A low burn of excitement ignited in the back of my mind at sight of Billy’s mutilated body. Disgusted, I forced the sensation down and stepped forward, then leaned over the body for a closer look.
I suddenly knew what had struck me as wrong about Crystal’s description of the murder scene. She had said the man who’d stabbed Billy wiped his knife on Billy’s hoodie. The body spread out before me was dressed in worn and soiled clothing—including a blood-smeared hoodie—all of it too tight. That was in contrast to Billy’s trademark tailored suits. His customary bling was gone, as well. He always wore multiple rings, a white-gold pendent, and a gold watch. None of that was present.
From my conversation with Crystal, I knew the mutilation to his head and hands had been caused by a sledgehammer. I scanned the alley. There had to be something left behind by whoever had killed him, a hint that might lead me to their identities or their whereabouts.
I walked in ever widening arcs out from the Dumpster, trying to locate some small clue. I realized the knife or the sledgehammer were too much to expect, but there might be a blood trail. Even a dropped quarter or dime. But there was nothing, just glimpses beneath the snow of the normal refuse that collects in a city alley around a Dumpster—fast food wrappers, beer cans, scraps of nondescript paper, used condoms, and other things I really didn’t want to think about.
I’d been hoping, too, for footprints, anything to indicate the route the killers might have taken into or out of the alley. But, predictably, the scene around the Dumpster had been well traveled, the snow trampled and packed, and there were far too many footprints to distinguish any in particular. I couldn’t determine which direction the killers had taken, entering or leaving.
In short, I found nothing that might help. But I did know that what Crystal had told me was true. Billy Simpson was dead.
***
My thoughts were clouded and grim by the time I reached the apartment. Not since Afghanistan had I seen anything like what I’d seen in that alley. I hadn’t expected anything like that in this part of the world, in this city. My legs were weak and shaky—something I wouldn’t have thought possible. Yet thought of the scene still brought a small flame of excitement to my mind. Not as intense as it had been in combat in Afghanistan, but present none the less.
Descending the five worn cement steps, I knocked on the door as I’d told Crystal I would, then used my key to let myself in. Although the comforter on the futon was considerably more rumpled than it had been before I left, I didn’t think she had been sleeping. Her gaze was unfocused, and her movements were jerkier than before as she glanced around the room and scratched at her neck. She hadn’t bothered to change the sheets.
I took the .44 from the small of my back, placed it on the table beside the easy chair. Crystal watched as I put the newspaper’s front section on top of it.
“What did you find?” she asked.
I straightened up. “Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Her voice quavered, and I knew my tactic had only frightened her more.
“Not nothing,” I said. “It was exactly what you described.”
She nodded hesitantly and seemed to calm somewhat.
“I have to go out again.”
“Why? Where?”
“I have to see someone.” I didn’t want to tell her who, or for what purpose. I didn’t know what would come of it.
After reinforcing the instructions about the knock and not opening the door, I told her to get some sleep, then went into the bathroom and shaved the stubble on both my head and my face. I took a quick shower. By the time I finished Crystal was asleep.
Not wishing to wake her, I took my dark blue three-piece pinstripe suit and fedora into the bathroom and dressed quickly and quietly. Then I went back into the living room/bedroom and took my overcoat from the closet. I tucked the .44 into its flap pocked and locked the deadbolt with my key as I left.
***
Snow still fell heavy and the wind howled. This was the season that produced blood about half the time when I blew my nose—the air was too cold to hold much moisture and it cracked my nasal membranes. It hurt to simply breathe. In spite of having retired from the Navy SEALs—forced to retire, I reminded myself—and arriving in Denver nearly three years ago, my body was still accustomed to a more humid climate.
If I’d spent those three winters in Denver with Sylvia, the city would have been a frozen wonderland, the weather not simply bearable, but actually fun. We would have skied in the mountains west of town after each storm. But without her, the storms were simply miserable, wet and cold—a general pain in the ass.
I walked to the Market Street station through the driving snow and caught the free shuttle bus toward the Broadway end of the Sixteenth Street Mall. Small LED lights strung in the leafless trees along the retail strip whipped in the wind. Some of the shop windows were decorated for the holiday with bright dioramas.
