Death List

  She had to pass between the man and the coffee table to reach the child. He reached out and pushed her back.

  "If I were you, honey child," Creeper said coldly, "I wouldn't worry too much about that child crying."

  "Well, you don't happen to be me!" Mary yelled at him as she attempted to jerk her arm free.

  What happened then seemed more like a dream to her than reality. It had been so long since someone had put their hands on her. His hand came up slowly, or so it seemed to Mary, and he slapped her across the face twice.

  "Now, honey child," he began in that same singsong voice, "I want you to cooperate with me." Seeing the defiant look come into her eyes, he grinned. "This is no joke, girl. If you love your kids, you will do just what I ask of you."

  He shoved her down on the couch, causing her housecoat to fly up, but she paid small heed to that. If rape was all the man wanted, she was willing if only he'd get it over with and leave-leave just like he came, without really harming anyone. But in the back of her mind she knew it wouldn't be that simple. This man wasn't interested in fucking her. She could sense something monstrous and grotesque about him, an evil that she couldn't completely grasp.

  Shuddering with repugnance she managed to ask, "What is it you want?"

  "Why, child, I've already told you. Sam. I want the big shot, Sam the man." His laughter came then, cold, chilling, frightening.

  She tried again. "Please, I've already told...." The lie froze in her throat. The man had produced a straight razor from his pocket and opened it quickly.

  "That's right, child," he said in that same funny tone. "I'm not here to play games. Now, if you keep lying, I'm going to cut that boy's throat right in front of you."

  Could this be true? Could it really be happening? She wanted to pinch herself to see if she was asleep. Mary tried to close and reopen her eyes. It was just too much to believe. The man couldn't possibly be so bloodthirsty as to kill her son. The very thought of it was too much for her mind to accept.

  "Please!" She made a small feeble gesture with her hand, trying to express what she couldn't find the words to say. She still couldn't believe that the man would hurt her child. "Listen, I don't have any way to reach Sam. He calls me."

  The words were hardly out of her mouth before the man went into action. He didn't waste any time. It was as if he were butchering a cow. He snatched the small boy to him and drew the sharp razor across the boy's throat before she realized what had happened. The quick flow of blood that came from the wound brought her to her senses. The man pushed the boy away and the small child fell onto the floor.

  An animal cry of pain came from the woman then, as she stumbled down beside the child. There was nothing she could do. As she clutched the child to her, his life's blood ran out in her lap. From the floor she glared up at the Creeper, shocked almost out of her mind.

  "One down and two to go," he said in a quiet voice as he moved over towards the little girl in the playpen. She was still a toddler. She stood there looking up at the man with her arms outstretched for him to pick her up.

  Something deep down inside Mary warned her that her anguish would have to be controlled if she want ed to save the rest of her family. "Please, no more," she cried, "I'll call him." With those words she started to weep. The outburst was not convulsive but sheer grief. A grief that would never find that gratifying relief in tears.

  "Mommie, Mommie," the dark-haired three-yearold cried, "what's wrong, Mommie?"

  Mary pulled the child to her, her arms gripping the child tightly. Mary was a tall woman in her late twenties. Built heavy from delivering babies, she now had the body of a woman-a big woman. Large arms that spoke of strength-she was a woman who could work in the fields beside her man if it was ever necessary.

  The little child with the pigtails running down each side of her head began to cry. She wanted the tall man beside her to reach down and pick her up.

  Impatiently, the Creeper reached down and rubbed the child's head. In his other hand he held the bloody razor. Mary glanced up from where she was kneeling, her heart almost stopping.

  "Please," she begged, "I'll call, I'll call." Her hands groped wildly for the phone. "Get mommie the phone," she said to the small child beside her. The little girl ran off at once, pulling the telephone off the end table and dragging it back toward her crying mother. Tears continued to run down Mary's cheeks, but no sound came out. She knew the little boy she held in her lap was gone. Now the only thing she could hope for was to save her girls. Sam, big, strong Sam-he would know how to handle this madman! The thought flashed through her mind as she tried to remember the number he had given her to call in case of an emergency. Desperately she dialed the number, only to find out that she had called the wrong one. She stopped and tried to get her mind right. She had to think right. She fought down the desire to throw herself against the madman. It would be useless. No matter how strong she was, there was something about the man that spoke of pure danger. Even as fear-ridden as she was, she wondered if Sam would be able to do anything with him. She couldn't see this skinny man being able to contain all that strength. No, Sam would handle him when he got here.

  Apprehension filled her very soul as she watched the man stroke her child's head. "Please, leave the baby alone," she managed to say. "I'm making your call for you, so just leave my child alone."

  The man's hand stopped in mid-air. "Okay, dear," he said softly, as he turned away from the playpen. "Just get the call through."

  Vaguely she heard another voice on the other end of the phone. "Sam," she blurted out, "I've got to speak to Sam!" It took a few seconds, then she heard his strong voice on the line. She blurted out something about one of the children being hurt, then begged him to come home at once so that he could rush the child to the hospital.

  The message got across to Sam. He made a hurried excuse to Kingfisher and left.

