She sat, with her eyes apparently closed in sun bliss, as she peeped at him from the corner of an eye.
“Hey, pet, ladies first,” he said, as he leaned and seized her wrist. She tried to jerk free. “I just fixed, Master, remember?”
He crushed her wrist inside his fist. “Oh, come on, bitch, just a smidgen.”
She started out of the chair. He released her wrist and stunned her with a punch to the side of her jaw. He lashed her feet to the chair with his robe belt and tied her hands behind her with the belt from her robe. Her eyes opened as he stood above her with the spike poised at the big vein on her neck.
“Please, Master, don’t OD me!” she wailed.
“You stinkin’, rotten bitch. China white ain’t never been flecked brown.” He plunged the spike into the vein. She violently moved her torso away. He grabbed her throat and squeezed the deadly poison into her body. Her ear-splitting scream suddenly died in the late-summer air. She jerked spastically for several minutes as a foul-smelling mucus gushed from her mouth. Burst vessels leaked blood from her dead eyes, and she collapsed into a rag-doll heap.
He threw up on the way to the kitchen. He came back to package her in garbage bags. He carried her into his bedroom and stored her in the closet, atop Pee Wee.
He showered and took several Rolaids to calm his churning stomach. He flushed the death skag. He got into bed and shot China white. He lay in bed and thought about Rucker as he waited for nightfall.
In the basement, the twins had paced the cell like uptight pachyderms after hearing Petra’s death shriek. Eli dropped down on the stone slab to catch his breath. He said, “That must of been Petra we heard before the nigger cut her throat or somethin’. Cazo, we was chumps to let that crazy mother lock us up. We gonna have to take a chance and grab him and kill him next chance we git.”
Cazo sat down beside him. “Yeah, I’ll grab his gun arm and you grab his throat, even through the bars.”
Eli groaned, “I sure hope we get a shot at his ass before mornin’, ’cause we gonna be two sick-like-a-motherfucker dope fiends.”
Cazo pounded his knee. “Damn! We sho’ ain’t gonna have the strength to grab him and hold him long enough to kill him.”
Eli fingered the steel bolts and the concrete around them that anchored the steel slab to the wall. He leapt to his feet. “Gimme your shank!” Eli exclaimed.
Cazo stared at him for a moment before he took a heavy hunting knife from a leg scabbard. Eli took the blade and ordered, “Raise a leg—I need a boot.”
Eli pulled off the size-fourteen boot from the extended foot. “This is old concrete,” Eli said as he started to hammer the blade into the concrete around one of the three bolts. Tiny particles fell to the floor. Cazo doubtfully shook his head.
“Bro, why you fuckin’ with that?” Eli said.
“ ’Cause this hunk of steel is the only way we gonna be able to bust that lock and chain off that cell door.” Cazo punched a fist against his shoulder.
“Get down, Eli. I’ll take over when you wanta ketch your breath.”
—
Hours later, dripping sweat, they dislodged the slab. They pulled the chain until the lock was inside the cell. They grunted as they lifted the heavy metal and battered the lock and cell door with it. The impact filled the basement with a dull, thudding racket. Only one out of three of the efforts actually impacted directly on the lock itself. The weight of the steel battering ram forced them to sprawl on the floor for a brief break.
The rhythmic thudding awakened Shetani at twilight from fatigue-induced sleep. He listened intently, but he heard nothing. He was sure that he had imagined it.
He lay with a smile on his relaxed face as he recalled the heady dream that had sparkled his sleep. He had forced the twins to dig a big desert grave for Rucker, Petra, and Pee Wee before he killed them. He then covered the grave himself. In the dream, he had returned to New York and, with Diane, had built a hundred-girl stable with no slave older than twenty-two. He was acclaimed by all pimps and ho’s in the nation, on the whole planet, as the greatest player that had ever lived.
He felt a tremor in his crotch as he recalled the neon-splashed pandemonium at the premiere of the movie about his life. Sexpot groupies of every hue fought, clawed, and trampled to get interviewed for his stable.
