ANOTHER
DAY IN PARADISE
By Roger Humes
November 7, 2000
By Roger Humes
November 7, 2000
The eye lay open to the world, unmoving in a room of hush and shadows. A glint of light flickered across its slowly drying skin, shimmered in the dance of the images that shuttered one by one along the dilated pupil, glided over the pale blueness of the cornea, shadowed the sallow white, and in long electric fingers traversed the cold pallid skin.
The eye was only a mirror. No more could its vision grasp any meaning to the images that caressed its surface. Still, the images reached out to touch it, almost as if they could not exist unless the eye perceived them. On one side lay life, on the other…no one knows.
In the background there was breathing, but it did not belong to the eye. The rasp of the air was joined by a staccato of steps and a sigh that sat down wearily upon a chair. The body blocked the light from the eye.
He slowly ran his fingers through his hair and gazed emotionlessly back at the eye. He watched for a minute as if he were trying to fathom if it recognized the images. Then he turned back to gaze blankly at the source of the light.
As his stare fixed on the scrolling words on the screen his mind raced back through the evening. It had been so easy. Her door was locked. She had read and heard the stories of what could happen if one was not careful. However, he doubted if there were enough locks in the world to stop him when he wanted in.
His mentor had taught him that he had a tone to his voice that when combined with a certain charm to his style could get people to do whatever he wished. He had cultivated the talent over the years until it became an art form. He crafted it, molded it, shaped it until he could harm people and they would almost thank him for doing it.
The talent made up for what else that he lacked in life. He stared at the white skin of a thin right arm that disguised the strength he could wield when angry. Outside of his talent the hostility was all he possessed except for the memories of the slayings that flickered in his mind like the words on the screen in front of him.
The anger had long ago consumed all other emotion. Its fire had turned to ice. All that remained besides the ice was his talent, his gift. The talent was clever. It did its job and made sure he was never caught. It was all he had, all he really needed until now.
For now he felt something different. He stared back into the lifeless eye and realized the truth. Yes, it had been easy, once again too pitifully easy.
He was bored.
He was ready to leave when from behind him he heard the faint sound of a buzzer. He turned to stare at the flickering screen. Its message read "You Have Mail". Then he noticed the scrolling words. This time he started to casually read them. Soon he was closely following the conversation.
He tapped his hands on the edge of the keyboard as he was slowly drawn into the conversation. Fascinated he started to form a plan.
This could prove interesting he thought as he typed Hi!
How's everyone doing?
It was a hot lazy day, the kind of afternoon where you wanted to strip down to your skivvies and lay in the wading pool while playing with the rubber duckies. It was hot enough to fry a tamale on a banker’s forehead.
I sat in my office, feet kicked up the desk, shoes off, a fan blowing in my face. My eyes were closed and through the open window I could hear the hustle and bustle of daily life in the street and the sounds of children playing Ratchet the Monkey and stickball. It was just another day in paradise.
The door opened behind me, but I didn’t move. I recognized the footsteps and the tell tale resonance of leather-clad thighs swishing against each other. Lauren was home.
Suddenly, I felt an open palm slap the back of my head as the chair was kicked out from under me. I since I always landed like a dog on all fours, my chin I stiffened as my face prepared to play air hockey with the desk.
A slender hand reached out and grasped my tie. The cravat became uncomfortably tight as I was pulled to my feet and found myself staring into a set of eyes that looked about as pleased as a dame stuck in the salad bar line during the white sale.
Maybe I should backtrack a little and fill you in on the skinny before you get as confused as my Uncle Elmo at the tote board on Lottery Day.
This old world is changing faster than a drag queen at the fifty percent off rack. One of the developments is the ever-emerging computer technologies, that are usually obsolete before they hit the market. Maybe I should have invested a little instead of blowing all of my spare change on the ponies.
Anyway, during this revolution the Internet has exploded like the face of a fourteen-year-old after a trip to the ice cream shop. You can surf the Web, shop the Cyber Malls, and get a lube job over at a porn site. If you can't find it online then you probably don't need it.
Another thing that was taken off on the Internet is the chat rooms. They seem to have proliferated faster than a case of the mange on my dog Arfles. These rooms are where every anti-social Nethanderal with an I.Q. that matches the angle of the slope of his forehead and who can log in and type with at least two fingers goes looking for a good time, a little conversation, and an occasional hormone straightening.
Chat is a rather unique place where one can be or attempt to be whatever he/she/it wants to be in any type of environment possible. However, the emphasis is on attempt. Despite the fact that the chatters are a rather anonymous lot, and what the rooms are is only limited the by imagination, there are couple of hard fast rules. Who you are when you come in is who you are when you leave, and what you pick up in chat leaves with you.
That may seem as obvious as the moles on my Aunt Millie's face, but you'd be surprised how many try to dodge those facts like I do the collection agency on payday.
So that brings us to here. The place is Chat_World, a scum hole of a sewer where the dames are all gorgeous, the joes are all dangerous, and the kids will hack your I.D. faster than a pound of cold slaw running through a sieve. Let's just say that among the chat rooms this one qualifies as the low rent district.
When the joint was created there was one unforeseen consequence. The thoughts and emotions started peeling off the chatters faster than the clothes off a dime store hooker and started to adhere into cognizant beings that became known as flakes. I am one of those flakes.
The name’s Moonlight, Al_B._Moonlight. I play a little piano around the rooms and run a small time detective agency with the rather angry dame who had me garroted at the moment. I referred to the business as Moonlight & Bloodcall. For some reason she called it Bloodcall & Moonlight. No counting on dames for taste.
Her name was Lauren_Bloodcall. I wasn’t sure which side of the modem she hailed from. In fact I didn’t know a whole lot about the dame. She had shown up to help me on a couple of cases that decided the very fate of Chat_World. For some reason she decided to stick around.
My eyes dropped from her gaze and slowly worked their way up her body. She was clad in her black leather emma-peel-wanna-be body suit and had one of those architectures that made a joe want to go out and study bay windows.
My gaze read her like the Sunday funny papers. She had a face like an angel, walked like a tramp, and had a mouth that would make a sailor blush. In my book she was fine looking dame.
I returned to her eyes that were as hostile as my first date when I kissed her goodbye and stiffed her with the tab for dinner.
She pulled my tie tighter and hissed with a voice that you’d like to see undoing the zipper to your fly with her teeth, “I would assume, Mr. Moonlight, that you may have the battery grounded but you seem to have attached the negative wire to the positive terminal.”
“So what’s got your boxers crawling up the sidewalk, sweetheart?” I asked as I fished in my pocket for a coffin nail.
She let go of my tie, dropped a stack of papers that would choke an accountant on my desk, took the coffin nail from my hand, lit it, and inhaled deeply. She then she gave me a glare that would have knocked the rust out of the engine of a ’53 Buick.
She sighed and said, “Mr. Moonlight, I would explain the debts you have encumbered for this agency, but I am afraid that I left my visual aids at my apartment. I fear that if you tried to read my lips you would fall down.”
“Hey, doll, most of those are legitimate expenses from cases.”
She picked up the top sheet and grimly hissed, “Since when does a bet on filly in the fifth race at Chathill Downs qualify as a business expense?”
“So take it out of my salary.”
“I have, but, tell me, Mr. Moonlight, what comes to mind when you hear the term indentured servitude?”
“You know, it’s dames like you that makes a joe want to join a monastery or play with a hand grenade.”
“Mr. Moonlight, of the seven deadly sins the only one you lack is pride, but you compensate by turning sloth into an art form.”
Before I could barb my next retort she laid a kiss on me that would have sucked the yolk out of an egg. Then she slapped me.
She calmly straightened my tie and said quietly, “Al, I believe it is time for me to go on a vacation.”
“You sure about that, Lauren?”
“Yes, I need to do some shopping or climb a mountain or find a cure for cancer before I kill you.”
“How long will you gone?”
“As long as it takes.”
“How will I know you’re back?”
“Mr. Moonlight, have you ever had any problem being aware of my presence?”
“You got me on the long side of the short ones there, doll.”
She gave me a kiss that turned my lung sacs inside out and walked to the door with a sway that made you need a neck brace just to watch. She paused at the door and looked back.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mr. Moonlight,” she said, “Officer_Bob said you should call him.”
I lit a coffin nail and replied, “Sure thing, doll.”
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“If I return to find you have padded the expense account further, not only will I have your rancheros on a spike, you will discover what ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman’ truly means.”
