mask—absolutely expressionless.

Malcolm turned the key in the
ignition, noting that the keys still had blood on them from their previous
owner. The solemn procession of coroner and cop turned the corner. Malcolm
followed. It felt more natural for him to hunt then to be hunted. As long as he
was watching the police, he was comfortable they would never catch him. Soon,
he would have to get rid of Detective Bryant, too. The man was starting to get
in the way.

James always thought there was something humbling
about a morgue. Being inside one brought him to an immediate awareness of his
own mortality that was as real and palpable as if he were on his deathbed or
facing execution. No one felt invincible or immortal in a morgue. As a cop, James
had gotten used to it. That is, until he watched the Medical Examiner wrench a
seven-inch Japanese tanto knife from his partner’s eye-socket and realized that
the man who put it there was still out on the streets and it was up to James to
go after him. That’s when James began to wonder what it might feel like to have
his throat slit. What went through a people’s minds when they were gargling
their own blood and watching it spurt from their throat and two feet in the
air?

Watching the ME’s assistant saw open
the top of the skull of a teenaged runaway who’d been brutally raped and beaten
by a person or persons unknown, while a guy from the University of
Pennsylvania’s Neurology lab waited impatiently for the kid’s brain, made him
wonder if there really was a heaven or if it was all just an endless hell.

And if hell was all there was? Were
we already there? Were we foolishly running from death when that was the only
real peace we could hope for? If there was a heaven, how did the death of this
kid fit into the divine plan?

Fuck. I’m trippin’. I need to pull it
together
, James
thought.

The young boy had purple bruises all
over his emaciated, tattooed body, along with older, yellowing ones. The
streets had not been kind to him. James looked around the postmortem room. He
avoided a glance at Baltimore’s corpse but found the other sights no more
comforting. James wondered what the hell were they going to do with that kid’s
brain? James remembered that Baltimore was a registered organ donor just as the
ME’s assistant removed the boy’s eyes and plopped them in a jar. Detective
Bryant turned and left when they began sawing open Baltimore’s chest. In his
mind he kept hearing that old saying:
“Today is a good day to die!”

It wasn’t. Not in Philly. Not ever. Here,
death was always ugly, never peaceful, and never glorious. He wished he were
one of those people who passed out at the sight of blood. At least then he
wouldn’t have to walk around with the image of Baltimore’s corpse being sawed
open, an image seared into his mind like the ghostly, electric-blue,
after-images when a flashbulb flares.

Now it was time to go after Malcolm
and that thought made his Beretta, his badge, his handcuffs, the bulletproof
vest and Remington pump shotgun in the trunk of his car, feel like one of those
dollar ninety-nine toy cop sets you got from the supermarket with the little
plastic gun, plastic billy-club, and little plastic handcuffs. He felt like a
thirteen-year old Masai warrior about to try to claim his manhood by hunting down
a lion with nothing but a spear.

James had faced down countless
murderers in his career. He’d confronted gangbangers with rap sheets a mile
long, gangsters and Mafia hitmen, husbands who’d murdered their wives, wives
who’d murdered their husbands, parents who’d killed their children, and cold-blooded
killers who murdered for profit. But this was his first serial killer and he was
so different from the rest.

He could usually put himself inside a
criminal’s mind. He could think like they thought, understand their motives. He
knew why a guy would kill someone during a robbery. He even knew why someone
would kill during a rape. He knew why spouses killed each other. He’d never
admit it to anyone, but he could even understand why someone would kill their own
children. But Malcolm was a different breed. His were not crimes of passion or
profit. His were crimes of perversion. They came from a place that James’s mind
could not go and that terrified him. Malcolm was motivated by pure rage and
hatred. It seemed to be the only emotion he felt, an overwhelming hatred that
had been festering inside him for decades. It had twisted into a murderous
bloodlust that consumed more than two dozen lives and the body count was still
rising.

James tried to tell himself that his
fears were irrational. He was safe. He had the entire Philadelphia Police Force
behind him . . . but so had Baltimore. James couldn’t help wonder if he was
next, if Malcolm was out there sharpening his blade for him. Instinctively, James
reached for his gun. Feeling its lethal weight normally made him feel
confident, but today it felt small and cheap, like a plastic toy.