  If there was one thing Sam didn't want, it was one of his hood friends ever coming in contact with his family. For some reason, he believed if he kept his friends away there would never be any problem. None of the dirt that he dealt in would rub off. He would have been hard pressed to explain it himself if asked, but either way he made sure none of his friends ever visited him while he was staying with Mary.

  For a brief moment after Sam left, Kingfisher was undecided on whether or not he should have some of the boys follow him. But just as quickly as the notion came into his head, he dismissed it. Sam was his most trusted man, and if he couldn't trust Sam, who the hell could he trust? Later he was to regret having made that decision, for if he had followed through with it, he might have been able to put an end to his troubles right then and there.

  It took Sam less than thirty minutes to reach his beautiful red-brick home in Conant Gardens, a black neighborhood that only the blacks with above-average incomes could buy into. He pulled into the driveway. As he jumped out and ran for the front door, he was surprised that Mary hadn't come out to meet him. The woman was able to carry the child just as well as he was, and if it was as serious as she said, she would have been waiting for him at the door.

  As he ran across the well-kept lawn he noticed the front door was cracked halfway open. He jumped up on the porch and didn't stop until he had burst through the front door. Then he stopped abruptly. At first he couldn't believe his eyes. His mind didn't want to accept what he saw. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, only to find the sight still there when he reopened them. The first thing that came to his sight was his baby daughter, her pen pushed in front of the front door so that whoever entered would have to walk around it to get into the front room. The small child lay out on the clean mattress, clean except for the dried blood around the slit in her neck. Other than that, it was as if the little girl was sleeping.

  Even as he stumbled over to her pen, his mind told him that it had been done with a razor. He started to reach down and pick up the child, but again his mind informed him that it was a useless action; the baby was dead. Tears blinded h
im as he staggered around the pen.

  Then he saw Mary. She was tied to the end of the marble coffee table. Her throat was cut, too, and she had cuts across her face as if she had tried to fight until the end. But the dead children lying around the room showed how useless it had been. His three-yearold girl was lying close to her mother, only her throat was not cut. The madman had deviated. Instead of the razor, he had strangled the little girl with her own pigtails.

  Sam dropped on his knees beside the three-yearold, praying that there still might be life in the small body. His brain screamed over and over again, Who could be responsible for such a monstrous act? This wasn't the work of a sane mind. Whoever had committed these insane acts had more than just enjoyed them. He must have received a certain macabre fascination from such grotesque butchery. To be able to kill an adult was one thing; to kill children was another. But to be able to butcher a baby was yet another kind of murdering beast, one who needed to be destroyed at once.

  For the moment though, Sam was too stricken even to think of revenge. He wanted to make whoever did this pay, but his mind was too shocked. Could this be some kind of payback for the killing Kingfisher had ordered? It was hard for him to reason that out. He thought he was dealing with men, and even though he knew they were violent men, it had never occurred to him that they were insane, and that was the only explanation he could come up with for whoever had done this gruesome work.

  Then suddenly he heard it. It was low at first, but as he listened it grew. The low laughter began almost below the range of his hearing, then it picked up until he could pinpoint the source. He turned toward the sound. He hadn't tried to visualize what the person might have looked like, but now as he turned and saw the bloody human apparition standing behind the fulllength window curtains, he knew at once that this debased human was responsible for the destruction of everything he loved in this life. As he stared at the human riffraff, an almost imperceptible hatred increased inside his brain until it was a full-blown desire to destroy this thing.

  The sound that came from the man's mouth didn't even seem human; he was enjoying every moment of this. He loved the sight of the grief that had overcome the big heavyset man. It seemed to bring him joy to watch the expressions that flashed across Sam's face.

  Sam wanted to kill and destroy, and yet he also wanted to know. "Why, man? Why the kids?" he asked as he moved slowly across the room, unaware that he had even taken a step. The same question kept coming from him as he stalked the grinning Creeper, who watched him approach with a twisted smile on his face.

  The enveloping blackness that invaded Sam's mind stopped him from thinking, or even reasoning. All he could do was move as if he were some kind of automaton-a machine with but one thought. There could be no other reason for him to continue to exist. To destroy, that was the only thought in his mind now. He had to destroy this creature that had so destroyed his life. Whatever else he had to do in life was gone from his thoughts. There wasn't anything left for him to do. His hands turned into huge claws. He didn't make a fist, but held his hands out and continued to move slowly toward the man across the living room. He didn't even notice the thirty-eight automatic with the long silencer that the man now held out in front of him.

  The blood on the man's clothes only helped to drive Sam mad. The nearer he got, the more he could smell the stench of death that was on the man. The blood represented his family, his loved ones. The word still came from him as he neared his goal. "Why, why, why?"

  The Creeper took his time and concentrated on the huge man's chest. The first shot didn't even seem to hit Sam as he continued his slow stalking of the murderer. There was no squeamishness about the Creeper though. He only grinned and pulled the trigger again. The silencer took care of all the noise. The second bullet that struck Sam sort of slowed him down, but he continued on after hesitating for a second. The third shot went unheeded, and so did the fourth. Now sweat broke out on the Creeper's forehead as he raised the gun a little higher and pulled the trigger. This shot blew the left eye out of Sam's face. He didn't resemble anything human anymore. But a strength derived from his hatred of what stood in front of him kept him on his feet.

