Savant (2 page)
It was dark by the time he reached the outskirts of Blue Springs, Missouri, where he topped off the tank out of habit, paid cash, urinated on the seat of the men's urinal and then across the sink, for no particular reason.
Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski, at age forty-one or forty-two, the records varied, had taken more human lives than any other person in modern history—some said he'd taken a life for every pound of his weight. As is often the case the myth did not match the horror of the reality. Personally, he'd quit keeping a tally in the mid-sixties, but he was certain the count was well over five hundred.
Daniel Bunkowski, a.k.a. "Chaingang," headhunter of mercenaries, executioner extraordinaire, butcher and heart-taker, was the worst serial killer of the twentieth century. In legal wheels and with his choice of disposable identities, he drove through the bright lights of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, crossed the river into Kansas City, Kansas, and turned down on a service road that accessed the river. He parked and got out of the car.
He knew this place. The hideous, violent history of his hellish childhood poured across his mindscreen. He stood, perfectly inert, an immense statue in the shadows of the river, soaking in the stinging memories.
The cons had a saying about him inside. Chaingang had nothing but his hate, they said, with the common wisdom of the joint. In truth, it was what nurtured and sustained him. He was motivated by it. He opened himself to the pain and fed off of it.
Overhead in the darkness, headlights of passing cars illuminated moments of moving time, as he saw it inside the strangeness of his mind. The traffic noise was a continuous humming sound and he willed it to feed him, as he stored away fury.
When he was ready, he returned to the vehicle, changed clothes, got back in the car, and resumed his journey back to the place of his birth.
Imagine that his headlights are those you see in your rearview mirror. Exercise the greatest care. Drive defensively and for God's sake don't slam on the brakes unexpectedly. In the vehicle behind you is a man-mountain of brutality; a gifted presentient with an I.Q. that warps every curve; a killer whose secret biochemistry deviates from every known pattern. A giant of destruction follows you, waiting for you to become vulnerable—to show him that you are a potential victim. Make no mistakes tonight, dear heart. Death waits. Behind you. In the shadows.
Kansas City, Missouri
One big man parked his wheels, but another got out and used the pay phone. It was yet a third who payed the week in advance at Mid-America Parking, a fourth who summoned the taxicab and rode to the Hyatt. Some might have found all this a trifle confusing, but juggling disposable personas wasn't even a flyspeck as far as challenging Daniel Bunkowski's mental abilities.
"Thank you, sir," the cabbie told him, pocketing a slightly excessive tip. The man who took his bags received a similar gratuity from the extremely large, but well-dressed Giles Cunningham, whose company, York Sprinklers, Inc., of York, Pennsylvania, had called ahead the day before.
The caller priced the clubrooms, but decided instead on a guest room accommodation for two evenings. The seasonal day rate at Kansas City, Missouri's Hyatt Regency was eighty dollars, which Mr. Cunningham felt was more than reasonable after enjoying their luxurious and remarkably comfortable accommodations.
"Hello." The gigantic figure in the three-piece suit beamed down at the woman behind the front desk. "My company has made a phone reservation in my name. Giles Cunningham? From York, Pennsylvania?"
"Yes, sir," she said after consulting the computer beside her. "We have you in one of our guest room accommodations, double-bed, single-person occupancy for tonight and Saturday night—is that correct?"
"That's it. I'll confirm checkout tomorrow, if that's okay."
"Fine. How did you wish to take care of this?" The young woman was quite professional and did not appear to be the least flustered by the sight of a human woolly mastodon towering above her. "Are we charging this to your credit card, Mr. Cunningham?"
"I'll just pay cash, if I may," he said expansively, pulling out a huge wad of what appeared to be hundred-dollar bills and dexterously peeling two crisp C-notes off the outside before returning it to his voluminous pocket.
She smiled professionally and began making change. He thought how easily he could reach over the counter, grab her by the hair, and crush her skull against the desk.
"Here you are, sir," she said, telling him his room number, in case he was too stupid to read it off the door opener. He thanked her and in no time was in an upwardly mobile elevator, looking down at the head of a bellhop some two feet shorter and three hundred pounds lighter. He imagined how pleasant it would be to twist the man's neck until it snapped, then shove the body up through the ceiling trapdoor.
