The Creep (17 page)

Bishman was humming, as was his way. His tune for the night was
Soldiers Who Want
To
Be Heroes Number Practically Zero, But There Are Millions, Who Wanna Be Civilians.

There was no-one about. No-one he could see at least, although intuitively he knew he was being watched. So what!

A solitary cricket made a loud '
crick
' then stopped. Bishman stopped by the cricket hoping it would chirp again, but it didn't. If it had, he'd have crushed it underfoot.

Bishman continued his walk along the path which was lit by a street lamp every fifty yards or so, enough to keep boogy men away, perhaps. Bishman
got halfway through humming his tune for the hundredth time when he heard somebody running up behind him
...
Shit!

Someone's trying to put a make on me and I haven't even got a gun on me. Balls!
,
thought
Bishman as he started looking around for weapons. Trashcan lids, wire, branches, rocks, bottles, anything
...
Fuck!

He knew timing was crucial. If he turned around too soon he may very well get blown away, extremely quickly.
There's
all sorts of jerks in this park. Lord only knows what they all do. He kept cool. Just when he thought the timing was perfect he spun around to confront his would-be-assailant. About six feet away and closing fast was a guy in his early twenties. He looked worried, even scared. He was right out of breath, panting
like hell. He ran right past Bishman as though he didn't even notice him and kept right on running. He ran even harder. This guy was in a big hurry.

Bishman's ears pricked up. Hell! He could hear somebody else running just as hard as the first. No, harder. A second man ran right past Bishman, he was also out of breath, a big gun swinging with the arc of his hand - Colt .45
revolver
by the looks of it.

Bishman watched as the second man gained on the first; only yards separated them as they reached the next lamp-post; hundreds of moths were flying around it. The second guy stretched out his arm, aimed and fired. The first guy was spectacularly lifted clean off the ground, about four feet, with the impact of the bullet, hanging there momentarily before crashing to the ground. The gunman was now walking towards his victim and Bishman, keeping in the shadows, moved closer. The gunman coolly and calmly stood over his victim and pumped in another five bullets. Each bullet made the body writhe, such was the impact. The report from the gun was loud enough to awaken the dead, but it didn't waken the guy on the ground.

Bishman froze. He had a succession of thoughts whizz through his mind.
Even if he has one shot left he'll be shooting at me in the dark, he's the one who's in the light. I'm gonna get that son-of-a-bitch if it's the last thing I do.

Bishman walked toward the gunman who was still standing over the body. He didn't move
,
it looked like he was frozen. It was kind of eerie, the dead man just lying there with the
gunman hovering above him.
The kind of vision that would stay with Bishman for ever, especially as he was unarmed.
Bishman closed. Another cricket chirped. Bishman had definitely stopped humming. The gunman stood stock-still, triumphant, like the Grim Reaper.
Thirty yards.
Bishman kept right on moving.
I'm going to kick that guy's balls so far up his ass he'll have to put his hand in his mouth to scratch them
, thought Bishman.
Twenty yards.

Suddenly, without any warning, the guy on the ground leapt up and burst out laughing. The gunman burst out laughing too and the two of them
legged
it off through the park like a couple of jack rabbits.

Bishman froze like a statue. He could hear peals of laughter way off in the distance, hoots of snickering, prankish cackling, two youths roaring in hysterics. It seemed to get louder and more raucous the further away they got. Cackling, hooting, snorting and cracking up, these two youths were having a blast with their big guffaws.

Bishman had a bad taste in his mouth. He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

When Harvey
took Bishman into hypnosis he never knew whereabouts in the country Bishman would start or finish. Bishman however, was usually exceedingly articulate and took great delight in
laboring
precise details:

Texas is the serial killer's killing field. Bodies disappear overnight. Unlike New York City, where murder victims usually turn up in trunks of cars or in the Hudson River, thousands of victims disappear in Texas never to be seen again.

A recently published report in Texas Medicine, the magazine of the Texas Medical Association, revealed that during 1990 three thousand, four hundred and forty-three people were killed by guns in the state of Texas.

In reality, the figure is probably two or three times higher, because Texas is the center point of the figure-of-eight loop that serial killers use as their circuit. Texas is also a state where there are no handgun restrictions, or extremely few. When you buy a gun there is no state law that requires a background check. Texas:
s
erial killers paradise!

Bishman had walked for miles. He knew he'd find some action but he wasn't sure what. He just knew he'd recognize it when he found it. This is exactly what Bishman was thinking to himself, as he happily hummed a tune he didn't know the name of, when he spotted an eerie glow in the sky that told him there was a large fire - maybe three miles off.
Certainly no more than four.
He could sense excitement and danger. This was what he had been looking for, he just knew it.

The flames attracted him like a moth to a lamp and as Bishman quickened his pace it reminded him of a joke. A
laborer
from Boise, Idaho, was helping his wife deliver their firs
t
baby. They lived out in the boondocks - no electricity, running water or gas. You've got the idea: Boise, right. As the wife was having the baby, the
laborer
held up a kerosene lantern to make sure
everything was going well. It was a perfect delivery. The wife even ate the placenta.