She slammed the door and was gone.
I ran my fingers through my hair, sighed, and reached for the phone to call Bob.
Just another day in paradise…
It was late. The bar was quiet, almost deserted. He sat at the table lost in his musings, barely aware of the voice across from him that droned on and on. He wrapped himself in the darkness of the room and retreated further into his thoughts.
Through the ether of the lazily drifting chat he reflected on his conquests in the rooms. At first it had been exhilarating, the new adventure that for so long he had craved. The rules were different in chat and changed from room to room, but he was patient. Patience was one of the true strengths of his gift.
Slowly, he became accustomed to the game and the language that was used in here. Once comfortable with them he began to search out his victims. They weren’t hard to find. The types that fell prey to his gift seemed to flock in desperation to chat: the lonely, the misunderstood, the forgotten, the dispossessed.
He picked up the crystal glass from the table and slowly sipped the red wine. Through the cut prism of its reflective surface he viewed the face of the one who talked to him, a pallid little man that he could easily be the next victim. He fit the criteria of those he stalked.
But easy had become part of the problem. Again he was bored. It was almost as if they begged him for release. He sighed inwardly and sat down the glass. Their suffering was not his concern. He was not a god or one of their messengers.
He knew at the end of life there was merely oblivion. Only the weak or deluded believed that anything continued after death. That was where part of his strength lay. He could face that black when his time came so he had power over those that couldn't. He used this power to calmly stalk them. When they realized what he was after, it was too late.
After he learned the rules of the game his victims proved as easy as those had been on the other side. Occasionally, one would provide a challenge. A few even escaped. However, those were too few and too far between.
Then there was the dilemma that the nature of the chatters posed. The flakes he could kill. They died as easily as any victim he had ever pursued on the outside, but as for the chatters he could only kill their chat identity. They quickly fled the rooms, and if they returned, it was as someone else. He found such victory to be hollow.
His right index finger rimmed the edge of the glass. The red liquid flowed and eddied to his touch like the blood that throbbed in his temples. He watched it dance in the glimmer of the light as he mindlessly followed the voice across the table.
He only ever ordered one glass of wine for the evening. Whether he stayed ten minutes or five hours when he left he finished the last sip. On one hand, it made him appear part of the crowd and less likely to cause suspicion if he always had a drink in front of him; on the other, it helped him practice his control and gave him still another advantage over his victims who usually drank too much.
Suddenly, he was brought back to the conversation by one word. He sat up and took interest. Yes, his mind had wandered, but he always listened. One had to be ready for any opening that was offered.
"…yeah, and they just started dropping like flies," the man said. "Spooked the company something awful. I tell you it's the future but those bozos couldn't see it. It was so unfair."
"I am sorry," he said after a sip of his wine, "what was the name of your company?"
He already knew the answer, but it sometimes helped to play ignorant with some of those that he stalked. It gave them a false sense of security that often led to the opening he needed to attack.
The man gave him a smile that one might give to a simple younger brother and replied, "Bio-Cybernautics, Inc. Suppose to be the cutting edge of technology, but you couldn't tell from their reaction to what I made."
"This is all so fascinating," he said as he finished his wine and motioned the waiter for the tab, "but I am afraid the wine is making me light headed. I am having trouble following you in this noise. Perhaps, we can chat again some other time."
"Yeah, it is getting late. You have to work in the morning?"
"I have my own business."
"What is it that you do?"
"I am afraid it would seem terribly trite and boring compared to your project. I would like to hear more about it sometime. I have some friends with money that might be interested, too."
"Well…I really don't have to get up either. Would you like to get a private room and chat some more?"
He smiled slightly. There a certain irony when they thought it was their idea. When the waiter arrived with his change he asked for a bottle of Merlot to go.
When I left the office, I noticed that mailman had made his delivery. I sorted through it quickly, dropping the advertisements and collection duns in the wastebasket. I started to throw one piece away when the return address caught my eyes. It was from my old secretary, Twinkletoes5.
I ripped it open, glanced at the letter, and put it in my suit coat pocket. I would read it later when I had time. There was a picture of her with her fiancée. She had left me a few months ago to arrange their wedding.
He was a large brawny joe, the kind that you expected to see lifting a bail or getting a good stance behind a cow. His arm was around her slender waist, and he had that look of a man who's every desire was fulfilled but the ball-and-chain hadn't started to chafe yet.
I traced my finger over her long blonde hair and blue eyes. We had almost got married once but came to our senses before it was too late. That was all in the past, but I would always have a tender spot for the dame.
She believed in me when everyone else around this crummy little cyburg was ready to run me out of town on a rail I would have had to build myself. I never could figure out what she saw in a joe like me.
My finger stopped tracing on the rock big enough to choke a nun in the confessional that she wore on her finger. He must have blown his wad on that one. Good for her, I thought, Twink deserved the best. I knew it sure wasn't me.
I caught the trolley and got out in front of the GenChat Central District Precinct. When I walked through the door I could smell despair, desperation, and a few sack lunches left a little too long in the bottom of some lockers.
It was a busy night for GenChat's finest. The reception area was full of the usual collection of hookers, felons, pickpockets, and Evangelical Universalists you expected to find in such a place. The desk sergeant spotted me and waved me on through to Bob's office.
Officer_Bob and I went back a long ways. At least I thought we did. One of the problems with being a flake is that at your core is a collection of other people's memories laying there like a couple of rotten eggs in the bushel basket of apples. You were never sure if what you recalled was theirs or yours.
As far as I could piece it together, Bob and I had been partners at one time. Then something happened. I wasn't sure what, and he wasn't telling. We had somewhat ironed things out over time, but I knew that if something happened to me he would be out front leading the rather long ticker tape parade.
I opened the door and was assaulted by the aroma of sweat, cigars, whiskey, and cheap after-shave. Personal hygiene was never at the top of his to do list. Across the dimly lit room stood what looked like a bowling ball standing on a couple of Idaho spuds. It was Bob.
"Park yer kiester, Moonlight," he growled like a bad digestive condition. "We gotta a few things to talk about."
"Sure, Bob," I replied as I sat down and lit a coffin nail. "How's tricks?"
"It's as rough as two day's growth running over a baby's behind, Al."
He reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of Old Scuzzie whiskey and two glasses. Then he remembered it was me and flipped me a bottle of mineral water. I uncapped it and took a slug. The cool liquid hit the back of my throat like an old dog on a new leg.
Bob filled a filthy glass with the rotgut and rumbled like a bowling ball on a warped lane, "So how's it goin' for ya, Al?"
"You know me, Bob. I never complain."
"Yeah, the people around ya do it enough for ya. Ya still in business with that dame?"
"Yes, we've set up office, Bob."
"Good, I like her. She's quicker than ya and smarter and a lot meaner. Ya need a dame like that to keep yer carcass in line."
"Uh, sure, Bob. Well, enough of getting in touch with our inner children, why did you call me down here? I assume it isn't a social call."
"Ya got that right, Al. I'd rather go the opera than spend time with the likes of ya.”
"I thought you detested opera."
"I do. No, Al, all hell's breakin' loose around here. We've got bodies stackin' up like firewood on a charnel wagon."
"And that relates to me…"
"Look, wise guy, the mayor is leanin’ on the commissioner, who's puttin’ the squeeze on the captain, who's ridin’ me like a faggot on a rodeo clown. I got more murders than ya got red ink in yer books and not a clue in sight, so I thought I'd see if ya had any skinny on the lowdown."
"No, sorry, Bob. My cases have been in leaning in the wind going the other direction down the country lane. Sorry about that."
"Don't go throwin' me a hankie just yet, tough guy. Yer gonna help on this case."
"Who's covering my retainer?" I asked as I lit another coffin.
He grabbed me by the tie, lifted me off my feet, and spewed into my face with breath that smelled like cheap booze and three-day-old tuna, "Yer retainer? Here's yer retainer, Moonlight. I'm two years and a chunk of change away from my pension. There's nothin’ the city'd like better than to stiff me on that one.
"I don't get that pension I got nothin’. So it's like this, either ya help me crack this case or ya'll find me livin’ in yer place and washin’ my underwear and socks out in yer sink."
I recalled that Bob liked to walk around his place in the buff. The idea of that naked bulbous body bent over my sink hand washing his clothes…I didn't want to go there. I agreed to help.