  The Creeper started to back up but had nowhere to go. The picture window had him blocked in. The only way out was past the stalking Sam, who continued to move, if ever so slowly, toward the killer. With one shot left in his gun, the Creeper took dead aim. Nothing under the sun could stand up to six wellplaced shots. Nothing human, anyway.

  Now Sam was less than two feet away. He raised his arms to put his hands around the frail neck that was in front of him. He had forgotten why he even wanted to kill this thing in front of him. He was past that form of thinking. He was moving only through of some inner strength that knew what stood in front of him must be destroyed. He stretched his arms out, but the Creeper wasn't a weak man either. Being evil, he thrived on evil. He was also a brave man, and he was a killer. He was a man who didn't need the strength of other men to give him courage. He feared nothing mortal.

  Even as Sam approached, even though his heart skipped a beat, he kept the sneer on his face and kept complete confidence in his gun. He waited until the outstretched fingers almost touched his face before using his last bullet. This time he aimed right at the center of the forehead. Nothing human could survive a shot at such close range. The bullet tore half of Sam's head off. The man crumpled up as if he was a rag doll at the feet of the Creeper.

  9

  THE DETROIT POLICE DEPARTMENT was caught completely by surprise. The city seemed to burst wide open in a blood bath. They had been used to murder in the surrounding black ghettos, but now, in the last two weeks, three white gangsters, known to have been big men in the organization, had been found dead. The similarity of some of the murders to those that they had found out in Conant Gardens was too close to ignore. Nobody but an insane person killed with a straight razor, and two of the white gangsters had been found with their throats cut. One of them had been found with his wife dead beside him, and she had been killed the same way. There had to be a tie-in some where. At least that was what Captain Davidson believed, and this he passed on to his men at a meeting inside his office.

  The afternoon sun blazed through his open window. Benson and Ryan loosened their collars, but Detectives Steward and Nelson didn't notice the heat. Their problem was the tough old captain who didn't want to hear any excuses. There had been too many deaths lately. Something would have to be done or somebody would be replaced, and it could be the captain from the way things were going. The captain paced up and down his office, wearing a groove in the dirty, three-colored rug on the floor. It had been there so long that there was a pale outline of where the captain and his predecessor had paced back and forth. Detectives Benson and Ryan watched him calmly. Suddenly he stopped and sat on the edge of his beaten-up desk.

  "I don't care for no excuses," he began. "I've had enough of them to last a lifetime. This shit has got to come to an end. This kind of murdering just won't be tolerated by the newspapers, and when the newspapers start playing up something like this, heads begin to roll." He held his hand up for silence. "Now, I don't want to replace any of you guys, 'cause I know you're doing your best, but I'll have to replace somebody just to prove I'm trying. Now, do you see where I'm at?"

  He stared around at the four men, his eyes steel gray points peering out over the large horn-rimmed glasses he wore. "I like my job. I mean to keep it. So if something don't come up soon, some of you guys had better dust off those old blue uniforms you used to wear when you were in the ranks."

  Suddenly Captain Davidson snapped his fingers in the direction of Detective Steward. The young, blond detective glanced down at the worn rug. "And you," the captain began again, "I asked you two weeks ago to get in touch with Ryan and Benson here about that first murder, but oh, no, not you. You're too fuckin' smart. What did you tell me? Wasn't no spade behind that hit. It had to be organization crap. It was too big for a spade. Wasn't that your opinion?"

>   The younger man looked away, not wanting Benson to see his eyes and not wanting the captain to see through him. He still couldn't believe that blacks were behind it, unless it was a big, important black gangster, and there really wasn't but one that big in the city.

  Steward glanced over at his partner, Nelson, then spoke what was on his mind. "Captain, it's not but one black man in this city big enough to even think about making a hit on these guys, and that's the one they call the Kingfisher."

  The roar the captain let out could be heard throughout the building. "Kingfisher, my ass! He's in the same fuckin' pot that all the big shits uptown are in. Those were his men that got knocked off first. Those happened to be his pushers that got knocked off last week. But I forgot. You're too big of a guy to keep up with the little people that get killed in the ghettos. And since you didn't, let me clue you in. That pusher killed last week was one of the Kingfisher's men."

  Steward shrugged, then speculated quietly, "Maybe they got a gang war going on? I mean, who else would even have the names of these big wheels? I just can't picture some small hood down in the ghetto coming up with the information he'd need to reach these guys."

  For a minute, as Benson watched, he thought the captain was about to have a heart attack. The man turned red in the face, then he seemed to have trouble breathing. He leaned over the desk, trying to catch his breath, and when he straightened up, sparks flew from his eyes.

  "Boy," the captain roared, "I don't give a fuck what you can't picture, do you understand that? I want you and your partner to get off your fuckin' asses and do what I say. When I say get in touch with Ryan and Benson and compare notes, I mean just that."

  Nobody bothered to speak. They all just stared at the captain. All of them had seen him in his moods before, but nothing like this. He was really upset, which just went to show them how important it must be for them to solve the spree of crimes.