His joyous recall was interrupted by the thudding sound again. He jumped out of bed and went toward the sound, with the .45 in his hand. His ears took him to the basement door. He heard a crashing sound as he crept down the steps. He switched on a light. He stuck his head around the corner and peered at the twins. They looked in his direction and scrambled up off their battering ram outside the cell. The lock lay smashed to smithereens. They hugged each other in the joy of escape.
Shetani stepped into view with a sneer. “I’m glad you slick niggers beat the cell.” He paused to grin malevolently at the transfixed twins. He shrugged. “You’re just gonna die sooner.”
Cazo bellowed and charged him. Shetani drilled him through the heart and throat with a rain of automatic fire.
Eli, behind Cazo, had his right ear severed and a bloody rill gouged across the top of his head. He jerked the enormously heavy steel slab off the concrete with the quick ease of a world-class weight lifter. His monstrous hands gripped the middle of the slab to shield himself as he advanced on Shetani.
Shetani stood stock-still with flabbergast and fear for a moment before he started backing up the stairs, his .45 leveled at the shield. Surely the crazy nigger couldn’t have the strength to hold the steel shield up in front of him going up the stairs, he told himself as Eli started up them.
Shetani stumbled and sat down heavily on a step. Eli peeped around the shield. His rage energized him to literally rush up the stairs to within four feet of Shetani, near the top of the stairs. His bloodied face behind the shield was bloated and tar-black with strain. His amplified breathing in the tight stairway space was a loud medley of wheeze and choke, like an emphysema victim.
Two steps away, he was about to drop the shield and himself on Shetani when his strength ebbed. The shield dropped to shoulder level. Shetani blew his head into a pulpy blob.
Eli tumbled backward with the shield. Shetani, shaken, stared at the crimson heap at the bottom of the stairs.
Shetani cried out in a high-pitched voice that keened to the edge of hysteria. “I cared about you stupid bastards. It’s your fault you’re wasted!” He went down the hallway to his ajar bedroom door. Six feet away, he braked sharply. He listened intently, with his head cocked like a grotesque robin, to hear erotic female voices and sounds. It was Pee Wee and Petra having sex in his bed.
“Oh, sweet cunt master, I’m comin’,” he heard Pee Wee moan.
“You’re going to be my little thieving sweetheart forever?” he heard Petra ask huskily.
Pee Wee groaned, “Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Forever! But remember, we’ll never be safe until we kill that crazy cocksucker Shetani.”
Petra giggled. “I know. I know, sugar tits. I’ll cop a brand of rat poison that’s as white as China white. Don’t worry, ice-cream cone, we’ll put his cruel ass in the morgue. Now devour me.”
Veins on Shetani’s forehead expanded as if to burst. He checked the automatic. Empty! He was neither shocked nor greatly surprised that they had returned from death to plot against him. He’d simply have to kill them again, he thought as he hurried to the gun case in the living room.
He removed and loaded an Uzi machine gun, the one the twins had used to riddle Tree Lewis up in Harlem. He crept down the hallway to the cracked door. For a moment, he listened to ecstatic sucking sounds. He kicked the door wide open and spewed a hail of bullets and orange flame from the Uzi. He paused to flip on a light. He stared at the ragged, empty bed. A cunning smile blossomed on his face as he went to stand at the closet door.
A thunderous, sustained blast from the Uzi shattered the door. He peered through a gaping hole. Bullet-riddled Petra was lying atop Pee Wee. He leaned through t
he hole and poked the corpses with the snout of the Uzi. He whistled the Duke’s “A Train” as he went to the shower.
—
Shetani left home as soon as full darkness fell, to find and kidnap Rucker. As he cruised the streets of Hollywood in the leased Jeep that was used by Froggy to run errands, he thought about his mass-murder plot. After he killed Rucker, he would con and recruit a necessary manual laborer from Skid Row to dig the large desert grave. The digger derelict would be young, muscular, and, of course, broke. He’d lisp his voice and limp his wrist like a faggot to con and lure his victim to the mansion for sex at an extravagant fee. Half would be paid when the victim entered the Jeep. After he drugged the victim with a bit of chloral hydrate in his champagne, he would drive the pre-placed bodies of Pee Wee, Petra, the twins, Rucker, and the unconscious bum into the desert. He would revive the bum with an injection of cocaine. He’d force the digging and covering of the grave at gunpoint. Then he would force the digger to make a small grave for himself. The covering of which would be a piece of cake.