Bob let me go, looked at his watch, and asked, "What time ya got, Moonlight? My watch's stopped."
I lit another coffin nail and answered, "I hocked my watch last week to keep my bookie away from my kneecaps, but it's 8:30. You know it's always 8:30 in here."
"Yeah, yer right. I hate it when yer're right, but I'm lucky. It doesn’t happen that often. Ya want to go over to Rick's Café and catch the blue plate special?"
"I could use a cup of java."
We slipped out the side door and started down the alley toward GenChat's favorite greasy spoon. Bob was puffing after a few steps. With any luck he'd have a coronary, and I could slip out of this case.
Suddenly, we heard a scream. I took off like a glass of buttermilk shot through a hound with gas. Up ahead of us I could see two figures. One lay on the ground, the other loomed over the prone one. In the hand of the standing shape I caught the glint of a knife.
I put the pedal to the floor. With any luck I could make it there in time before my lungs gave out.
The two figures quickly came into the view. The joe lying on the ground was the non-descript type you expected to see as a victim in some second rate detective novel. He was a sallow little man with enough zits on his face that if you played connect the dots you could have come up with a decent rendition of the Great Sphinx.
His attacker was another matter. There was something about him that didn’t feel right, and I didn’t mean Brie on white toast. If you stripped off the impassive outer layer underneath you would find a soul as ugly as the Unitarian Book Club at the bookstore bargain bin.
However, my Uncle Elmo and Aunt Millie never raised any wallflowers for the school bake sale. I wrapped my right hand around the roll of quarters I kept in my pocket for playing the slots and lit into him like the IRS all over my last audit.
The joe was about my height and built a little thinner. My best Sunday punch made him turn from his victim, but he didn’t even blink. I barely got out of the way before his knife played tic tack toe on my vitals.
I grabbed a garbage can lid that lay conveniently next to me to block the downward thrust of his blade. My left foot snaked out and tripped him like a trick question on a pop quiz. As he went down I jumped him like a new set of battery cables.
I’m a pretty good alley fighter, but this joe was a lot stronger than he looked and much faster. He blocked my punch and my attempted knee to the rancheros. I found myself pinned to the ground with his hands squeezing around my neck.
That was when I got a good look at his eyes. What I saw made my blood run colder than the open trap door on a set of long johns in December. The orbs were dark blue, almost black, and were totally impassive.
I had looked in the eyes of a lot of killers around the rooms. Some of them had seemed reluctant, some remorseful and some even got a perverted pleasure out of it, but this joe was different. There was no emotion. It was like it was merely what he did.
I struggled against his tightening grip but to no avail. His knee in my chest had me pinned down. I clawed at his face. It only seemed to make his grip grow tighter. I could hear Bob puffing and shuffling up the alley, but at the rate that walking cholesterol time bomb was moving it would be too late.
He whispered so softly that I could barely make out the words, “You make me feel…you make me feel…”
Everything started to go black.
*****
He listened closely to what his prey told him while he poured his victim another glass of wine. The story seemed almost too good to be true. However, he had been patient, and to those who wait sometimes what they desire bears fruit.
The little man was nearly finished with the details. Yes, this would work. This was what he required. If he were capable of feeling joy, at this moment he would have been filled with elation. Instead, he merely felt completeness.
Hindsight later told him that was the point where he had the mistake. He made so few that he was painfully aware when they happened. In the celebration of the moment he poured himself a second glass a wine. It wasn’t enough to cause harm, but it did slow his reactions.
The man was leaning toward him, his glass out for another fill. He watched the nostrils as they flared in anticipation. The hands trembled slightly from the effects of the drink. He doubted at this stage if his victim was aware of the intoxication. Soon it would not matter.
“So you see, it’s a major scientific breath through,” the man slurred slightly.
He sighed and replied, “Yes, but seldom is true genius noticed by those who are in its presence.”
“Yes! Precisely! It amazes me how well you understand.”
“You would be surprised at how well I can intuit. I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure, go ahead. I can’t deny someone who listens to me.”
“I assumed you couldn’t. Would it be possible for me to see a copy of the formula?”
“That? Well, I don’t know…I kinda keep it close to my chest…and you may not understand it…”
“I can be trusted, my friend, to do what needs to be done. You would be surprised at what I can understand.”
“So you want to show it to your friends? See if they will invest?”
He smiled and answered, “Your wisdom truly does astound me. I could not have put it better myself. Do you need your glass freshened?”
He refilled the man's glass as his victim hastily scribbled down the formula. A slight smile was set on his lips. He felt no joy or elation, but he had learned that the act caused them to relax. It was almost time.
"Here you go, bud," the man said as he held out the paper is in his trembling hand. "I'm not sure why I'm doing this. Guess I trust you."
He calmly took the paper, stared for a minute at the sheet, folded it, and placed it in his pocket. Then he exhaled a long slow breath while the man looked at him quizzically. He allowed every muscle in his body to relax before he coiled them one by one.
He suddenly sprang, knife in hand, grabbing the man by the shirt as he said in a flat tone, "Trust me? I suppose we do all make mistakes…"
It must have been the wine. How else could one explain why his grasp momentarily loosened enough for his victim to tear free. He lunged for him only to feel the wine bottle crash against the side of his head. As he fell to the floor he heard the steps of his prey run out of the room.
Darkness started to enfold him, but he struggled back to consciousness. Usually, on the rare occasion that one escaped he let them go. However, the stakes were too high this time. He arose and felt the side of his throbbing head. His hand came away covered with blood. He looked at it and smiled.
He hunted his quarry on a long chase deep into the night. Several times his victim thought he had eluded his pursuer, but each time the man turned to find him still there. Only then did he realize how well his stalker had studied him. Slowly, he started to tire.
He caught his victim in an alley. His prey's harsh breath echoed in terror off the walls as he turned him and prepared to end it.
"Why?" gasped the man.
"Because I can," he calmly replied as he drove the knife into the man's stomach.
"God save me!" the man rasped as the blood, breath, and life poured from him.
He said not another word to his victim. He merely stopped and allowed the dying man to gaze deep into his cold eyes. He wanted him to be sure as the last gasp railed from his lips that his prey knew, truly knew, there was no god to save him.
He dropped the body to watch its final spasms before it was over. If rapture existed then it was now. Such moments were the closest to joy that he had ever known.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps rush toward him. A crescendo of pain ran through his head, but he held firm. He lashed out with his knife toward his adversary. He had to attack. He couldn't let his enemy know that the blow hurt him.
A garbage can lid blocked his blow, and he felt his legs go out from under him as they tumbled together in a desperate wrestling heap on the ground. He was stronger, but his attacker knew how to fight. It was only a matter of luck that he wound up on top with the advantage.
He looked deep into his enemy's eyes as he tightened his grip. Partly what he saw was the strength of one who could have been a worthy adversary. Pity, that it must end so soon. He also saw his own reflection. There was a thrill glinting from his gaze.
He whispered so softly that the man could barely make out the words, “You make me feel…you make me feel…”
His attacker started to go limp.
A shot rang out over his head and a voice growled, "Just get yer hands off of him before I make ya a candidate for the Swiss cheese brigade! If ya want to kill Moonlight, ya gotta get in line!"
He sighed and jumped to his feet barely taking a glance at the corpulent armed man. Too much was at stake. Before the man could shoot again he was over a nearby fence and gone.
*****
I sat up slowly rubbing the back of my head. My throat was sorer than a yodeler bending over for a bar of soap in the prison shower.
"Ya okay, Al?" Bob growled like a ptomaine sundae.
"I'll live," I replied as I lit a coffin nail. "Thanks for pulling my kiester out of the hay bailer."
"No problem. Ya still owe me a cyber-jackson from the smoker the other night. Gotta keep ya alive until ya pay up."
"Thanks, I think," I said as I knelt over the killer's victim.
I lit a coffin nail and slipped it into the dying man's mouth. He collapsed in a fit of unmitigated nicotine narcolepsy. Even if you're ready to kick the bucket a good smoke can help.
"I-I-I d-d-don't smoke," he gasped with what little breath he had left.
"Sorry about that."
He grabbed my suit coat with his bloody hands and wheezed, "I-i-i-t d-d-doesn't matter for me n-now. H-h-he's got it. He m-m-m-must be stopped before it is too l-l-l-late…"
With that he was gone. I checked my lapels. Hopefully the bloodstains wouldn't show through too bad.