"In town for the show?" the bellhop asked.
"Unn," Chaingang grunted in a tone that could have meant anything, yes, no, or fuck you.
"You brought that hot weather with you," the man said, smiling. He was the type who always joked in Chaingang's presence, made intensely uncomfortable by the awesome size of the man. Bunkowski stared down at him without a flicker of response.
The smaller man carried a heavy suitcase, a used knockoff of a Vuitton that had been purchased that morning in a pawnshop. The two-suiter was full of Goliath-size apparel just purchased at Mr. Hy's Big, Tall, and Stout Shop there in the Crown Plaza shopping complex. The sign read, MR. HY'S HAS SOMETHING OF EVERY SIZE! In truth, the shop had been able to fit Chaingang with shirts, slacks—to be hemmed to a basketball player's inseam length—socks, a tie, an
ascot
for God's sake—two sweaters and a blazer. They'd had to say no to the 15EEEEE footwear, so he would have to make do with his burnished oxfords and the combat boots which he routinely wore.
The moment he was alone in the room behind a closed door, he began peeling off his clothes until he was nude, and then surveyed the wreckage of his personal treasury. The center of the huge flash roll of hundreds that he carried was, of course, blank paper.
He'd spent the night in a fleabag motel over on the Kansas side, and bright and early had been up looking at the storefront and industrial rentals. A deposit had gone on a second-floor cubicle of office space recently vacated by a fly-by-night ad agency. A tattoo parlor had tried to make a go of it downstairs, but had gone in the toilet subsequent to the AIDS epidemic. It was a shade more than he wanted to spend but it was isolated and—as a plus—it had a small bathroom with a sink.
The Southwestern Bell folks would be getting a healthy deposit, too, since the "Norville Galleries," which would be occupying the office space, hadn't had previous phone service. A quickie printer was doing some signage and letterhead stuff, and within the next forty-eight hours or so the company would be open for business.
"What kind of business is this?" the landlord wanted to know, as he counted the money for the closet-size office on East Minnesota Avenue.
"I'm in the mail-order game," the big man informed him, giving him a moment of terrible anguish as he came down hard on the poor fellow's foot. "Oh, my Lord. I'm sorry!" He was most apologetic. He had kind of "lost his balance" and something like five hundred pounds of meat had come to rest on the landlord's bunions. The guy had wanted to ask about this mail-order business the new tenant was going to be doing, but by then all he wanted to do was put some distance between himself and the behemoth whose money he'd just accepted. The name of his reference had been one Giles Cunningham, of York Sprinklers, Inc. The landlord might or might not realize that he'd given the address of the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Everything was going according to schedule, Chaingang thought, surveying his vast nakedness in the mirror. He cranked the air conditioning down another notch and picked up the telephone, summoning the front desk.
"Yes, this is Mr. Cunningham. I'm going to be getting a couple of telephone calls this evening—perhaps—and tomorrow, which will be for a business I own here in town called the Norville Galleries. If I should get any calls for the Norville Galleries, that's me." He made sure they noted his room number. "Kindly pass this along to the other operators, would you? It's very important. I appreciate it. Thanks!" He waited a few minutes and called back and spelled
N-o-r-v-i-l-l-e
for the person on the switchboard, drumming the name into their head by repetition. When he went out later he would call for himself using another voice, and they'd ring an empty room.
He decided that the haircut was next. He put on a change of clothes and took the elevator back downstairs. The newspaper ad was set to hit in the next morning's
Kansas City Star
classifieds. One or two more details to attend to and the Norville Galleries would be well on its way. Another entrepreneurial success story: the American Mercantile Dream in full bloom.
E
laine Roach needed to find work in the worst way. But even as badly as she needed this job, and as intriguing as it sounded—when she'd responded to the Help Wanted classified ad in the
Saturday Star
—the idea of calling on a man in his
hotel
room was anathema to her. She was terribly nervous. While she was coming up in the elevator, her knees started knocking together and she became so suddenly chilled that she feared she'd get violently ill. She nearly punched the lobby button and rode back down, but having to face another Monday morning without employment was a fear as terrifying as this one. She screwed her courage and marched down the hallway, the scrap of paper with Mr. Norville's room number clutched in one of her gloved hands. Even her knock on the door was prim.
