The Creep (4 page)

Harvey finished his coffee, although it was cold. He was deep in thought, taking it all in. He knew this guy was for real. He was intrigued and wondered where it would all end. A shiver went down his spine.

"First
rule is
don't
get caught, but that's my joke." Bishman wasn't laughing, his ice-blue eyes just bugged out of his head like chapel hat pegs. Other than that he remained completely expressionless. He lit a cigarette from the butt of the last one. Harvey felt another cold shiver go down his spine.

"Another thing of course is that the statistics the police and press release are wildly out. Out of the twenty-five thousand people murdered in America every year they say only about five thousand go unsolved, which is bullshit. The reason it's bullshit is they don't
include the files on the missing persons. Most of the serial killers' victims will never be found because they're buried under rocks and earth, six feet underground. So the real figure stands at about ten thousand murders a year unsolved. Instead of being listed as murder victims they're listed as missing persons, which throws the true unsolved murder figures right out.

"The serial killer is hard to track because he doesn't have an M.O. Every murder's different.
H
e could be hiding in a closet in someone's home, waiting underneath someone's car or in the back of it. He might meet a hitchhiker, or come across someone on a river embankment or train carriage. He takes advantage of each situation as it arises and uses whatever weapons are to hand.
Many folk believe that serial killers don’t use guns and
that is one of the biggest myths of all time. The fact is they use the all guns time and they frequently steal them from houses, stores and from people they’ve killed. They tend to shoot people, often at random,
as they traverse the figure-of-
eight loop. The
y
call it fun with a gun on the run.
Boogaloo.

"The other thing is that men get raped all the time, just as much as women, but they hardly ever report it. The victim could be walking through a park and two guys, even one guy, jumps him and fucks him up the poop chute. Many times a serial killer will rape both female and male victims, whether they're dead or alive.

"The rules of the game are simple. The first one is that once you've killed someone you put the miles in. That's the biggest secret of all. Doesn't matter what a cop has as evidence, if you're a hundred miles away or better still thousands of miles away, what good are a few pubic hairs, skin samples from under a victim's finger nails, semen, blood or even fingerprints? It's a joke.

"The second thing is, if you steal
something,
make sure it's small and disposable.
Things like watches, rings, jewelry, antique pens,
cash
- they're OK, obviously. All things that can be thrown out of a car window and all things that the fences will pay you cash for; ten cents on the dollar, no questions asked. If the items are thrown out, then they're nothing to do with you. Don't ever get caught with anything that connects you to
the scene of a crime. Many times I would even dump my sneakers and put on another pair so there was no dust or dirt from the crime scene. Sneakers cost about five bucks these days or you can pick them up at the Salvation Army for free.

"The last thing is, use safe parking techniques all the time, whether you own or borrow cars, even if you steal them.

"These jerks
who
get caught, they've got subconscious death wishes. They want to get caught. That's why they operate within a hundred-mile radius of where they live, they deliberately leave clues to alert the cops and show how big they are. They're too stupid to put the miles in.
Assholes!

"The other thing that's obvious is
,
the serial killer never carries weapons. He uses weapons, but he never carries them, so he's never caught with anything that links him to a crime. There are weapons everywhere. Every job you do, every break-in has weapons,
every
household has a gun somewhere. At the very least they have kitchen knives or screwdrivers and hammers in the garage.

"When you're on the street there are weapons all around you can use. Iron bars, debris, two-by-fours, trashcan lids, rope, wire, bottles.
And when that runs out you have your bare hands, which are favored by a lot of serial killers anyway,
Bo
ogaloo.
You always have your
hands,
you never leave home without them.
Boogaloo."

He bugged his eyes and stared coldly.
H
e was as cold as a witch's tit.

"There's killing in cold blood, and there's killing in hot blood. Serial killers always kill in cold blood. They have time to think and plan and are always prepared to put the distance in. Fights break out and weapons are flashed and people get killed in the heat of an argument. That's killing in hot blood. No plan. They're not prepared
to
leave the scene of the crime and they get caught."

Bishman picked up his coffee mug with more force than wa
s necessary, he thought it was it was fu
ll, when in fact it was empty. The cup went right up in the air. Harvey noticed and topped up the coffees.

"As
you
know, making money takes power, but the ultimate power is taking lives in a controlled and orderly manner, as and when you please. Ask John F. Kennedy. He'd tell you the exact same thing, if he could. The ultimate
power lies in a small cylinder, about one and a half inches long and half an inch in diameter. It's called a bullet." Bishman sat there for a moment without moving, as though he was stuck, then he reached out for a cigarette, which he lit with a bent paper match.

"Coming back to safe parking techniques, you were saying
..?" Harvey raised his eyebrows, as if in questioning.

"Oh yeah, I lost my train of thought. It's
obvious really, but so many people get caught because they park their car in the wrong spot. You have to look out areas to see where your car will fit in, where your car looks the same as others and you won't stick out like a sore thumb.
Important if you're doing a burglary or abduction in a well-to-do neighborhood.

