Chapter 17
Crime Scene
Tom was fast to the crime scene, fast enough to catch Detective Ryan Cahill fucking the dead girl’s body, which might have been too fast after all. He was ultra early thanks to his criminal car and a courtesy call from a female police officer, a friend of his, but that’s a story from another file.
The victim was a stripper, 21.5, Anna Magenta, and every man in the city knew her name and cup size. She had been on the scene about nine months, all bubbles, guided downtown by invisible wranglers, gently sifted onto the boulevard, drifted downward to the void of carnal depravity, the sincerity of ejaculate. She justified because she was making good green and only dancing in order to pay for her college education, which would lead to a husband and wholesome Christian existence.
Fuck you.
Tom tapped the apartment stairs- up five flights- because he didn’t trust elevators. Down the long hallway he could see Anna’s naked body, light by the white of the morning sun, Cahill on his knees, the girl’s leg over his shoulder, the cop’s belt buckle jingling, hammering hard and fast, pushing himself inside her, so foul that even his partner Bobby Jones turned his head and, “Awwww...”
The crime scene photographer was blind to the romance, took pictures of the lipstick scrawled on the wall:
“GOOD MORNING BYUTIFUL” [sic]
Jones, pen to pad against the window, “The fuck is wrong with you?”
Cahill, gleeful, still dripping cum while buckling his belt: “Gimme a break... there are kids starving in China.”
The cop spotted Atari and the smile fell away. “How did you get in?”
Jones turned to face Tom: “Atari. Lemme guess: the family hired you. Sobbing Mom... Arkansas... Omaha...”
Tom stepped to the body- a child again in death, forgiven, eyes frozen closed in torment, her naked body gray and water-logged. Her hands were gone, hacked away with a blade sharp, rainbow spaghetti hanging out the stumps.
“Nope,” Tom said a silent prayer: “I’m doing this pro-bono.”
Cahill, halfway through a Lucky, with a bucket of smoke: “Christ Almighty, Tom Atari’s on the case: I guess we can go home now, Bob.”
Tom, turning to face him, Ryan Cahill, pale Irish potato, three-day beard because it was always there, because he believed he was cool breeze. He was crooked as a crap game, and Tom would have hated his guts if he had any.
“This is Anna Magenta.”
Jones, tall, oblong, warning, “You’re not supposed to be here, Tom.”
Cahill watched Atari close. “We don’t need your help.”
“She’s dead, yeah? If that’s lipstick on the wall it would make her the seventh victim of the Lipstick Killer. You count to seven? Sound like a lot... sound like you need all the help you can get.”
Cahill, coughing, “Fuck off.”
Bobby Jones stepped over the black high-heel traced in chalk on the fuzz apartment carpet: “Ryan, enough with the language.”
Atari, quiet, “What happened here?” He gave them a look that came from inside and for a moment both men were detectives again, spines aligned, on-duty, reporting to him like a Captain.
Cahill: “What do you think- guy broke in, fucked her something awesome, cut her neck and took her hands as trophies. It was the Limp-Dick Killer- if you believe he exists. I say the papers made such a fuss of that first girl that we got a bunch of sick maniacs playing copycat.”
Tom, to himself, “Tesla.”
Jones, shaking his head at his partner, “I told you it’s the same guy- one copycat maybe, not five.”
Atari stepped around to Anna’s feet, crossing behind Cahill, who had to turn his neck. “Why do you find it so hard to believe that it’s the same guy? He’s out there. He’s no good.”
Jones nodded, brave, “It’s one guy. And he’s good at this.
The photographer got Anna’s mangled body, Atari’s tattered shoes in the bottom of the frame. For color.
Cahill was looking in his partner, disbelief in his voice.
“Listen to you. Lipstick is a creation to sell papers. It’s probably one of the crime writers doing this himself, wouldn’t surprise me.”
Tom, watching the detectives, husband and wife. “How’d she get in the hallway?”
Cahill, snorting, cigarette dangling, “She danced her way out here.”
He had found his partner’s inner hog: Jones started laughing. Ryan, on a roll, “That’s what she does, you know, Tommy... titty dancing.” He shook his chest in mocking stride, Anna’s eyes looking up, asking why.
“Lipstick has never taken them out of their apartment before,” Atari nodding at the wall, “and he’s never written on anything other than a mirror.”
“So he’s branching out. Changing his style.” Jones, curious.
“How the hell do you know all this? Get the fuck out of here, Atari.” Cahill pulled another cigarette from his pack.
Tom cleared his throat. "Some people say he's a cop."
Cahill: "Some people say he's Tom Atari."
Jones: "He's branching out."
Tom had enough. “He’s not branching out- he’s getting sloppy. I say he’s ready to be caught. Now he wants it.”
Jones’ eyes, locked on Tom, rolled slow to Cahill.
Cahill lit, spit a bit of tobacco from his lip to the carpet. “You say? You’re not a cop. And we don’t need your help.”
Tom eyed the doorframe of Anna’s apartment. Doorknob and lock intact, untouched. He pled.
“Give me fifteen minutes- I promise you there’s something here- at this scene- that will lead you directly to the Lipstick Killer.”
Detective Ryan Cahill hitched up his belt, sniffed, and looked into Tom’s eyes. “I’ll give you fifteen seconds to get out of here before I kick you in the ass.” The stank from his shit-eating grin stunk the hallway awful.
Tom, disgusted, looked to Jones, whose eyes went down to the body. Atari shook his head, took a step away and turned back to Cahill.
“Tell me, Ryan: do you fuck women with heartbeats or can you only get hard when they do?”
The cigarette fell from Cahill’s fingers as he reared back and punched Tom in the ear with all the force he could muster.
Tom, reeling, gasping for breath, inhaled and felt the air blow out his ear, knew what it meant: ruptured eardrum, the ringing so loud he couldn’t hear as Bobby turned to him and mouthed words with no sound.
Anna Magenta.
Tom, holding his bloody ear, staggering to the staircase, where Cahill kicked him from behind, sending him tumbling down the concrete steps, knocking his head on seven and two and landing on the landing in a heap.
The last thing he saw before blacking out was Jones and Cahill above him, looking down and laughing in a silent movie.