"It's open!" a voice screeched from inside. She saw an immense and flagrantly homosexual man seated on the bed speaking into a telephone. "Come in. Be seated," he snapped, the mouthpiece covered so the other party could not hear him, presumably, motioning her toward a chair with a limp-wristed gesture. "I'll be with you in a moment." He turned away and spoke into the phone.
"No—it's someone about the position. All right, I'll see you when I get to the Coast. Yes…Um-hmm…I don't have room for those in my warehouse locally. I'll let you know when we move to the new building. All right. See you in Los Angeles Tuesday evening.
Au revoir!
" He hung up dramatically. He knew approximately how long the desk clerk usually took to get to the phones at this time of the day. He'd mistimed it slightly, by chance, but his huge paw had covered the mouthpiece when he'd turned and blocked her vision.
"So sorry, my dear. I'm having a perfectly hectic day. My name is Tommy Norville," he announced and swished across the room to greet the woman, who stood up, no longer quite so nervous, but exceedingly puzzled. A 400-plus-pound simpering queen takes a bit of getting used to. They shook hands. He offered a massive hand as if it had no bones in it, and when the woman took it she felt as if she'd grabbed a fat ten-pound perch as he gave her his best impression of a dead-fish handshake.
As usual, he'd sized her up instantly and she was perfect. Utter perfection. The woman was wearing a hat such as nobody had worn in twenty years and white gloves!
"I'm Elaine Roach," she said. "I phoned you about the position in the antique gallery," she told him unnecessarily. An unattractive woman, made more so by a severe hair style—prematurely ugly hair—she was a spinster in her early fifties who could easily pass for Social Security age, due to both her appearance and deportment.
"Yes, Miss Roach, I think your qualifications may do." He turned in a dainty pirouette like an elephant in a tutu, and swished back across the room, bidding her to sit with a limp paw that gestured as if it held a fairy wand. One fear—her greatest, in fact—that of being raped, was no longer relevant.
Norville was dressed flamboyantly, in what she thought of as "sissy businessman" clothing, his hair cut very short on the top and streaked, the twenty-dollar drugstore bifocals down on his nose. They were the kind with the cord attached, and they gave his dimpled face a sort of benevolent and oddly feminine look. He wore a silk shirt, a turtleneck sweater under it that accented his hugely fat double chin, with a loud pocket silk flowing from the pocket of his blazer.
"I haven't worked since I lived in Portland," she said in a quiet voice, her eyes downcast. She was used to being turned down.
"Excellent," he simpered. "Your head won't be filled with wrong work concepts." He was a master at camouflaged doublespeak. After a few minutes in his presence one almost began to make sense out of his utterances, so seemingly connected were the cleverly pseudologic patterns. "Do you have family here?" he asked pleasantly, crossing his legs and almost suffocating as he did so.
"No. Not anymore. Everyone's passed away. My brother and his wife and their two children are all I have, and that's who I was working for when I lived in Portland. If I may ask, what exactly would this position with your antique gallery entail?" She was seated so primly it was all he could do not to walk over and touch her, just to see how high she would jump. Her legs were squeezed so tightly together it was absurd. She held a huge purse in front of her private parts, clasped in a death grip by those hands encased in the stupid white gloves. He couldn't have selected someone more ideal. Chaingang thought he might be in love!
"Of course. Primarily you'd be responsible for keeping our financial records, which are simple in the extreme. You'd open our small amount of business mail that comes in from the periodical auction, cash the checks and so on, and answer the phone. It would not be a demanding job for more than a few days each mouth—the sort of business when things are hectic for a couple of days and then you just sit around idle until the next auction comes up." Consciously, he was forcing his word patterns to match hers. The question that began "what exactly would this position with your antique gallery entail?" was echoed, for instance, in the phrase "the sort of business when things are hectic." He had matched the rise and fall of her speech cadences precisely.