"We gotta call this one in, Al," Bob said as he stared at the gore-drenched corpse beside me. "Kind of ruins my appetite for the scrambled eggs and haggis plate at Rick's."
"Yeah, know what you mean, doc," I said as I stood and lit another coffin nail.
"Well, after I file my report, let's head over to the Tahiti Lounge. You look like I could use a drink. This is over anyway."
"No, Bob, I got a sinking feeling it's just beginning."
There are places in Chat_World where the abandoned and dispossessed gather. Sometimes, they come to hide from a life on the outside where they do not fit or belong. Occasionally, some believe that they deserve no better. Then there are those who come to hide from prying eyes that might question the condition they are in.
He was among the latter. So close he was now to his goal that the last thing he needed was to have the police and others question his wounds. He looked at the cuts in the mirror. He had treated them the best he could, but he assumed that the nasty one on his forehead would scar. No matter, he had plenty of other such badges from past hunts.
He walked over and lay down on the bed, scarcely noticing the gloom of the seedy hotel room. Physical environment mattered little to him. The place may have been filthy and smelled of despair, but it suited his needs.
As he lit a cigarette he reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a wadded piece of paper and a wrinkled business card. The paper had came from his victim. The card he took from the man who attacked him before he fled from the scene.
Normally, he would have discarded the card or looked at it later. What was contained on the paper was what he desired. There would no longer be a way for the chatters to escape him.
However, the man who attacked him had intrigued him. It was not because he had come to the aid of his victim. He had encountered that before. Such ones either joined as another victim, or, if too strong he had fled from them. No, this man was different.
He mouthed the words “you make me feel” as he turned the card over and over in his hand. Deep within him lay a rage that he had long suppressed beneath the ice. This man had awakened that anger.
He enjoyed the feeling. For so long he had enjoyed nothing. Now that the dam on that well had been released he reveled in the sensations that rode over him in wave after wave. He laughed quietly to himself as he realized now why he stalked them.
It was because he could. Truly, that was the reason and now he fully comprehended it.
He wanted to feel more, but he realized that he couldn’t push too fast. There were other things that needed to be done first.
He let the card fall to the bed and picked up the piece of paper. He slowly unwadded it lest it tear in his grip. Here lay the secret to true terror. They thought they could escape, but now there would be no way. Soon enough the black would engulf them all.
He sat down the paper and picked up the card. On it was engraved Bloodcall & Moonlight. Those words had been crossed out. Underneath them written in a rather ragged handwriting were the words Moonlight & Bloodcall.
Al_B._Moonlight…what was it about this man? Why could this detective make him feel when no other had for so long? It did not truly matter. What counted was that he found the encounter to be seductive and intoxicating.
He wanted more.
He lay back to rest. Though every nerve in his body tingled and leapt he forced himself to relax. Patience, he reminded himself, was one of his strongest allies. First, he must plan.
He had to visit a certain chemist he knew on the outside.
He had to learn more about this Al_B._Moonlight.
Then the hunt would begin.
Bob and I walked through the front door of the Tahiti. The chat washed over us like warm water over your hands under the tap in the men’s room:
·
Single_diety
says, "What happened anyway?
I was afk and the whole thing had locked up."
·
Dawn_tinted says, "hello al"
·
My_ciao_ciao revs up her bumper car and waves at al
as he enters
·
DoneInTheSnow says, "(Tahiti_theme)is
appropriate"
·
Roseisaroseisarose says, "hello al!"
·
Al_B._Moonlight lights a coffin nail
·
My_ciao_ciao weaves between the tables
·
Dawn_tinted winks at al & says “long time
hon”
·
Al_B._Moonlight says, "been elsewhere sweetheart"
·
DraculaAnn says, "brb.. potty time"
·
My_ciao_ciao slams her bumper car into the airlock
·
Dawn_tinted giggles & winks
·
Single_diety has to leave pretty soon anyway. Places to go. People to see.
Things to do and all that crap.
·
Al_B._Moonlight says, "too many cases, too many
dames, you know how it goes"
·
My_ciao_ciao side swipes the bar
·
Ms_Sitcom walks over to the bar and orders a shot of
Old Scuzzie
·
Al_B._Moonlight says, "one foot in the crapper
and the other ahead of the collection agency"
·
Ms_SitCom says, "lol @ al"
· Dawn_tinted says, "hey al how come i’m not one of your dames ???????"
Yeah, just another collection of Rhodes Scholars though that Dawn_tinted was one fine looking dame. I kept one hand on my wallet as I wound through the crowd to the bar.
The Tahiti Lounge is one of those chat water back dives where you can belly up to bar and plunge nose first into a bowl of suds and a mug of peanuts. However, the board of health had condemned the pickled pork fritters.
I used to hang my hat there. I was the piano player. The pay wasn’t great but where else could a joe spend the day tinkling the ivories and staring at a room full of great legs. I also got a lot of hostility worked out by throwing ashtrays at the clowns who requested Louie Louie.
The place was fairly crowded but Bob plowed an inspired path to the bar. I just followed in his wake and was soon sipping on a nice cold mineral water. I lit a coffin nail and turned toward the stage to take in the show.
When I quit working at the Tahiti, they hired a young piano player named Kid_Shelley to take my place. He was kind of young, at that all elbows and wet behind the ears stage of life, but the kid could blister the ivories like a magnifying glass on an anthill.
The problem was he preferred to play Stravinsky and Phillip Glass numbers, which didn't set well with the rock an' roll crowd. I had told him time and again you have got to give the people what they want, but he was too hard headed to listen. He was pretty nimble, though, to dodge that much fruit and vegetables while launching into Rite of Spring.
I heard a familiar set of thighs swish up behind me and a voice sneer, "Well, well, Al_B._Moonlight…there goes the property values around here."
I turned around to find my mouth covered by a kiss that ripped out my tongue and patted me on the head with it. Then she stepped back and slapped me.
As the circulation returned to my face, I eyed the dame in front of me. She was a little shorter than me and had more curves than a senator's filibuster. Her dark hair was long, cascading down over her shoulders. She wore a tight red satin dress that was slit up the left leg to near indecency.
Her handle was Daybreak12. She was the owner of this joint and my former boss. We had a history that read like Tamerlane's ride across Central Asia. The dame was cruel, self-possessed, and greedy, but she had a heart of gold. She was always looking for a good time. I wouldn’t say that she was easy, but if she ever wanted to be the catcher for the Tahiti's softball team she already owned the kneepads.
As I lit a coffin nail and collapsed against the bar in a rheumy pile of nico-bliss, I said, "Hi, Daybreak, how's tricks?"
She smiled slightly, leaned a set in a my direction that lent a new meaning to the term all hands on deck, and replied, "Downhill now that you are here, Al."
"I figured as much, sweetheart. So why did you kiss me?"
"Because I like it."
"Then why did you slap me?"
"Same reason."
"You got moxie, Day…"
"…and you love a dame with moxie."
"Usually, but in your case I'd rather be dipped in honey and licked by an aardvark."
"You don’t want to go in my office, Al? You still owe the bar a bundle. Maybe we could take it out in trade."
"Sorry, doll, I'd rather not trade for what you got to offer under the hood. I’ve already kicked that set of tires.”
"You've been there before, Al. You know what's it's like."
"I used to do carpentry with my Uncle Elmo, sweetheart, and hit my hand a few times with the hammer. So I know what that's like, too, but you don’t see me running to join a trade union."
“You know, Al, I’ve always found you attractive, like that last drink before you go home at night with someone you wouldn't normally let in to clean your cat's litter box.”
“Sweetheart, if I ever fell off the wagon and got drunker than a pig in a poker game there are some things about you that I might find bearable if I woke up next to you in an alley.”
“Al, sometimes I start to think you are a somewhat decent guy, but then I talk to you and remember why you aren’t.”
“You know there a lot of dames in these parts that are good at repulsing men. You’ve just happened to have turned it into a career.”
We were interrupted by Bob's voice growling like a basset hound thrown down a well, "Hi, Day. How are ya tonight?"
Bob had a thing for Daybreak. I wasn't sure why. Frankly, his wallet wasn't nearly deep enough to be in her league.
"Hi, Bob," she sighed as she rolled her eyes. "Two jerks for the price of one. How can a girl get…"
A jostling and parting of the crowd interrupted her. A portly joe with about two day's growth, a rather unclean shirt, and enough grease in his hair to keep to the local lube shop in business for a month ambled through.
