Jericho's Razor Page 7

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “What is obvious to me is your rather blatant attempt to misdirect my investigation.”

  “Torrez, pull your head out of your ass for ten seconds and consider the possibility that I am telling the truth!” I felt my grip tighten on the phone and forced myself to calm down. Screaming at Torrez wasn’t going to get me anywhere. “What if this video is legit? What if there is a killer who is right now stalking his next victim, who just happens to be a member of the most powerful family in the state, and you failed to act?”

  “There are over two dozen officers patrolling that area. If somebody really were stupid enough to try something, they would certainly fail. But feel free to come by in the morning and show me this message.”

  “You’re not going to go check this out?”

  “Sands, check what out? You claim to have a video of a street. So the fuck what? Is there any real threat being made? Is there any mention of an intended victim, or better yet, a possible perpetrator? Since you are remaining silent, I am going to conclude that the answer to these questions is no. So I ask again, what exactly do you want me to check out?”

  “‘Murder is in the air,’ Torrez. I haven’t seen that on the news, which means it wasn’t released. How did the person who sent this know about it?”

  “You should watch the news more. Oh, wait. You were in lockup. If you weren’t too busy attacking priests, you would know that ‘Murder is in the air!’ went out over an hour ago.”

  “What?”

  “It was leaked. I don’t know by who, but I was working on finding out when you called and interrupted me. Anyone could have it, which makes your alleged video as useful as a writer who thinks he can tell cops their job.”

  He hung up. Doomsday looked at me, as though asking what I was going to do. The decision did not take long.

  Chapter Seven

  Torrez was right about one thing: There was enough of a police presence downtown to invade a small country. The mile-and-a-half stretch that covered the club district was barricaded with heavy orange road-construction barrels. Officers stood alongside their patrol cars, watching intently as though waiting for some unseen danger to leap from the shadows. They eyed the crowds like gunfighters. Uniformed powder kegs just waiting for a match.

  The gun tucked under my leather jacket suddenly felt heavy and obvious. Heading into an area filled with fidgety cops while carrying a loaded firearm did not seem like the best decision. Gus Tanner would surely chew me out for it. But I wasn’t about to go unarmed in search of a maniac who cut a ’person’s head off with a chainsaw.

  Taking a spot in line for the Dungeon would be too time-consuming, not to mention pointless. Bouncers at the door had a list of people who were not allowed inside, and I was right at the top. I turned the corner and entered the alley. I knew that many of the staff used the service entrance. I was betting that I would find someone back there.

  I lucked out. Standing in the service entrance, propping open the door with his foot, was a young kid with spiky blonde hair. He wore black pants and a black-and-red button-up shirt that looked like a drunk threw up on it. If he had been a member of security, I never would have stood a chance. But the kid was most likely a bartender, working this job while attending classes at the college and living on tips. He took long drags from his cigarette while looking down at his cell phone. I approached casually, waving as I drew near.

  “Hey, man. That line out there is a killer and I gotta use the can. You think you can let me in?”

  The kid backed up. His eyes bulged like I was Godzilla.

  “No way, man. I know who you are. Watts would kill me if he knew I let you in here.”

  I held out a fifty-dollar bill. It immediately got his attention.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Daniel.”

  “Okay, Daniel, maybe your boss wouldn’t appreciate you letting me in. But who is going to tell him?”

  Daniel looked around as though suspecting a trick. But his eyes finally landed on the money. He stared at the bill while rubbing his jaw.

  “I don’t know. I could get in a lot of trouble. I could lose my job.”

  I was ready for this. I reached in my pocket and pulled another fifty. Daniel’s eyes lit up. He spent another few seconds pretending to consider it, but in the end, greed won out. He swiped the money and turned his back to the door. I hurried inside, finding myself in a storeroom. Almost everyone who patronized downtown had heard the rumors about this storeroom; it was allegedly where the security team known as the Brute Squad would take drunk and unruly patrons and rough them up before tossing them into the alley. For those misguided few who actually resisted, they would be pounced upon like a rabbit surrounded by a hungry pack of wolves. Dark, ominous stains on the concrete floor gave the rumors all the credence I needed. I quickly found the door and in seconds was mingling with the stream of bodies.