James drove from the morgue to the
station, cursing and beeping his horn at the early morning traffic. A fat guy
in a business suit riding one of those little scooters with the knobby tires
pulled out in front of the Intrepid. James tried to tell himself that his foot
just slipped off the brake, causing him to tap the scooter’s rear tire with his
bumper, that it had nothing to do with the fact that the guy riding it looked
like the man who’d been shoving hundreds into CC’s g-string the night before. James
wasn’t a jealous man. At least that’s what he told himself when his foot once
again slipped off the break and he nearly drove the scooter off the road into
the gutter. The man struggled to keep the bike from falling over. He turned and
gave James his middle finger in the all-American “fuck you” salute. James gave
him a cold tight-lipped smile in return.

James hadn’t had time to shower. He
could still smell CC’s scent on him, cigarettes, alcohol, Obsession, and pussy.
He wished he were still lying in bed beside her. The news of his partner’s
murder reached him just as he was falling asleep in CC’s arms. He’d put her in
a cab and headed directly to the scene without sleep. Now he’d officially been
up for twenty-four hours straight. It had been four days since he’d been to the
gym and, despite his fatigue, he figured an hour on the heavy bag would help
him shake off the fog around his mind. At this point, an hour of sleep would
only make him more exhausted.

James drove to the police
headquarters downtown where they had the nicest gym facilities and the most
corrupt cops in the city. When he worked there, he made it a point not to get
too friendly with anyone he didn’t know. He never discussed his cases with any
of the downtown boys, or the South Philly boys. They were all in the Mafia’s
pockets and he didn’t want them leaking any information to the local wiseguys
about his cases, whether it involved them or not. Being on the task force made
him multi-jurisdictional, which meant he worked all over the city. James didn’t
necessarily like everyone he met. It was probably unfair to say all the
downtown cops were corrupt, but it was probably safer to keep in mind that they
just might be.

He entered the gym and was relieved
to find it empty except for Captain Kelly who was bench pressing half the
weight in the gym. It seemed like the Captain was always there. Roy Kelly was
one of those mutant freaks who never did any cardio but seemed to have
virtually no body fat. Unlike James, who despite countless hours skipping rope,
shadow boxing, and hitting the heavy bag, had watched his gut grow nearly half
an inch a year since he turned thirty. At forty-five, it had just reached the
point where other people commented on it.

“Haven’t seen you in here all week,”
Captain Kelly said. He was not the least bit out of breath, despite the three
hundred and fifty pounds on his chest. He pumped out a dozen repetitions with
little effort before resting the bar back on its rack.

“Yeah, it’s been a rough week,” James
said, as he stepped into the locker room.

The smell of sweat was so strong that
James wanted to gag, but he thought it would’ve been unmanly. Guys were supposed
to be used to the smell of jock sweat. He peeled himself out of the navy blue
suit he’d worn on Monday, planned to take to the dry cleaners on Wednesday, but
had instead run an iron over this morning and thrown back on. It had shiny
spots on the sleeves and pants legs from the steam iron. James didn’t care. He
wasn’t trying to win any fashion awards.

His thick wooly hair had begun to
grow into an Afro and his goatee was growing into a full beard. As he looked in
the mirror, even he had to admit he looked like shit. He decided to shave the
beard before going out into the gym. Captain Kelly was probably trying to find
the right time to comment on his grooming. James decided to save the Captain
the trouble. He watched his ragged beard disappear down the sink as he ran the
electric shaver across his cheeks.

As his moustache and beard fell away,
a face emerged that was almost handsome. James allowed himself a brief moment
of vanity when he looked at his smooth chocolate skin, bow-shaped lips, high
cheekbones, and dark, almond-shaped eyes. He tried to see what CC saw in him
and, for a moment, he could see a man who was at least mildly attractive. He
checked to make sure he was alone before he flexed his powerfully muscled chest
and arms in the mirror. They were his finest assets. If he could only get rid
of his gut he might even manage to be sexy. He laughed at the idea of himself
as a sex symbol. He knew what had always gotten him over with the women were
his gentle manner and his sweet talk.