Everyone stopped and yelled, "Cubbie!"
Cubbie replied, "If I was married my wife would have tried to entice me to go bed to her rather than come here. Now that would make a man want to drink."
I wondered if these people watched too many sitcom reruns.
The joe's name was Cub_Reporter. He was my main source for dirt around the rooms. He was also a lounge regular. I wouldn't say he spent a lot of time here but if you typed Tahiti Lounge in an Internet search engine the first three URLs would be his.
"Hi, Cubbie, how's tricks?" I asked as he leaned against a worn spot on the bar that matched his girth.
"Pretty good, Al" he replied with breath that would have frozen a hyena in its tracks. "You hear I'm working again?"
"No, I didn't. Congrats, Cubbie. The Tattler take you back?"
"Nah, better than that. I'm writing Cliff Notes for those condensed novels that you read in the magazines."
"Okay…so you still got your nose to the rumor mill grindstone these days?"
"Yeah, I can always use a few extra bucks. What do you want to know?"
I placed a cyber-jackson I had lifted from Bob's wallet in Cubbie's shirt pocket and said, "Been a lot of chatters and flakes turn up dead of late. You heard anything about it?"
"Like who's doing it? No idea, Al. Sorry, but you know…it did intrigue me. I did a little reading and found some stories of similar unsolved slayings on the outside."
"So you think it might be a crossover stalker or something?"
"Highly likely, Al. You know whatever gets passed out there eventually flushes down here. I also drew out a map of the slayings. You want to see it?"
"Sure."
"Okay, I'll send over a copy of the map and my notes."
"Thanks, Cubbie. I owe you."
"Any time, Al. Say, are you coming to the party?"
"Party? Uh, sure Cubbie. You know me and parties."
"Good, I know she'd really like to…"
I didn't hear the rest of what he said because I suddenly caught sight of a pair of cold eyes boring into my skull like a rabid dentist with a rusty drill. Then they were gone.
I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit.
He quickly left the Tahiti before his adversary could track him down. It was not yet time for a confrontation. He merely wanted Moonlight to know that he was there. At this stage it would become riveted in his mind. The distraction would cause him to weaken.
Besides, he had more important things to do. What was needed would require a trip to the other side of the modem. The one he sought would help or regret it if he refused. Either way he would kill him when the mission was complete. He could not afford anyone discovering his plans.
There was a small line in front of him when he arrived at the gate. He had chosen the time carefully. A little earlier, and he would have encountered the after dinner rush. During that congestion the authorities would on occasion randomly choose chatters to check their profiles. A little later, there would have been no one going in or out. It would have been more likely a guard would remember him.
Either way, he could not afford discovery. At this time the guards were tired from the rush and didn’t want to deal with anyone. They mindlessly allowed people to enter or leave.
He waited his turn while reading the newspaper. A man busy lost in the news was less likely to be noticed by the authorities or bothered by another chatter. Soon he go through the gate. As always, he was patient.
When his turn came he stepped on the platform. He pressed the log out button. Slowly, he felt the familiar tingle start in the soles of his feet. It snaked up his legs until it reached his spine and flooded out to the rest of his body. He started to feel numb. Everything began to fade to black around him.
Perhaps this was how his victims felt when the last gasp expired from them. However, there was a major difference. He knew that he would return on the other side. Life would continue for him, but when he choked the last breath of life from them their existence would end.
If he did have a name, that name would be terror.
*****
I left Bob at the Tahiti mooning over Daybreak like a streaker running through a meat locker. I never could figure out what he saw in her, but then I didn’t know what I saw in her either. She repelled me in ways yet I always kept coming back. Frankly, it was hard for me to respect anyone that would sleep with me.
The only exception was Lauren. If I didn’t respect her she would have killed me.
My mind started going over what I knew about the case. The threat was real for the flakes, very real. But for the chatters I never quite figured out what to think. Who had any idea what chat did to them?
The emotions were real, no matter how expressed. The toll this crummy little cyburg took on their lives, health, and money was as real as anything else in their lives. You meet someone and things happened. You are scared by it, but you can’t stop. I guess what they say about the place is true. Who you are when you come in is who you are in here, and what you pick up in here goes back out when you leave. Life is about the same on either side of the modem.
I lit a coffin nail and changed the subject with myself. The committee was getting little too deep on the hip waders and giving me a headache. I needed to kick back with a cup of java and the sports page and get back to the case.
The office was as deserted as my junior college Ethics class after test day. I turned on the java pot and lit another coffin nail. The acrid smoke seared through what little undamaged tissue remained in my lungs. Coughing and heaving my eyes watered like a buffalo in a rice paddy. You just had to love a good smoke.
As my breath and vision returned I noticed there was a message on the answering machine. I fiddled around with the contraption until I accidentally erased the it. Someday Lauren would have to show me how to run the thing.
There was a knock the door. I answered and found a courier from ChatEx with a package. Cubbie had come through like a shortstop making the long throw out the hole to first. The deliveryman expected a tip so I told him to bet on Tofu Ptomaine in the fourth. He gave me a dark look. Some joes just don’t get it.
I turned on the radio. Humming along to Louis Prima crooning In A Little Gypsy Tea Room, I pushed the papers, food, and trash off of my desk. Then I laid out Cubbie’s package and started to study it.
It was time for Al_B._Moonlight to go work.
The night was cool and long and dark. He moved slowly through the ether with a package nestled in his coat pocket. Inside the wrapper lay the fate of those he would encounter. No longer could they escape him with a mere log out. Leaving Chat_World, in fact, would seal their fate.
Call him pestilence, name him war, entitle him death, or baptize him famine, he would accept any designation from those that needed to know why he did it. All that mattered to him was that now he carried a gift as dear as his own talent. Together they would be invincible. It was too powerful and he was too clever to be stopped.
Beyond that he could think of only two reasons that he pursued his mission. One was a statement made by his mentor long ago. Before he ended his teacher's life, the man had quoted an even wiser man: "From time to time it is necessary that pestilence, famine, and war prune the luxuriant growth of the human race." Perhaps he was the agent of natural selection.
The other reason, of course, was because he could.
He raised the collar of his jacket against the breeze. He walked slowly but with great determination. Aware, always aware of those around him, he sought his first victim. It would not take long. They seemed to gravitate to him, as if they searched for the release he offered.
Little else moved him except that he was curious to see how his prize would work. The initial results on the man whom he visited on the outside had been most encouraging.
Then, of course, there was the matter of Moonlight. After he tested what he carried he would have to see what his adversary was up to.
*****
Restlessly, she waited for the taxi. Her green eyes that usually sparkled beneath the long curly red hair looked very tired. The day had been long and chat boring as usual. It seemed the more time she spent in here the less she got out of it. Perhaps it was time to take a few days off.
From behind her sounded steps. She clutched the can of pepper spray in purse as she turned around. Then she relaxed. It was a lone man, but he looked smaller than she did. From his body language it appeared that he was more wary of her than she was of him.
He smiled slightly, nodded, and stood a few feet from her. She smiled back and turned towards him. Usually, she was very careful with strangers in here but there was something about his eyes. She wanted to know what was behind them.
"Cold night," she said tentatively.
"Yes, it is," he replied quietly moving two steps closer then one back. "I have had enough of this place. I'll be glad to get home."
"Me, too. You come here often?"
"Off and on. I liked it at first, but now, I'm not sure. It doesn’t seem to offer what I was looking for in the first place."
"I know what you mean. I'm tired of the games in here."
"Yes, it is too much like the outside," he said as he took another step in her direction, "and I'm afraid I can't justify paying the modem charge for the similar grief."
She smiled and didn't move away as she said, "You seem to have discovered what I have. I think I'll log out and stay offline awhile."
"Perhaps longer than you think…"
"I'm sorry? What did you say?"
"Oh nothing. I tend to ramble. Perhaps that 's part of the reason I have trouble keeping friends."
She hesitantly took a step toward him and said, "Oh I'm sure that's not a problem. Poor baby, you look so sad."
He sighed and answered, "Yes, I am. It seems like when I get to close to someone they are gone."
"Yes, life can seem so fleeting in chat."
"More than you could imagine, my dear."
Then followed the awkward silence where she assumed that he was afraid his next line would be the wrong one, and she would be gone. She felt sorry for him. He seemed nice, like there was something inside that begged to be rescued. She took another step toward him and slowly held out her hand.