  The Dungeon was built in the 1930s as a Catholic church. It was a fixture in town and the center of a large congregation, until faulty wiring and a leaky roof forced them out. Rather than invest the time and money it would have required to bring the building back up to code, the church moved into a more residential neighborhood. The building collected cobwebs, until it was purchased by Eric Watts. Newly released from the NFL, pockets still flush from his rookie contract, Watts bought the building and had it converted into a nightclub. The decor was simple. Watts hired a team of designers and told them to make it look like Hell. From saints to sinners.

  Hell Kat was onstage and performing one of their standards, a cover of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.” It had all the angst and attitude of the original, but with a primal venom that Katrina added. She wore black fishnets and black knee-high boots with three-inch heels. Her naturally auburn hair was dyed the color of an aged merlot. She looked like a hooker who would give you a night of passion you had never before experienced, and then slit your throat.

  I noted that even here, in this den of debauchery, precautions were being taken. The floor space directly in front of the stage had been sectioned off in a ten-foot demilitarized zone. The gap was guarded by large, no-neck bulls wearing taut black T-shirts with BRUTE SQUAD emblazoned in red lettering. I was certain that Katrina, a renowned crowd surfer, had argued against pushing back the mosh pit. It was nice to see that Watts had actually stood up to her and exercised some good judgment. Of course, given enough time and enough alcohol, Katrina would probably just jump it.

  The band ended the song to a roar from the crowd. By and large, the people were dressed in costume. Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger were all in attendance. Lizzie Borden entered the club hand in hand with George W. Bush, who had a hatchet buried in his back. And the Grim Reaper took up the rear, easily six-foot-six, standing like an omen. It made my black-over-black attire seem tame. It also made searching for anyone legitimately dangerous impossible. In this sea of monsters, serial killers, and demons, everyone was a threat.

  On stage, Katrina belted out lyrics that would send the former pastors of this converted church into hysteria. But there was no denying her talent. Whether harmonizing or hollering, Katrina Masters still had the best voice I had ever heard. And she caught me staring. She looked down at me and smiled. It was not a nice smile. I knew it well. I also knew what was coming.

  “This next song is for a special someone! Someone I hold near and dear to my heart!”

  The crowd roared, sensing what was coming. Beer bottles and voices were raised.

  “Have you ever fallen for the wrong person?”

  The crowd cheered.

  “And has that person ever fucked you over?”

  More cheers. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or like Katrina Masters armed with a Gibson Firebird and a microphone. She belted out rapid-fire punk chords that sent the mosh pit swirling like a whirlpool. Her lyrics came like knives into my back.

  Let me tell you all about a guy I know

  A rot
ten piece of shit named Jericho

  Spawned from the devil under a wicked name

  Heart as Black as his fictitious name

  She was into it, belting out her vocals with fire and hostility. The crowd loved it, unaware that the inspiration for the song stood only a few feet away. If they knew, they probably would have torn me to shreds.

  Katrina finished the song, gave me a jackal grin, and headed for the rear entrance to the stage. I dropped a shoulder and cut a path through the sea of inhumanity toward the stairs. I was constantly bumped as people made their way up, shuffling in costumes, partially blinded by masks and nearly tripping over cloaks. A mummy fell backward into me, causing me to stumble into one of the members of the Brute Squad. I panicked for a moment, thinking that the security guard would recognize me and toss me into the alley via the storeroom. But the brute simply shoved me back up the stairwell, too busy in his own pursuit for a quick nicotine fix to notice. I was grateful to finally get out of the crowded stairwell and outside.