The shuttle was nearly empty and I sat in a side-facing seat near the front. Two drunks sat at the rear of the bus, watching me with obvious bad intent. I was positive both the scar on my face and my six-foot-seven, two-hundred-fifty pound frame kept them from jumping me. It certainly wasn’t the way I was dressed. My suit was cut to minimize my muscular build, no matter how unsuccessfully.
Part of me wanted them to try it. I craved the violence. Excitement again flared in my mind and I forced it down, even as my hand rested on the pistol in my coat pocket.
The shuttle ride up the mall gave me time to think, and my thoughts turned to Angel. The rat and I had talked again tonight, as we had so often in the past three years. I’d told her what I planned to do and why I planned to do it. And in the end, although reluctantly, she had agreed with my reasoning. After all, under the circumstances it was the only logical thing I could do.
Of course, I knew the rat hadn’t actually talked to me. It was all in my head, in my addled mind. I had been in a very fragile state tonight before Crystal knocked on my door and pulled me out of myself—much more so than most nights. It was on such nights that Angel and I talked.
How long had it been since I’d slept? Four, maybe five nights. Too damned long. But then, I didn’t want to sleep. I couldn’t. The nightmares came when I slept, more memories than dreams. Memories—or more likely flashbacks—of my last assignment in Afghanistan, and of my wife, Sylvia, and our unborn child.
***
I stepped off the shuttle bus at the Hilton’s main entrance. An old white man in a ratty gray sweatshirt huddled near the door, avoiding the driving wind and snow. His hair was long and greasy beneath a baseball cap too filthy to read the team insignia. I flashed back to similar old men in a dozen third-world countries.
“Spare some change?” the old man asked.
I felt the flare of excitement again rise as my hand wrapped around the .44’s grip in my overcoat pocket. The flames were more intense than they had been in the alley a little more than an hour before and on the shuttle bus. I wanted to stain the snow red with the old man’s blood.
Instead, I pushed the sensation down, opened my overcoat and suit coat, then reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a dollar. I handed the bill to the old man as I stepped into the hotel’s revolving door.
The hotel Christmas tree was a Colorado blue spruce, full and brightly decorated, towering in the middle of the lobby. The bar, the Satin Rose, was located just off the lobby. It offered welcome shelter from the cold and wind-whipped snow.
Frank Nelson sat at the piano, playing a Rogers and Hammerstein medley. The tall, thin black man nodded as I entered and sat at a table near the rear. A waitress trying to escape from a red cocktail dress took my order—a Guinness and a shot of Jack Daniels.
The bar was nearly at capacity and noisy, yet everyone clapped as Frank finished the medley. He immediately began playing Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust, the signal that he would break after the song and meet me in the hotel’s underground parking garage. It was late enough he was probably finished with his final set, anyway.
The waitress returned, and I threw down the shot and the beer, leaving payment on the table with a couple dollars tip. I got up and went into the hotel lobby, then walked to the elevator bank and thumbed the down button.
As I waited for an elevator car I glanced around the lobby, making certain no one had followed me out of the bar. I spotted no one, just as I had assumed would be the case. But it never hurt to be sure. Besides, old habits die hard, particularly those that had to do with preserving one’s life.
An elevator pinged and the door slid open. As I stepped in a flash of panic entered the pit of my stomach, as always happened when I entered an elevator. I pressed the button marked P-4, the lowest parking level. The door closed and I forced the panic down. By the time the elevator stopped I had both my stomach and my mind somewhat under control.
The door opened and I stepped out. The unpleasant musty smell of the hotel’s laundry, located on this level, assaulted my senses. No one was about, and there weren’t many cars—this level was mostly reserved for hotel employees. Five cars squatted in the left rear corner. Frank would look for me there. I went to the corner and leaned against the rear of a large black SUV.
I didn’t have long to wait. Within a couple minutes I heard the elevator door slide open, then closed. Frank came around the SUV, pulling a cigarette from a nearly empty pack.
“Frank,” I said, offering my hand. “You still smoking those damned things?”
“You still drinking like a God-damned fish?”
“Touché!”