"It's best to park your car well away from where you actually commit the crime, then walk back to your car in your black track suit which you shed on the way back to the car. The last
thing
you lose are your sneakers. You can drop these in a trash can as you drive away. The other thing is, always park with the car facing outwards, just in case you have to make a quick getaway. Never use angle parking where you'd have to reverse into a busy main road.

"OK,
it's
all common sense, but you've got to remember most serial killers get caught by accident, doing the most stupid things.

"I used to spend hours laying on my bed fantasizing all sort of things. Rape, murder, sex, what it was like to have a baby. That's an interesting one. If you've wondered what it would be like for a guy to have a baby, imagine swallowing a grapefruit
...
whole. I'd fantasize ripping women, shooting and just about every sexual fantasy you can think of. I'd lay there for hours. In actual fact I've carried out most of my fantasies.

"The first time I decided to go out and kill someone I put a .357 Magnum and a shovel in the trunk of my beat-up Mustang and I drove around looking for a hitchhiker. I drove around for a complete summer and I never saw a soul.
The thing was, every time I drove around a rotary or went around a corner quickly the gun and shovel would slide from one side of the trunk to the other and frighten the shit out of me."

Bishman stopped. Behind those cold, death eyes, Harvey could see the recall process going on. But just as suddenly, the memory bank switched tack:

"The more you drink, the more you need to keep up the buzz. You know? In the end we were drinking pints of vodka, whiskey, rum,
beer
, anything we could get our hands on. Except I never touched gin, I couldn't, I told you that.

"The more we got into booze and drugs the more we needed to keep the buzz going. I was out of it most of the time. In the end I thought I could actually see lice under my skin and ended up back in detox. There wasn't anything there
really,
it was all in my mind, but I'm OK now.
Yeah
B
oogaloo.

"The same started happening with sex. In the end straight sex with girls was no good. After a booze session one night, I woke up in the morning in a strange room and was getting the most fantastic head I'd ever had. I looked up and it was a guy going down on me! After that I went right off females and we started fucking each other.

"The first time I ever fucked a guy up the
ass,
I pulled out and had a tomato skin on my helmet. Tomatoes don't digest too
good
that's why you always see tomatoes growing near sewage
works, because the seeds and skins go straight through you."

Harvey interrupted Bishman
’s
train of
thought. "Bob, do you want to tell me about when you were a kid, even before you chug-a-lugged the bottle of gin. Tell me about the years before that. Is that on?
More coffee?"
Harvey moved over to the Cona machine that had stopped hissing and was now emanating an aromatic smell of fresh-brewed coffee.

"Yeah, cream, five sugars. Yeah I'll tell you about Mommy fuckin' dearest. I used to get beaten with a belt and stripped and thrown in the coal cellar, all the normal stuff, I've had it all happen to me.
Fucked me up.
But I'm all right now. My father fucked my ass when I was seven and I fucked my sister when I was about twelve. Incest is best. The game the whole family can play, right! Keep it in the family, right?

"My father used to work at the docks as a stevedore. He was always drunk and beat on my mother. My sister went through hell, she O.D'd way back. My mother used to give us enemas. My mother never held
me, that
I remember. Never once held
me,
touched me or told me she loved me. Ever! Mommy fuckin' dearest! You've heard that expression, right?
Boogaloo."
Bishman sat and stared emotionless. No tears, no love, no feeling, no nothing. Just ice-blue eyes bugging out like a monster.

"Bob, anytime you want to stop, or not talk about something you just let me know. No problem. I know you've been through a lot." Harvey held his coffee mug to warm his hands and his spirit, and was thinking,
at the age of thirty
-
ei
ght, a study of hate.

"Bob, you've got an interesting story to
te
ll. You've been through enough for ten lifetimes. I think I can help you. I know you don't have money, and that's OK, I have plenty of money. What I don't have is much free time, and as you know I didn't intend to take on private clients.
H
ypnotic regression can take quite a time and it'll he draining for both of us.

"I'll make a deal with you. You show up at the appointments when I set them, wherever I set them, and we'll start work. You can meet me here, say, on Wednesdays, but I don't like using the office all that much. I hate being tied to one place. Not only that, most of the work I do is done in here." Harvey tapped his head. "If you're up for meeting me in S
anta Monica or Venice or the H
ollywood Hills, we can work together. Don't tell anyone what we do or talk about and don't come to sessions drunk or doped up. Do we have a deal?"

"I
t's a deal.
Boogaloo."
Bishman b
ugged his eyes and stretched forth his hand.

"First meeting here, next Wednesday morning at nine."

"I'll be here. I want to know when you're actually going to hypnotize me," quizzed
B
ishman.

"You were hypnotized the minute you walked into my office and shook my hand."
H
arvey smiled as he opened the door and Bishman walked out into a blast of hot air and Californian sunshine.