Rise of the Beast (6 page)

“Yeah, I think so,” confirmed her son. “I can’t keep living like this. A couple of my friends are already dead. I don’t want to end up like them.”

Consuela wrapped her arms around her son. “I’ll go with you. We can get you enrolled tomorrow morning if you’re really serious.”

“Yeah,” confirmed Julio. “Thanks Mom, I’d like for you to go with me. I mean, I don’t know the first thing about getting enrolled to go back to school.”

“I’ll be glad to help you,” said Consuela, wiping away her tears of joy. “But if you’re going to be getting enrolled in school, you’d better get some sleep.”

“Sure, Mom,” said Julio, kissing Consuela on the cheek and heading toward his bedroom. “Get me up early, OK? I want to be sure and get a place in that class.”

“Sure,” said Consuela, whose smile hadn’t dimmed. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom,” said Julio. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”

Consuela only nodded as her son closed the door. She prayed as she turned off the lights and headed to bed. “Oh Mother Mary, please, don’t let my son change his mind,” she whispered. “Oh, Jesus, guide him.”

“See how easy it is to be nice to your mother?” said Krugloe. “Don’t you feel better now?”

“What are you going to do now?” asked Julio, in a voice that was heard only in his mind.

“Exactly as I said we shall do,” was the silent reply. You are getting your GED, and you are going to be a good student and a good son. Then you are going to go to community college. You are going to major in criminal justice. We need you, Julio.”

Julio faded away to sleep. He didn’t seem to have much choice. In sleep was his only release.

Flashes of the cameras illuminated the Central Park crime scene as 29-year-old detective Bill Strom looked over the grim landscape. He’d earned quite a reputation over the last four years as an astute investigator, but for the moment, this one had him mystified. He turned to his boss, Lieutenant Phil Stoddard, a 44-year-old NYPD veteran. “The wounds have an almost surgical precision about them. One clean slice in each case.”

“You think it was done with a machete, maybe, or something like that?” asked Stoddard.

“More like a broad sword,” replied Strom, jotting down an additional note in his book.

“Okay, what are we looking at here?” posed the lieutenant. “Three Latin Kings, sliced down like this, no apparent witnesses beyond the perpetrator or perpetrators—you think maybe the Bloods?”

“They’re in the midst of a war with the Kings right now,” confirmed Strom. “Still, I’ve never seen the Bloods do something like this. It’s just not their MO. And they usually leave a calling card of some kind, but not this time.”

“I’m thinking it could be a hit by the Mob,” posed Stoddard, looking about at the carnage. “The Kings were horning in on one of their pet operations so they used this act as a something-less-than subtle statement to the Kings to stay out.

“Could be,” said Strom. “Still, in your 22 years with the force, have you ever seen the Mob do a hit like this?”

“No,” replied Stoddard, “can’t say I have.”

“I’d not be surprised if we have a new player in town, someone with a grudge against the Kings,” said Strom.

“Who, the Samurai?” said Stoddard, almost jokingly.

Strom smiled, though only slightly. “I don’t get it, Phil. These were just kids. Who’d want to go to this kind of length to kill them?”

“Someone they tried to mess with?” posed Stoddard. “Some guy walking around the city with what, a three-foot broadsword hidden in his trench coat? You’d be
surprised at the stuff we’ve found hidden in trench coats over the years.”

Strom nodded. “You’re thinking maybe this is the work of some sort of vigilante?”

“I don’t know,” said Stoddard. “Your garden-variety vigilante might shoot them, maybe even knife them, but this—this is practically a ritual killing.” He shook his head. “Maybe we’ll know more once the forensics guys have a better look at this.”

“Yeah, I’ll follow up on that,” said Strom.

Stoddard scanned the scene one more time. “This work isn’t getting any easier with the years. This isn’t quite the same city I knew as a patrolman in the early ‘90s. It changed some after 9/11, but that was only the beginning. America itself has changed, and not for the better.”

“The meltdown was rough on everyone,” noted Strom.

“That isn’t even all of it,” continued Stoddard. “The city is just getting weird. It feels like there is this evil, oppressive spirit hanging over the city, you know? And what happened tonight is just a part of it.” There was a pause. “I feel like it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.” Again Stoddard paused. He seemed a mile away.

“You OK, Lieutenant?” asked Strom.

“Yeah, OK,” confirmed Stoddard. “Let’s get this place cleaned up. It will be light in another hour. I don’t want these bodies here when the joggers hit the trails. Still, cordon the area off. Maybe we’ll be able to pick up some more clues in daylight that we’re not seeing now.”

“Sure, Lieutenant,” confirmed Detective Strom, who made his way over to the place where a set of bodybags lay prepared to accept their cargo.

Strom and the forensics guys were still there as the first joggers hit the trail. In three hours, the investigation had turned up very little evidence and no leads. Strom really hadn’t counted on that. He would pursue other avenues, start building a picture as to who was here late last night.