He lightly took hold of it and pulled her closer. She could now feel the heat of his body next to hers. She had broken eye contact when she moved toward him. She smiled shyly and looked up.
The eyes had changed. The slight lost warmth she had seen in them was replaced by cold hard steel. She realized that the warmth had never been there. What she had seen was only a reflection of her own desires.
She tried to step back but his grip was like iron. She tried to scream, but his free hand grasped her throat stifling her voice. Her purse fell to the ground in the struggle and was kicked into the gutter. It opened and the can of pepper spray rolled lazily into the gleam of the streetlight.
His eyes now mocked her as his grip tightened on her neck. His other hand let go of her and reached inside his jacket. She continued to fight but realized he was much stronger than he looked. She clawed at his face, but the raking nails only seemed to make him stronger.
Fear seized her as his iron grip pulled her closer. Their eyes locked in one gaze. She could not break from his stare that reflected back her horrible realization that this was death. She was too frightened to even force quit from chat.
She felt a sting like a pinprick on her neck. His grip slowly relaxed pulling the necklace that she wore from her body. She wrenched free just as the taxi arrived. Eyes wild she jumped in and the cab took off. She slumped back in the seat and felt her burning skin. As soon as she got back outside she would have to have it looked at. God knows what he did to her.
He watched the taxi as it disappeared around the corner. Perhaps she looked back at him once, perhaps not. He wasn't sure, and it didn't matter. He had accomplished his goal.
He placed the syringe back in his coat and walked slowly down the street. If he were fortunate there would be more tonight, but if he didn't strike again until another night, it didn’t matter for the hunt had begun. There would be plenty more victims.
The new way was much less messy than his former methods. He liked it. It attracted less attention.
Whichever method he used, they would be just as dead.
I sat back from the desk, rubbed my eyes, and lit a coffin nail. The acrid smoke thundered through my lungs like a run away jackhammer on a partitioned C Drive. I collapsed like a bad bluff in a high stakes poker game and wheezed like an octogenarian on top of a prom queen.
After my breathing returned to what passed for normal, I stared blindly at the papers in front of me. I was sure now that my new friend was the same killer that had never been caught on the outside. I wasn't too surprised. It always seemed that if something happened out there it was only a matter time before it punched the time clock on our side of the modem.
What I couldn't figure out was a pattern to what he was doing or why he did it. Cubbie thought he had seen one, but his cat was barking up the wrong tree as far I could see. If there was a pattern you'd have to be a hop hound to see it.
I yawned and checked my watch. It said 8:30. I wondered where the night had gone. My java cup was empty so I went to pour myself another cup of mud. I figured by now what passed in my body as a bloodstream had to be about ninety per cent caffeine and nicotine.
I was about ready to lay down and catch a ride on the Slumber Land Express when it hit me like a bowling ball going down the wrong lane in the skating rink. It was just a hunch and a crazy one at that, but I might just be right.
My laptop was already running so I zoomed over to the Chat_World Archives to check it out. I loved my machine. It cut down the wear and tear on the shoe leather. I wouldn't trade my Macintosh for a truckload of PCs, only the best for Al_B._Moonlight.
Impatiently I drummed my fingers as a grainy picture slowly loaded. I sat back and studied it for awhile. I had been right. It probably wouldn't help me track the joe down, but when we had our encounter it could be a good ace up the sleeve. I was going to need all the aces I could find and hope they didn't come with an accompanying set of eights.
It was time to head down to the precinct and see if Bob and GenChat's finest had come up with anything. As I turned toward the door I heard a sound. I felt a cold rush up my spine like someone had shoved a snow cone in my boxers.
He stood there smiling slightly at me. His eyes were cold, impassive like they had my fate written on them. In his hand he held a necklace. I stood frozen as he dropped it on the floor.
I lunged toward him but felt the room start to spin. It was like I was riding on a roller coaster full of taffy. The more I struggled the harder it became to move. Everything started to turn as fuzzy as a French art flick. I fell like a bear market.
He stood over me and said quietly, "You should really lock your door when you work. You could become so absorbed in what you do that I am afraid someone could sneak in and drug your coffee.”
"Don't worry," he said as he knelt and gripped my neck in his strong hands, "I will take care of you, Moonlight.
"Yes, I am afraid that I have the advantage. I see that you, too, are studying me, but those articles will tell you little. You are to be commended, though. Few have done that, and when they have it has always been too late."
His fingers tightened as he continued, "But I want you to know, Moonlight. I want you to look death in its face and understand that it carries your name. I want you to fear and run and hide and hope and pray and experience all of those emotions that I find so delicious in you.
"I even you want to have hope, though you know that there is only one outcome possible. I want you to have hope, no matter how little, no matter small, to keep you carrying on so that when the time truly comes there will be surprise.
"Why you, Moonlight? I have no idea. All I know is that you make me feel. For so long I have done this only because it is what I do well and because I can do it. I needed no other reason.
"Perhaps within you I see that my talent lies buried deep in all men.
“I am leaving you this necklace. It came from my latest victim. You can keep it so you will remember that your fate is sown, too."
He let go of my neck and lifted me by my tie. The effect was about the same as when he was choking me.
He kissed his finger, traced the outline of my dry lips with it, and said, "But it is not the time for it to end. This is too sweet. I must enjoy you more.
"For now it is suffice for you to know that any time I so desire that I can be here. There is no way you can stop me. Run if you wish. I hope that you will. I hope to prolong the joy of you as long as possible.
"But make no mistake, Moonlight, you are mine."
The door closed softly behind him. The paralysis was starting to wear off. I sat up slowly. I picked up the necklace and stared at the door for a long time. Nausea forced me to lay back down.
I doubted if I would ever come in this office again and not lock the door behind me.
I managed to crawl over to the desk and reach up for my pack of coffin nails. I lay back down, lit one, and inhaled slowly. The numbness was leaving my muscles and being replaced by searing pain. My head felt like the Marines took a shortcut through my body on their way to the Halls of Montezuma.
I took a long slow drag. My nerves were as shot as a shady valve job on a '55 Studebaker. This joe had me cased out big time. He was stronger than me, and it looked like a lot smarter. He was streaking for the end zone, and I hadn't even got the pony out of the gate.
Eventually, I knew that I had to move, but the cool floor tile felt good on my aching head. I closed my eyes and discovered a new meaning to the term vertigo. I wasn’t sure what he used to drug me, though I did know a few places over in XChat where you could make a bundle off of it.
After I stubbed out the coffin nail I lit another and reached over to the desk to pull myself up. A sheet of paper fell on me. It was the map of the slayings that Cubbie had drawn. As my eyes slowly focused I noticed that it was different.
There was a neatly drawn x with a small circle around it. Next to the circle was an arrow. At the end of the arrow were some words in a neat compact script:
A noble attempt, Moonlight. Yes, there is a pattern, but I doubt if your friend or you will be able to discern it. Perhaps this will help you. Until next time, Moonlight, and yes, there will be a next time…
I reached for the phone and pulled it down to me. I quickly dialed the precinct and asked for Bob. I told him where to meet me.
Slowly, I stumbled to the door. Once out in the hall I leaned against the wall and noticed an envelope in the mailbox. It was some kind of party invitation. I stuck it in my pocket. I would look at it later when I had time.
Using the wall as a support I made my way to the elevator. Hopefully, the night air would clear my head.
I needed a clear for head for what I was walking into.
*****
When I arrived at the crime scene there were already six squad cars there. I saw Bob. He was looking at a body that lay in the alley.
"Christ sakes, Al," he rumbled like an active volcano, "ya look like the dog the cat drug out back to vomit on yer sister's orthopedic shoes. What happened to ya?"
"I'll tell you later, Bob," I replied as I lit a coffin nail. "I gather we were too late."
"Only if yer not an undertaker. Look at this body, Al. This is weird."
I borrowed a flatfoot's flashlight and bent down to look. It was a good thing I didn't eat lunch. I lost track of the stab wounds after eight. I lifted the shirt and noticed a pattern on the victim's chest. It looked like the moon.
"What ya think it means, Al?" Bob asked as he took one of my coffin nails.
"I think our slayer has a very sick sense of humor," I replied as I wiped the blood from my hands on Bob's handkerchief. "Say, doc, I thought you quit smoking."
"Don't you think this is a good time to start?"
"Can't disagree with that."