  The converted smoking lounge on the second floor offered an up-close and personal view of the river. The bridge was lit up and looked like a glowing ornament against the black night sky. Katrina was in the far corner, smoking a cigarette in a tight group of people, huddled close together as though trying to preserve body heat. Mostly obscured behind a wall of bodies from across the roof, she still spotted me almost instantly. I approached boldly, making my way through the crowd until I was close enough to be breathing the same nicotine-tinged air. I felt the hostile stares of Katrina’s friends and bandmates.

  “That song gets sweeter every time I hear it,” I said.

  “What the fuck do you want, Sandman?” She still called me that, although now she put a slightly more angry ring to it.

  “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  “I didn’t say it was nice to see you. Although it might be nice to see what Eric and his goons will do to you when they catch you here.”

  “I know. It’s so Shakespearean.”

  “Nice reference, seeing as how everybody tends to die at the end of all his plays.”

  “Have you got a minute?” I motioned to a corner of the roof that was secluded.

  “Tons. But none for you.”

  I felt my teeth grinding. “Two minutes,” I said. “And then I’ll leave you the hell alone.”

  She took a long drag, staring at me, radiating hostility. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘what the hell?,’ exhaling the smoke from her nostrils like a wild bull. I followed her, grateful to get some separation from her friends. I eyed her cigarette, craving one but willing myself to resist. Katrina read me. She always could.

  “Are you quitting?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m working on it, anyway.”

  “What have the doctors told you?” When Katrina and I still shared a bed, I would often spend hours coughing hard enough to wake her. My morning ritual of hacking phlegm into the kitchen sink was something with which she was well familiar.

  “They say I have lungs of an eighty-year-old coal miner.”

  “Two packs a day will do that.” She took a long, slow, satisfying drag, savoring it like a sommelier sampling a fine Bordeaux.

  “You need to be careful tonight.”

  “I’m fine, Sandman. Nobody is getting to me here.”

  “Really? I just did. I could have killed you two or three times by now.”

  “Hardly. Esmerelda would have gnawed your legs off if I hadn’t called her off. We both spotted you when you came out.”

  I looked back at the drummer. Esmerelda was five-eight, close to two hundred pounds, and a former amateur kickboxer. Nobody outside of the band had ever heard her speak in anything other than short and violent grunts. In every relationship, there is always that one friend of your partner that just hates you. For me, that person was someone who could wrestle a hunk of meat from the jaws of a tiger shark.

  “Esmerelda notwithstanding, you need to be careful. There is a seriously fucked-up psychopath running around town.”

  “I know. I’m looking at him right now.”

  I had a dozen snappy responses, but I held back, watching Katrina’s hair blow in the breeze, remembering how that hair used to look scattered over my bed. Taking a breath, I took a new approach.

  “I don’t understand why you are so pissed off. What did I really do?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  Katrina shook her head. “Jesus, Sandman. How can you be so smart and yet so clueless?”

  “Years of practice.”

  “You want to know what you did? You attacked my brother! You twisted his arm so hard that you nearly broke it off! And then you tossed him in a fucking Dumpster!”

  “He was being an asshole!”

  “That’s because he is one! But he is my brother, you stupid fucking maniac! And when you tossed him out with the trash, you tossed me in with him!”

  I had nothing to say to that. “Sorry” might have been a good start. Except I wasn’t sorry. Despite costing me my relationship with Katrina, I hadn’t regretted tossing Preston in that Dumpster for one second. And Kat knew it. She knew that if I had it to do over, I would do the same exact thing.

  As I fumbled for something to say, I saw Kat’s eyes flash at something over my shoulder. Before I had time to move, I was grabbed by a corn silo with feet wrapped in a black Brute Squad T-shirt. Standing behind him was Eric Watts. The security guard hammered a meaty fist into my gut. Every breath of air I had ever taken suddenly blew out of me in one violent burst. My vision was fuzzy, and I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Through the fog, I saw Watts approach. The club owner was far removed from his football playing days, but still an imposing figure. He threw a hard kick into my stomach.