“How are you, John?” he asked as we shook hands. I detected concern in his voice as it resonated in the empty garage.
“I’ll live. At least tonight I will.”
“That’s good to hear. After the way you were talking last week, I was beginning to wonder if you were on a downhill slide.”
“Something intervened.”
He nodded. “I’d miss you coming around.”
“It’s that something we have to talk about.”
Nelson frowned. “It’s not about Sylvia’s case, is it?” He was a retired Denver police officer, and he was keeping tabs on what was happening in the San Diego Police Department regarding Sylvia’s case through his contacts in the Denver homicide division.
I shook my head.
“Good. I don’t have anything new there. But it must be something serious, or you wouldn’t have come looking for me this late.”
“Billy Simpson’s dead.” Six years ago, when Frank was using, Simpson had been his supplier, too. We’d talked about Billy more than once in the two years I’d known Frank.
After a few seconds, Frank said, “I think we both could have predicted that outcome.”
I nodded. “It’s the circumstances of his death we couldn’t have predicted.” I told him Crystal’s story and described the bloody scene I’d found in the alley near the ball park.
He whistled. “Someone didn’t want the body recognized.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You think they took his teeth?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised, although the mutilation was too serious to know for sure.”
I told him about Billy’s clothing, and he frowned again.
The elevator opened and a woman in a gray business suit approached. We both fell silent. Frank puffed on his cigarette and I shuffled my feet nervously as she went to a small red Mazda sports car parked on the other side of the SUV. She was careful to avoiding eye contact with either of us.
“What was Billy into?” Frank asked after she pulled away. “Any idea?”
“Other than his regular trade—none.”
“Excuse the pun, but don’t you think what you described was overkill for his regular trade?”
I nodded, and Frank dropped his cigarette butt and crushed it out under foot. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I need to know if there have been any other murders like Billy’s.”
“I think I’ll wait until after the body’s discovered before making my inquiries.”
“That might be a good idea,” I said.
“By the way, what’s with your teeth?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. Finally, I simply said, “You don’t want to know.”
He nodded. “Is that all you need?”
“That’s it,” I said. “Thanks.” I turned and started for the elevators.
Before I’d taken three steps, Frank said, “John—” I stopped and turned back around. “Take care of yourself. These guys sound dangerous.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, patting the revolver in my overcoat pocket. I put my other hand up and waved nonchalantly as I turned and headed for the elevators.
***
I returned to the apartment and again knocked my special knock. Crystal opened the door before I could use my key.
“Where have you been?” she asked as I stepped in. I closed the door against the snow and cold.
“I told you, I had to see someone—someone who might be able to help us.” I nodded toward the futon and Crystal sat.
“No,” I said, “I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to help you or not. I’m just taking a few preliminary steps.”
“I understand. Can he help?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
I removed my overcoat and went to the closet. Keeping my back to Crystal, blocking her view, I hung the coat up and took the .44 from its pocket. I put the gun on the high shelf at the back of the closet, beside my coffee can bank. Eventually I’d have to check the coffee can, but not yet. That would be too obvious. I’d wait until Crystal was out of the room.
My watch read 2:37. It was time we both got some sleep. I needed it if I was going to be any good to her, although I wasn’t sure yet if I wanted to commit to helping her at all. She needed sleep if she was going to help me help her.
She patted the futon mattress. “We can share the bed, you know.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“We wouldn’t just sleep. You know that as well as I do.”
Again we were quiet. Finally, Crystal said, “I guess you’re right.”
There had been women since Sylvia—three in the past three years. One in San Diego and two in Denver. All three had been hookers. Just sex, no connection or commitment. Both times I’d left my money on the motel room night stand and walked away without any conversation beyond what it took to consummate the transaction.
“I’ll take the chair,” I said.
“No, this is your bed.”
“There’s no way I’d be able to sleep knowing you’re in the chair.”
She smiled. “That uncomfortable, huh?”
“No. In fact, most nights I fall asleep right here.” I patted the chair’s arm.
She smiled again as I got up to change.
That night the nightmare invaded my dreams as I drifted off to sleep, slashing like the blade of a knife. I woke the next morning sweating and trembling beneath the blanket.
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