"Al, as we left the station a ChatEx delivery man left this for you. He said that the instructions were for you to open it here. He also said he'd stop by your office for his tip. The last one paid off three to one."
Moonlight,
I apologize for the mess, but there truly seems to be no clean way to kill your kind. Do not worry, I am working on it. Perhaps we can test it on you. ;o)
There is one thing you should know about the victim with the necklace. She thought that she escaped by returning to the other side. I am sorry to inform you that such actions no longer work. You can trace her to this i.p. I assume the body will still be at the keyboard.
This is such glory! I am so glad that we get to enjoy it together. In the end you know it will come down to you and me. I am afraid we both know what the result of that encounter will be, don't we?
Well, as you say, see you around the rooms…
I handed the note to Bob. As he read it his face turned whiter than a piece of chalk on a Malibu beach on a bright sunny day. He handed it to one of the officers to take back to the lab for analysis.
"I doubt if they'll find anything," I said quietly, "unless he wants us to find it."
"What did he mean, Al?" Bob gnarled like a thunderstorm in a gully.
"It means he's on the loose, and I don't know if we can do anything to stop him."
When we got back to the GenChat Precinct the switchboard was jammed like a left-hand hitter pulling an inside curve ball. We hightailed our way back to the Bob's office before the press could nab us. He locked the door behind us.
Bob flipped me a bottle of mineral water and read a memo that lay on his desk. He shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair, and poured himself a glass of Old Scuzzie. He stood looking out the window. The room was so quiet you could hear the sweat drip off the hands of the clock.
"We got the report, Al," he growled like a grizzly bear with the trots. "It don't look good. They found a dame in Lubbock dead as a doorknob at her keyboard. She'd just logged out."
I lit a coffin nail and said, "Then, it's begun."
"Yeah, like a garden hose up the kiester. It gets worse, too. They've found three others. God knows how more there are we ain't aware of yet."
"Any luck on tracking him?"
"The techs are on it, but it's like lookin' fer a needle in an enigma. Christ, Al, ya know how many people come in and out of here in a day.
"The mayor's locked down the gates, but I got a sinkin' feelin' in my kidney stones it won't do no good."
"Yeah, he's in here, and he's having way too much fun to leave."
"Yeah, sort of leaves us…"
"Like a cat in heat with anvil tied to its tail while it runs through the dog pound?"
"Well…I wouldn't put it like that, but I suppose you could look at it that way."
Bob finished his glass and poured another. He slumped down in his chair. Who knows how long it had been since he had slept? He looked every bit like a joe on the edge of retirement.
"One thing I don't get, Al," he snarled like a lion sitting on a cactus, "is what he sees in ya."
"He seems to think there is pleasure in slowly killing me," I replied as I stubbed out my coffin nail and lit another one.
"Well, he at least has taste in that. Ya learn anythin' that might help us?"
"Only one, but it wouldn't do any good until I can meet him on equal footing."
"Care to fill me in?"
"I'll leave you the URL before I go."
"Yer not duckin' out on me are ya?"
"No, Bob, but we have to admit that he is dealing off the bottom of the deck while we hold a pair of deuces and that card that gives you instructions how to play gin rummy."
"Okay…ya ain't been siftin' tea bags again have ya?"
"Bob, he's out there on a rampage. We have no idea who he is, where he’s going next, or even how he’s doing it. We've only got one ante in the kettle of potatoes as I see it.
"He wants me. I have to draw him off, keep him busy until we figure out how to stop him."
"Mighty brave of ya, Al," Bob said quietly. "He's almost cleaned yer clock like a head linesman with a broom. How ya gonna do it?"
I took a sip off my mineral water and walked over to the window. I had always wondered what Bob looked at when he stopped there. Lost in thought my fingers mindlessly played with the lip of the bottle.
I was no hero. I knew that, but I also knew that if we had any chance to stop this joe it lay with me. Some guys have all the luck.
It was then that I noticed a thin figure on the sidewalk looking up at me. Even from that far away I could feel his slight smile. He waved and then quickly disappeared into the night. The joe was good, very good.
I lit another coffin nail and said over my shoulder like a tenor with false bravado, "There's a lot of hell holes out there, Bob, and I've been kicked out of most of them. Maybe I can stay ahead of him for awhile."
"Think so, Al?" Bob asked as he fished a coffin nail out of my pocket.
"Actually, I have no idea."
Bob placed his hand lightly on my shoulder. I lit a coffin nail, and we stood smoking in the silence. There was nothing left to say.
After Moonlight left the window, he returned to his motorcycle to retrieve his helmet. He polished the glistening white plastic with the sleeve of his black leather jacket and made sure that all of his equipment was properly in place.
He calmly walked into the lion's den. In the turmoil and commotion of the busy station no one would notice one more officer. He would blend in so well that by the time they discovered what he had done it would be too late.
He wandered through the main lobby until he spotted his victim. It was always so apparent when he saw them. He often wondered if they were aware of him. Whether they did or not held little importance to him and was merely a point of curiosity.
As always the act would prove to be easy, but for now that did not bore him. The challenge was new, first to ascertain if they were flake or chatter and then to slay them. The flakes, of course, were easier. The chatters proved more of a challenge. He had to strike before they broke the connection.
Normally, a chatter would log out through the gate, but they could perform a force quit. The trick was to inject them before they could complete the function.
The man sat down his camera and said, "BRB - gotta see a man about a database."
He followed his quarry down the hall. The man heard his footsteps and turned wearily to look at him, but when he saw the uniform, he relaxed and walked on to the men's room. He followed his victim inside.
They stood side by side and together they performed one of the few functions that he had in common with them. The man looked at him as he finished and nodded.
As he walked to the sink the man said over his shoulder, "Quite the night ain't it?"
"Yes, one could say that," he replied as he calmly finished.
"Been doing this beat for ages and never saw them worked up like this. Must be big though they ain't telling us much."
"Perhaps, if you truly knew you wouldn't believe it."
"Don't know about that, bub. I seen about everything around this one horse chat town. Doubt if ya could surprise with much."
"What if you were in the very room with the killer, and he was disguised as a policeman, awaiting his chance to make you the next victim?"
The man looked up at him in the mirror and studied him worriedly for a minute. Then he shook his head and broke into a grin as he reached for a towel.
"Ya had me going there for a minute, bub," he chuckled as he dried his hands. "Maybe ya should sign up for a set for at the Chat Comedy Store. Yer quite a comedian."
He answered, "Maybe, but I always thought me talents lay more with the dramatic arts."
"Yeah, if ya say so. Well, I gotta get back to work. Talk to ya later."
"I doubt if, my friend. Excuseme, but your shoe seems to be untied."
"Hey, guess it is. Thanks pal. You’re realer 'trooper'. Ha! Ha!"
"Again you are wrong," he said softly as he yanked the garrote tightly around his bent over victim's neck. "I don't know which I detest more, ignorance or stupidity. I am afraid you possess too much of both to be allowed to live."
He had to act quickly before anyone else entered the room. His prey struggled in vain against the tightening rope. He pushed him slowly to the floor, his knee pressing hard into the back to match the pressure on the neck.
Normally he preferred to use a knife and to have them face him. Then he was sure that they truly understood that they had been stalked and that when life ceased that would truly be the end.
However, in here he had to act quickly and could not afford any sound. Therefore, he used the rope. He did derive a pleasure by closing his eyes and pretending it was Moonlight. He found himself doing that quite often now.
When his victim's struggles ceased he pulled him back into a stall and closed the door. He calmly washed his hands and combed his hair before he left. Personal hygiene had been ground into him at a young age.
As he walked through the hall he put on his helmet. No one noticed him, no one stopped him. As he walked by the reporters he heard one of them wonder what was taking Ernie so long. He assumed once they found out it would be front-page news.
Once outside he mounted his motorcycle and disappeared into the night.
He usually didn’t sleep much or for long when he did, but tonight he could feel the long cool fingers of restful slumber trace over his slowly drifting consciousness. The day had gone well, and tomorrow looked even better. For a change he could allow himself to relax.
The past usually did not concern him. He thought seldom of it. Perhaps it was the unexpected drowsiness or the sense of satisfaction, for tonight he found his mind tumbling deep down the hole within himself to confront the thoughts that rarely surfaced.
Fire turned to ice, lingered, burnt deep in his mind, and turned back to fire. He rode the waves of this unsurfaced rage. Like a lone surfer under the moonlight he watched the black waves of his anger as it lapped over the white sands of the beach of his past.