Unlike most men, James had never been
afraid to be corny. He would shower women with compliments and poetry and they
invariably fell before the onslaught. It was the same technique he used with
witnesses and occasionally with suspects as well.

After he’d freed his face from its
fur coat, he quickly shrugged his thick stubby legs into a pair of satin
Ringside boxing shorts and a Joe Boxer tank top. He walked back into the gym,
wrapping his fists in long yellow Mexican hand wraps with a pair of Reyes bag
gloves tucked under his arm. Captain Kelly was still on the bench press,
straining beneath what James estimated to be 425 pounds. James picked up a jump
rope with one-pound weights in the handle and began skipping rope. He watched
the clock while he twirled the heavy rope faster and faster.

Over and over, the image of
Baltimore’s corpse slithered its way into James’s thoughts. He tried to
concentrate on the workout, but his anger kept getting in the way. He wondered
where Reed Cozen had gone and what he planned to do with Baltimore’s gun. If he
had gone after Malcolm, they’d no doubt be finding another mutilated and
cannibalized corpse soon. Then Malcolm would disappear and they’d have no way
of finding him again. Not until he started to kill again in some other city,
some other state, where they were less equipped to deal with evil of that
magnitude.

For some reason, James could never
skip rope with shoes on. They threw off his rhythm. He often paid for this
inability with scraped and bruised toes. The rope cracked against James’s toes
whenever he missed a turn. He bit his bottom lip and cursed under his breath.
He started jumping again, once again struck his toes, then threw the rope
across the room into a corner. Captain Kelly looked up from the bench, but said
nothing. James slid the bag gloves on and began pounding the heavy bag with all
the strength and speed he could muster. He imagined the eighty-pound leather
bag was Malcolm, and he pounded his fists into it with increasing ferocity,
grunting with each shot. Rather than making him feel better, it was beginning
to depress him. The bag wouldn’t go down. It just bounced right back. To James,
it seemed like an omen.

Captain Kelly walked over to the curl bar to do
some bicep curls. James began beating the stuffing out of the heavy bag,
grunting and cursing. His short muscular arms were pumping faster and faster as
jabs, hooks, and straight rights flew in rapid, vicious, combinations. James
bobbed and slipped punches from his imaginary opponent then countered with
vicious body shots and hooks. He looked insane. James threw one more violent
flurry. The bag nearly bounced off its chain. He stood still, breathing hard
and staring at the bag as if he believed he could disintegrate it with his
eyes.

“James? Are you okay?” the captain asked.

“No. Not at all. My partner is dead.”

“I think maybe you should take a break for a
while. Maybe use up some of those sick days and see Dr. West.”

“I’m not crazy, Roy. I’m just pissed off. I think
I have a right to be angry. Our boys fucked up and now my partner’s dead. You
should have let me kick every one of their asses. The whole damn task force is
useless!”

“James, Malcolm killed Detective Baltimore. Not
Trinidad, not Nellis, not Wilson, not Jones, not Lieutenant Woo. Malcolm is the
one who needs his ass kicked.”

James fell silent for a long moment. He stared at
his feet with his hands clenched into tight fists. He was sweating so heavily
it was forming a puddle at his feet.

“Look James, it’s okay to be pissed off. It’s
okay to be a little scared. After what happened, I’d be kinda worried if you
weren’t both. But you cannot let that fuck up this investigation. I talked to
Lieutenant Woo last night. He’s going to be taking a more active role in the
investigation, which means you’re gonna have to start acting like part of the
task force. If you want to remain a part of this investigation, you’re gonna
have to start checking in with Woo and getting your assignments from him. I
can’t have you going renegade on this one. I gotta cover my ass, too. So just
do this by the numbers.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever.”

The door to the gym opened and Detective Vargas
strolled in grinning.

“We finally got a muthafuckin’ lead!”

“What have you got?”

“Paul Cooper, Malcolm’s little butt buddy, the
one you found filleted the other day? Well, he had credit cards, platinum ones,
close to twenty thousand dollars in credit. We didn’t find any cards when we
searched the apartment. We checked all over and couldn’t find any
identification of any kind.”

“How the hell does a street prostitute get twenty
thousand dollars in credit?” Captain Kelly asked.