His deadly eyes twinkled as he thrilled to the thought that he was going to commit the perfect murder of a cop. He grinned obscenely as he wondered why there wasn’t a Hall of Fame for killers so clever. He remembered the words of a mass murderer he’d known in the New York asylum. “Jack, lemme hip you to the best fuck there is. I iced three bitches and two random niggers. The bitches were stone three-way freaks in the sack, but the sweetest fuck was when the bitches died. Jack, I ain’t lyin’, killin’ is the wildest fuckin’ there is. Try it soon as you can.”
Shetani searched for Rucker until 2:00 a.m., before he was compelled to go home for China-white medication. He injected the dope and lay back on the bed. A rising stench of putrefaction drifting from the closet made him decide to hunt Rucker in daylight the next day.
Rucker had not been on the street because he had taken a day off to comfort Opal and Millie, Crane’s widow. He also needed to fortify himself against the pain and misery of the services next day for cremated Crane.
—
Bright sunlight beamed into the Forest Lawn Chapel at noon. Opal and Millie wept together with the misty-eyed comforter Rucker between them. Ralph Rosen, Crane’s giant cousin, went outside several times to avoid crying in public. Crane had been one of the most popular cops at Hollywood Station. But apparently the shame and disgrace of his destruction made it easy for sunny-day friends to shun his rites. All of Rucker’s squad members sat sadly with a handful of true-blue guys and women from the station. Commander Bleeson and high brass were no-show.
Near the end of the service, Rucker went to the podium. He stood facing the audience for a long time, obviously struggling mightily for control. His voice cracked as he said softly: “I loved Leo Crane like my own blood. He was a tough cop, a good cop for most of his career. I tell you, nobody had more guts than Leo Crane. He went against gangsters, killers’ knives, and guns in the nightmare Seventy-seventh Division. As partners, we trusted each other many times in potential death situations. Leo is dead, but I still love him and always will. We shouldn’t judge him too harsly, for any one of us can be trapped and ruined if destructive circumstances mesh. He was seduced, corrupted, and destroyed by a snow-blonde demon in high heels. So, again, my friends, don’t judge him harshly, for a victim lives inside us all.”
The next day, Rucker stood dressed for the street in casual beige attire. He sipped orange juice in his sunny kitchen. He decided to get his first full meal since Crane’s death. His mind fondled a palpable vision of himself and Opal taking marriage vows after his upcoming retirement.
He pulled his Lincoln from the garage. He hoped that Opal, who had flown back to New York, wouldn’t be too stressed from completing funeral arrangements for her mother, Rebecca.
He headed for Carl’s Jr. on the corner of Sunset and Western. He glanced at noon on his watch. He had three hours before the briefing of his first shift squad.
He drove into the restaurant parking lot. He cut off the air conditioning and lowered the two front windows, to avoid brief oven heat inside when he returned.
He entered the restaurant. He felt unweighted, almost serene, in the pleasant hum of diners’ conversation, as a peachy-faced waitress with balletic grace served his steak. He didn’t see Shetani park the Jeep on Western and move into the restaurant parking lot.
Shetani slipped into the spacious Lincoln. He lay down on the rear floorboards and pressed his body against the backs of the front seats. He had decided that if Rucker resisted kidnap, he’d blow him away on the lot and take his escape chances. He had a silencer on his .45, and he knew that corpses in cars were seldom quickly discovered. Either way, Rucker had to die today. Tuta’s death had to be avenged.
He got a flash of the snow-blond mane of a woman standing near the Lincoln. He tensed, thinking how killing Petra again on the lot would foul up everything. He raised his head to peer at the middle-aged woman entering the car. He relaxed as she drove away. He used isometrics on his legs and arms to prevent stiffness while he waited. He knew he was virtually invisible, clad in black, lying on the black carpet of the machine.
Every five to seven seconds, he would raise his head for an instant to glance into an outside rearview mirror, to catch Rucker’s reflection as he left the restaurant. Excitement shook him a moment later, when he spotted Rucker moving into the lot toward the Lincoln. He heard Rucker humming Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are” as he opened the car door and slid in.