All of a sudden the wife started to moan again and the
laborer
held up the lamp again - and a second baby popped out. Soon after that the wife started to groan again and once more the
laborer
held up the lantern and a third baby appeared. The old
laborer
said, "I think it's the light that's attracting them." Just then Bishman remembered the name of the tune he was humming. It was
All Things Bright and Beautiful.

"What are you doing on ma property'?" bellowed an angry voice. Bishman jumped. He'd arrived sooner than he had anticipated. He snapped right out of his internal joke-telling and humming session.

"I just came to see if I could be of any help." Bishman spoke in a voice designed to calm down the angry farmer.

"Well, now that you've seen the fire is under control, you can fuck your butt right off ma property," said the farmer wielding a double-
barreled
, twelve-gauge shotgun.

Bishman could now clearly see the farmer and the shotgun - they were illuminated by the light of a gigantic fire that was in the shape of a huge horseshoe. It was about thirty feet high with flames shooting twice that height.

"My name's Bishman. I didn't know the fire was controlled. I thought you could use
some help
. What's that you're burning? I've never seen a fire like it." Bishman was trying to start a conversation and it wasn't easy.

"I'll tell you what it
is,
it's five thousand head of fuckin' cattle worth over a million bucks and ordered to be destroyed by the FDA because of hoof and mouth dis
ease. The foreman and crew all f
ucked themselves off outta here when they heard I was wiped out.
The bastards."

Bishman wiped the sweat from his brow. "So I can help you. You not only need a hand but I might be able to give you some ideas about starting over. I doubt the FDA will allow cattle on your ranch for at least two years so you gotta be thinking of doing something else." Bishman lit a cigarette.

"Something different my ass.
All I know is beef." The farmer pointed his shotgun to the monumental horseshoe of fire.

"Don't give me that
bullshit,
I know lots of fellas making lots of money doing a host of different things. Beef's only one of the games they play. I'll give you a few ideas. Garlic's one, mushrooms is another, organic farming is three and hydroponics is four, onions is five. If you can't play beef you gotta play one of the others. You don't have a choice." Bishman inhaled deeply.

"My ass, you got that right, fella. All I've been thinking about is quitting. You've just given me some damn good ideas to get me up and running again. The insurance will give me a grub stake to get started. Sure, not as much as I'd have gotten if these fuckers had gone to auction in the
fullness of time. But nevertheless enough to get me started on a new venture. What did you say your name was again?" The farmer put out his
hand,
Bishman sho
ok it and said, "Bishman. B
ob Bishman."

"Jack Jervis. My friends call me J.J., want a drop of this? It's fine Tennessee whiskey. I think you'll like it." He passed the silver hip flask to Bishman.

"Don't mind if I do." Bishman took a long swig, then another. It was good and it hit the spot.

They talked and drank and the flames shot about thirty feet in the air. J.J. explained to Bishman that the five thousand head of cattle had been bulldozed into position and covered with a thousand gallons of gasoline supplied by the FDA. Once it was ignited there was enough heat in the cattle to sustain the fire. The heat was so intense Bishman could smell his sneakers roasting and feel them melting. It was awful. J.J. said even the
bones would reduce to ash, Bishman believed him, the sweat was pouring from him. He mopped his brow again.

They finished the silver flask and J.J. went to the Suzuki jeep that was parked about a hundred yards off to get another bottle to top it up. They sat and drank some more. It was a good way to pass the time. The fire raged.

Bishman took a long swig and lit a cigarette. "Last time I was in Texas was about six months ago. I went to see an airshow. I can't say exactly where it was, but it sure was good. Some crazy bastard flew over the airfield ten feet off the
ground in a Grumman F-14 Tomcat, upside down. He must have hit the wrong button because the rockets on his ejector seat fired and blew him clean out of the cockpit. The plane crashed about twenty miles away."

"Kill him?" asked J.J., knowing the answer already.

"Kill him! It punched a fuckin' hole in the ground twenty feet deep. Nothing left of the guy except for jelly." Bishman suppressed a burp, then changed his mind and let it out.

J.J. went off for a piss,
then
strolled over to the Suzuki jeep to get another bottle. He had lots of ideas mulling over in his mind:
t
he future doesn't look so bleak after all. Odd how sometimes a stranger can come into your life at the right moment and change it completely.
This guy seems to know his stuff. Perhaps I can tap him for some more ideas.

On his return he was greeted with two barrels of the Winchester twelve-gauge shotgun being fired from a range of about six feet. J.J.'s vital organs all but disappeared and his body was practically severed in two. The smell of cordite was lost in the smell of roast beef. That tickled Bishman, who went to the Suzuki, picked up a shovel, a groundsheet and another bottle - the one J.J. had brought back with him had been vaporized in the shotgun blast.

Bishman scraped up the remains onto the ground sheet and threw them onto the fire along with the shovel and the shotgun. He was amused at how light the body was. He must have blown away more of J.J. than he realized.

He drove the jeep to San Antonio and parked it in a back street that was full of cars. It would probably be there a month before it was discovered. As an afterthought he wiped the steering wheel, gear lever and door handle with some Windex and tissues he found in the glove compartment.