  “Nice of you to drop by, Jericho.”

  “Thanks, Eric. You kick like a one-legged girl. No wonder the Raiders cut your ass.”

  Watts followed his kick with three more. I resisted the urge to puke, but eyed his boots.

  “Hey, what size are those?”

  “What?”

  “Your boots. What size are they?”

  “Tell you what. After I toss you over the side, you can measure the marks on your ribs.”

  The guard hoisted me like a 180-pound bag of trash and dragged me to the ledge. I was vaguely aware of my shoes dragging across the surface of the roof, of people’s voices in the background. I suddenly noticed what was in front of me, or rather below. Just over two stories down, sitting in the alley from which I had entered, was a Dumpster. Its lid was open, and it looked packed.

  “Oh, the irony of it all. The congressman is going to love me for this. Too bad you have a thing for screwed-up women, Sands.”

  The next thing I knew, I was falling. Watts snapped a picture with his phone.

  Consciousness returned to find me in darkness and pain. Several parts of my spine felt like they were no longer arranged in the order nature intended. A splinter from a broken beer bottle jutted out of my leg. My pants and jacket were covered in detritus from the popping trash bags.

  Karma can be a real bitch.

  The screen on my phone was cracked, but I could still read the time display. It was 10:37 PM. I had blacked out for roughly forty minutes, and thanks to the alley being shielded from Main Street, my swan dive had gone unnoticed. As my hands groped for the edge of the Dumpster, I heard yelling in the alley. I pulled myself up and saw people running out the side door, screaming, trampling each other to get out. Dark waves of smoke trailed in their wake. Screams of “Fire!” rang through the walls of the alley and bounced around like bullets.

  I climbed out and immediately fell to the ground, still too weak and battered to keep myself upright. The beer bottle shank slid further into my leg, burying itself under the skin. Nobody noticed me laying in the path to freedom, and I had to roll out of the way to avoid being trampled. After getting clearheaded and rising to my feet, I yelled into the melee to ask if anyone ha
d seen Katrina. Nobody answered. Nobody even glanced in my direction. They were all too busy fleeing certain death. I pushed my way against the tide, getting knocked around by bodies, fighting my way through the crowd until I was back inside the building. Smoke filled most of the room. It moved in dark angry waves across the club, climbing the walls and covering the ceiling. The crackle of flames sounded like rising souls from Hell looking for people to drag back down with them.

  If before the Dungeon was an admirable facsimile of Hell, it was now the genuine article. Demons and vampires rushed in chaotic abandon, backlit by rising flames. In the center of the room, Dracula’s cape caught fire; he ran in panicked circles trying to extinguish the blaze until the fire crawled upward, advanced to his body, and forced him to the ground.

  I ran toward the stairs and found a door. It was closed and bore a sign that read RESTRICTED ACCESS. KEEP THE FUCK OUT! Eric’s office, with a custom sign because a normal KEEP OUT sign just wasn’t badass enough for him. I reached for the doorknob just as a voice in my head shouted, Don’t! Too late. The scalding metal seared my hand. I jerked it back and kicked the door open, cursing myself for being stupid enough to grab it. I did not expect to find anybody inside. Katrina and Eric were likely among the first to escape. They were probably long gone.

  But I was wrong.

  Eric Watts was slumped back in a chair behind the desk. A gunshot wound was dead center in what was left of his head. On the wall, next to a collage made of Eric Watts’s brain cavity, was the number 4. The murder weapon had been a .45 caliber revolver with a ten-pound pull on the trigger. Smooth action and moderate kick.

  Mine.

  I saw it on the floor beside the chair, cast aside just as my chainsaw had been. Eric must have grabbed it on the roof before ordering me tossed over the side. I thought about making a grab for it when someone shouted behind me.

  “Freeze!”

  I did. I could feel his presence directly behind me, just to the left. He would be aiming his weapon at the square at my back, just like his partner had the night before.

  “Hey, Torrez. Glad you could make it.”