Shetani poked the silencer-tipped weapon against the back of Rucker’s head in the instant when he shut the door.
“What the…?” Rucker gasped as he started to swivel his head toward the rear of the car.
“Don’t turn your head, motherfucker. Don’t do shit, don’t say shit, or I’ll splatter your brains against the windshield with this .45. Now nod, cocksucker, if you got it.”
Rucker nodded. He desperately tried to remember if he’d ever heard the Eastern-accented voice before.
“Now drive out and go south on Western. Don’t violate no traffic rules, and don’t try to signal any of your Hollywood pig buddies.”
Rucker turned on the ignition. His police radio crackled with directives. Rucker moved the Lincoln away for the exit on Sunset.
“Hey, pig, go out the Western Avenue way,” Shetani ordered.
Rucker drove out onto Western and said, “What do you want? If this is a heist, I—”
Shetani cut off his speech with a savage chop of the gun barrel against the back of Rucker’s skull. “Don’t speak, asshole. Just drive! Obey me and you’ll live. I only want to take you to see somebody,” Shetani conned.
Rucker’s head vibrated with the frantic effort to establish some linkage to the intruder’s presence and remarks. At a stoplight a block down Western, Rucker’s heart boomed. Joe Rivera, one of his squad cops, pulled up beside the Lincoln in his personal Datsun. “Hi, boss,” the cop said in a cheerful voice. But Rucker scarcely heard in the din of traffic.
Rucker kept his eyes straight ahead. The cop stared curiously at Rucker’s suspiciously rigid posture, and Rucker’s eyes rolling in a kind of signal.
On the green, the cop drove past the Lincoln so closely that he nearly scraped the side of it. He leaned across the seat to peer into the Lincoln’s interior. At that instant, an irate driver across the street sounded his horn stridently. Shetani raised his head to dart a glance across the street. He looked full into Rivera’s face for a mini-second.
In the next second, Rivera recognized Shetani from the mug shots and long rap sheet of Albert Spires sent to Rucker from his New York detective acquaintance, at the beginning of the Shetani stable’s invasion of Hollywood. Every squad member had been given a print.
Rivera dropped back to tail the Lincoln while he decided what action to take to apprehend Albert Spires, the documented psychotic. He reported the situation, including the Lincoln’s license-plate number, to Hollywood Station. He resumed tailing.
Within minutes, Lieu
tenant Bleeson ordered an alert to helicopters and all units in the field to search for the Lincoln.
Shetani peeped through the rear window and saw Rivera in the Datsun behind him. He said in a deadly voice, “There’s a Datsun following us. Lose it!”
Rucker stomped the gas pedal. Rivera was caught in the crunch of traffic at a stoplight several blocks away.
Shetani said, “Turn right off Western, and double back for the Hollywood Hills.”
As Rucker turned the corner, a rare late-summer rainstorm started. A police helicopter, scarcely visible in the heavy downpour, hovered in the sky above the Lincoln.
Rucker shut off his radio when he heard the first sentence of the alert. Immediately Shetani growled, “I want to hear some more of that pig rap. Turn it on!”
Rucker switched it on to the voice of the dispatcher, giving the Lincoln’s description and license-plate number. Shetani slugged the barrel of the gun against the side of Rucker’s face. “Pull into that market lot,” Shetani shouted. “We’re gonna get new wheels.”
Rucker pulled to a stop near the grocery’s front entrance. Shetani tapped the gun against the top of Rucker’s head. “Go all the way to the far end of this lot.”
Rucker did as ordered. Shetani spotted an elderly black woman loading groceries from a cart into an old Buick sedan. He tapped the gun barrel against Rucker’s head. “Gimme your gun.”
Rucker took it from his holster and passed it back over his head. Shetani stuck it in his waistband. “I’m getting out first. Then you’re getting out. Get cute and your ass is dead.”
Rucker tensed and waited until he heard the rear door open and saw Shetani step out to the pavement from the corner of his eye. He scooted across the seat toward the passenger front door at the instant when Shetani flung open the driver’s door.