The torment was old yet as new as his latest wave of slayings. He embraced it and rode it deep, the foam of the memories spraying cool on his glistening skin. He ignored the cold and headed toward its warmth. With it he was one. It was all that he had.
There were those who would call his life hell. That was their business. To accept such an idea would mean he would have to believe that there was an afterlife. He knew that such concepts were only for the feeble-minded and the deluded. Neither would he acknowledge fate. Existence merely was and then it was gone, a candle he would gladly snuff for any that he could.
Her face appeared behind his closed eyelids. The long brown hair streamed down over her slender shoulders and around the neck that was so fragile one could almost snap it with the imagination. The lips were set grim as he always remembered them.
Then there were the green eyes. They were hollow, empty, consumed, with a fear and acceptance of her fate. She knew from the beginning that she would be the first, but her duty had kept her near.
She had told him that from his birth that she knew that he was evil. He laughed at the idea now. There was no evil, there was merely this squalid existence where he had to display his power while he still lived. A talent such as his could not go to waste.
Some would say her efforts were heroic to reclaim him from the seed that was born in him. Others would claim that she made him what he was. Was it discipline or abuse? Was it fear or neglect? He wouldn’t agree with either interpretation. She was only a woman coping best as she could with a talent that she could not understand.
So she watched him closely and deserted all possibility of any companionship in her life except for him. Such sacrifice mattered little to her. She never cared for men. The man who had fathered him had merely taken from her what he wanted. Her son was the same way.
She raised him so that he was fully aware of this. All men are evil. They can be no other way. God made them so. However, he never seemed to accept it. He always looked at her with those empty cold eyes and slight smile that seemed to say You will be first, and there is no way to escape your fate.
He lost track of the beatings and other punishments. Who knows how many months he spent locked in dark closets while she sat outside and quietly read the Bible to him. He could still recite the entire book by heart.
Finally came the day when he was bigger and stronger than she was. Another may have been cowered by her years of abuse, but such an individual would not have had his talent. He could still taste the horror and expectance in her eyes as the sharp butcher knife separated her jugular vein.
Her blood had tasted sweet when he licked it from his fingers. The abhorrence and expectation that was locked in her lifeless eyes had stayed with him until this day. He had never seen such dread from another victim, and he had never felt so satisfied from a death.
Even the slaying of his mentor had been a mere numb step on the endless path of his talent. He didn’t believe that things were ordained. Again, that would mean there was a god, and his life had taught him there was none. However, some things were inevitable.
Moonlight was inevitable.
Moonlight made him feel like no one else had since her. He had awakened desires that he never knew he had. Now he could act upon them.
He felt a jerk and stirring next to him. In his musings he had forgotten that she was there. He reached over and gently stroked the long blonde hair and lazily gazed into her eyes.
If one look could define fear then it was the look that was returned to him by those deep blue eyes that also held such hopelessness. She arms, so thin and pale, struggled helplessly against the ropes. Her mouth screamed in terror uselessly against the duct tape that covered the soft lips that begged unknowingly for the passion of release.
He smiled slightly and picked up his knife allowing the reflection of her horror to mirror in the bright blade. He laid the cool flat of the blade on her soft white cheek and let it stay there until her body had warmed it.
Then he kissed the warmth of the steel that was as real as was the neck that begged him for freedom.
But that would happened soon enough. For now he wished to sleep.
It would be nice to wake up in the morning and not be alone.
I got off the trolley over in ReligiousChat. If the chase was going to begin I figured this was as good as any place to start. If I had to die I’d rather be somewhere they were playing Nearer My God to Thee.
I knew a little chat dive that served a mean cream soda. I would rest my dogs and wait for him there. It wasn’t a matter of if he would show but when. The joe could track like a coonhound in a meat locker. Hopefully, my friend would show up first.
The door to Bob’s Place was slightly ajar. I slid into a back pew, ordered a drink, and listened to some of the afternoon discourse:
· Yanamamo says, "Zeus: If Zeus is your god, he is a very SMALL god."
· Zeusisgod says, "Zeus is soooo real. It is like denying the very air which you breathe."
· Yanamamo says, "Heaven: Thank you and praise Jesus."
· Pressin-on says, "I hav jus come ta Praise HIS name!!!!!!! Forevermore n Evermore!!!!!!!!!"
· Zeusisgod says, "He makes the lightning and the very electricity we use. It is by his power that we do anything"
· Morian says, "Let us not sound like the Ephesians who were screaming for two hours "Great is Diana of the Ephesians""
· Christianburner says, "Rule #2: self referencing the bible to prove itself correct will be discredited (ex: bible says god cannot lie, so god is real. etc.)"
· Zeusisgod says, "Why does the Christian concept God kill so many humans to the delight of his followers?"
·
Madona2001 says, "All Glory ta
HIM!!!!!! Jude 1: 24,25 Amen!!!!!!!!"
I struck a match on the No Smoking sign to light my coffin nail, took a sip off my cream soda, and watched the intellectual train wreck in progress. It was a hot time in the old coliseum. It reminded me of the time I was in Boulder when the vegetarian crowd rationalized that they could eat red meat if it was organically grown. The scene was uglier than my blind date for the junior prom.
The pagan had a grin like a Cheshire cat with a mug full of buttermilk. He knew the trouble with Christians. They have no sense of humor.
I checked the clock on the wall. It said 8:30. My friend would be here soon. I had called him from a phone booth before I left. I figured laughing boy would find me soon enough without me leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for him.
About three cream sodas and a pack and a half of coffin nails later he walked into the room. He was a rather non-descript looking joe in his button-downed collar white shirt, black pleated trousers, and a blue cardigan. His hair had enough oil to keep the infant care unit in supply for months, and he had the biggest pair of black horned rim glasses in captivity.
His handle was Bob. He owned the joint.
A few years ago some people got together and decided that one of the problems with the god thing was that the deities were always too powerful for us to relate to. So they chose Bob, just a regular meat and potatoes joe, to be their deity.
It was supposed to be a joke, but like most things once they hit the chat it turns real, well as real as you can get in here. After the introduction of Bob-ism a religious revival swept through the rooms. You couldn’t find a decent poker game for weeks.
Then as quickly as it erupted like a bad pimple on your chin before a date, the whole thing crashed like a rummy on secanol, and Chat_World went back to being the slimy little hole of Babylon we had all come to expect out of it.
Bob made out okay. He had the foresight to set up this joint. It paid the rent and left him with enough to play the ponies on the weekend. What else did a joe need out of life anyway?
He shook my hand with a grip that would have made a school marm wince and said, “Good to see you, Al. How are things over in GenChat?”
“Still not much for reading more than the funny papers, huh, Bob?” I said as I lit another coffin nail.
“Well, you know what it takes to run a business properly.”
“Actually, I don’t. So how’s Alice and the kids?”
“Oh, fine, though it’s the strangest thing. Whenever I mention your name Alice always gets this wistful angry look and goes off to eat some chocolate.”
“Dames are a strange breed, Bob.”
“I guess. Anyway, what did you want to see me about, Al?”
I quickly filled Bob in on the skinny.
After he picked his jaw up off the floor and turned a little less than a whiter shade of pale, he gulped and said, “Gosh.”
So much for the profound deity act.
I lit another coffin nail and between gasps, coughs, and sputters said, “Yeah, kind of takes the starch out of your boxers.”
“So what are you going to do about it, Al?” he asked.
“Run.”
“Run?”
“Run like a cheap pair of hose. What else can I do?”
“Stand and fight like a man?”
“Bob, it’s me we’re talking about.”
“Sorry, forgot for a moment.”
“That’s okay, doc. I wouldn’t mind a fracas if I thought I had a Jamaican's chance in the pokey, but against this joe the odds are stacked against me like a pig in a polo match.
“He’s got Chat_World on its heels like a hooker leaning up against a block of ice. The only chance we have is for me to keep him on the run until the flatfeet can figure out what to do.”
“So what can I do to help, Al?”
“Just give me a place to hole up. He’ll find me soon enough, but if I’m off the streets it will take a little longer.”
“Sure, Al. Say do you like bingo?”
“Can you bet on it?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, then let’s go.”
We headed toward the back room. Hopefully, this would buy some time and refill my pockets.
At least I hoped that he wouldn’t go after my friends with me out of the way.
The old dame that sat across from me reminded m