C
HAPTER
3

It was just after nine in the morning as Leland James walked into the offices of Manhattan Gold on Sixth Avenue dressed in a dark and very conservative business suit. To say the least, its proprietor, Dale Silversmith, was surprised to see him, and just a bit nervous.

“Leland,” he said, offering a warm handshake. “What brings you over here to my establishment? I mean, there isn’t anything wrong, is there?”

Leland chuckled slightly. “I’m here on business.” Dale’s expression told him that he really needed to reword that opening statement. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Dale, not that kind of business—precious metals business. I need your advice on an important matter. Can we talk somewhere privately?”

“My office,” said Dale, pointing the way. Leland followed.

No doubt about it, for a while, Leland’s new life was going to be a bit awkward. He knew Dale through his other business; Dale was a regular customer. He had a particular fondness for Denise, one of his girls. Thing was, Dale was married, had been for 20 years. He’d been a player for at least ten. Keeping things on the QT was of vital importance to him. He’d developed this business using his wife’s inheritance money, and it had paid great dividends. The gold market had been very good to him. The uncertain economic and political times had brought him lots of business, and with that business had come the need to relieve some of the stress that went along with it. Still, if his wife found out, he could easily lose it all.

“Leland, you understand the danger in you coming here during the business day, right?” queried Dale, closing the door behind them. “I mean, I can’t have people talking.”

“Oh come on, Dale,” said Leland, a smile on his face. “You’re completely safe. No one here knows anything about me. I’m just another customer. For heaven’s sake, man, you’re my friend. As a matter of fact, I’m out of the love business for good. Don’t worry, I’ll see to it that you can still make your contacts with Denise, discretely, of course, if you still want to.”

“If I still want to?” asked Dale, sitting in his chair.

“That’s right,” said Leland. “Only now, the two of you will have to make the arrangements on your own.”

“So awkward,” mumbled Dale.

“Would you just listen to me, man?” asked Leland, sitting in the chair across the desk, and pulling something from his briefcase. It made a rather loud thud as it landed on the oak table.

Dale’s eyes grew as round as saucers as he picked up the large and somewhat irregular block of gold. After dealing with it for so many years, he knew that this was the genuine article. “You’ve gotta be kidding. This thing must weigh ten pounds. My electronic balance won’t weigh anything this massive. Where in the hell did you come by this monster?”

“It’s sort of a long story,” replied Leland, “a story for another time. A good and reliable friend has asked me if I could get this converted to cash money. Now, before you start asking—no, it’s not from drug dealers or any other illegal activity. It’s all on the up and up, I swear. You were the only person I could come to, the only person I knew that could tell me what to do with a thing like this. Come on, Dale, I need your help.”

Dale pulled out his reading glasses and examined the bar carefully. “You realize that a thing like this could easily be worth $200,000? You realize that, right?”

“I sort of figured it,” was the reply.

“Who gave this to you?” asked Dale.

“An angel, OK?” replied Leland. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got dozens of these things, and I’ve got to unload them over the next three months. How do I do it?”

“Dozens of them, dozens you say?” asked Dale. “You have dozens of gold blocks this large?”

“At least,” confirmed Leland. “I haven’t actually counted them.”

“I’ve never held so much gold in my hand at one time,” said Dale, “and I’ve been in the business all of my adult life.”

“So how do we sell them?” asked Leland.

“Well, first of all, we don’t want to flood the market,” said Dale, who seemed to drift deep into thought for a moment. “To start off, we have to determine how pure this gold is and what impurities, if any, it has. The impurities themselves might be valuable. Darn it, Leland, if it were a bunch of gold krugerrands it would be easier, but this is raw gold. It has to be sent off to be analyzed, assayed. I can’t do it here. There is a guy who does it right here in New York; that will take at least a few days. He will certify its purity. Then we can search for a buyer, offer it on the precious metals market a little bit at a time. You can’t dump it all at once, and you’ll need to break it down into smaller units. That big of an ingot might bring up questions you’re not prepared to answer.” There was a pause.

“Then you’ll help me with this sale?” asked Leland.

“Sure,” said Dale. “But answer me this; what is this guy going to do with the money?”

“He is going to do God’s work, start a ministry like the modern world has never seen,” said Leland. “He is going to bring the word of salvation to the nations. That’s why this is so important. It was important enough to convince me to give up the love business that has brought me my fortune. Does that tell you something about him?”

Dale shook his head. “Not really. So what will you do now, become a minister, a missionary?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know my way around the Bible well enough for that. My grandmother does, but she didn’t pass it on to me. I was never that interested. For the moment, I’m the owner’s representative, his financial advisor,” replied Leland.

Dale seemed taken aback. “You, a financial advisor?”

“Sure,” said Leland. “Remember, I do have an associate’s degree in
accounting. I wasn’t about to trust anyone else to keep my books for my most recent business.”