Secluded Alleys
by B. Billy Curtis
“He that saith he is
in the light, and hateth his brother,
is in darkness even
until now.”
1 John 2:9
King James Bible
Chapter 1
Dark Alleys
Two-headed boy
All floating in glass
The sun it has passed
Now it's blacker than black
I can hear as you tap on your jar
I am listening to hear where you are
Two-Headed Boy
Neutral Milk Hotel
Not long before the story hit the press and exploded into the
light of day, the young photographer paid a visit to Dylan at the gallery. He had a handful of the photos with
him. The photographs allegedly showed
dead bodies posed with fruits, vegetables, hand grenades, mousetraps.
“See, what I’m attempting to explore is…” he began.
Dylan leaned forward on the table, his hands pressed together as
if he were praying in church or at some Buddhist temple performing a gasho.
“So, you pose the
bodies?” Dylan asked after hearing the kid’s spiel.
“Yes, that is, in effect, what I do. I am performing a grieving ritual, in a sense. I don’t so much think of myself as a
photographer, but the photographs are the only method I have at my disposal to
share the ritual with others.”
Over the past year as
a gallery curator, Dylan thought he’d seen it all, but obviously he had
not. Once, an artists’ giant
papier-mâché Mt. Rainier imploded and collapsed on five people who were inside
the mountain watching a light show and listening to the heavily amplified sound
of breathing. Though covered with wet newspaper
and wet paint, the patrons took it all in good humor.
Another time, an exhibit commemorating the anniversary of the WTO
riots was well executed, but a small contingent of Seattle Police arrived and
shut down the opening due to “noise complaints” from neighbors. The cops in riot gear remained in mobile
command units parked outside until the party had been disbursed.
Now, some snot-nose kid was sitting in the gallery trying to sell
him on the idea of an exhibition of photos of dead bodies posed with objects
d’art.
“Where, exactly do you come up with these bodies? Do you work at a funeral home or…”
The kid shook his head before Dylan could spit out the whole
question.
“I am not willing to divulge that information.” He said it with the certainty of Bartleby
the Scrivener.
“Well, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable with a show like this
unless I was certain the families of the deceased were alright with it.” Dylan said.
The kid’s head continued to swing like a pendulum. Dylan’s question as to consent was the
finger that pushed it into motion.
“I promise you that I personally did not kill any of these
people. That is the only thing I am at
liberty to share with you. I would be
willing to take a lie detector test to that affect if you would like.” He raised his right eyebrow as if he were daring
Dylan. He raised his right eyebrow as
if Dylan might actually have access to a lie detector in either his capacity as
a gallery curator, or his gig as an arts columnist for Seattle’s edgy, weekly, The
Stranger newspaper.
Dylan nodded his head in laughter at the idea, though the kid took
the nod as a yes to the project and
started to grin from ear to ear. He
began to slide the small black portfolio toward Dylan, who quickly changed
expression to ward the kid off.
“Well then…” the young man slowly moved his hand toward the
unopened portfolio that sat on the table between them.
The kid had called a few days previous to request a meeting, and
though Dylan explained the procedure for show proposals, he insisted he meet
Dylan in person first before he was willing to submit anything in writing. He would not discuss it over the phone. He told Dylan he’d attended some openings at
the SAW Gallery in the past and liked the risky choices he’d seen taken at
shows there. He said he saw them as hit
or miss, but he liked that Dylan, and his predecessor Billy, were willing to
take chances. He told Dylan his name
was Lucifer.
“Lucifer?” Dylan asked him.
“As in Satan?”
The kid replied, “No. Lou
as in Costello. C. as in cat. And Fur
as in fur.”
“Fir as in the tree?”
“No fur as in the kind of wrap some animal-hating waif model might
wear before a PETA protester splatters blood in her face and kicks her to the
ground and spray-paints ‘Fur Kills’ on her round, little, upturned bottom. Lou - C. - Fur.”
This exchange alone was enough to pique Dylan’s curiosity. Who could resist putting a face to a name
like that? Not to mention the kid
certainly had a way with words.
When Lou C. Fur arrived, Dylan saw he also had a way with
fashion. He walked in the door without
knocking. He was a scrawny kid of maybe
18 wearing a Zoot Suit straight out of mothballs and probably from the
20’s. He wore a fox fur wrap, with the
fox’ face still intact. He proceeded to
offer Dylan a fish-limp handshake and then began to snoop about the gallery
looking in closets and opening desk drawers while commenting on everything he
saw. He began to climb the stairs to
the loft, until Alley Dog appeared and began mumbling and even managed an old
dog’s growl. Lou C. Fur stepped back
down the ladder and threw the folder on the table and began his proposal.
Dylan was so taken aback by the kid’s rudeness, he could only
laugh as he let him do his snooping.
The most the little freak could dig up is a triangular Camel tin filled
with weed up in the loft or a few frozen Space Cakes and Cannabis Brownies in
the fridge.
Throughout the meeting, Dylan tried to avoid looking at the folder
or imaging its contents. Whether they
were slides or proofs of the photos, he didn’t know, but he could not deny his
curiosity. And now it seemed as if they
had reached an impasse in their negotiations.
Lou C. Fur placed his hand on the folder.
“I am sorry I am unable to provide the documentation you are
requesting regarding the families of the models, but if you would be willing to
overlook the requirement, I can promise you an outstanding opening. Not only will the gallery be packed and the
press lined up at the door, but I will perform a live ritual with a truly
not-live model and I am willing to get a model release from that
deceased’s family.” The kid arched his
left eyebrow and briefly lifted his hand from the folder.
This set Dylan’s head to its own pendulum move. “I’m sorry.”
The kid stood to leave and Dylan reached slowly for the folder and
began to open a corner. “May I?” he
asked the kid.
“I’m sorry,” Lou C. Fur answered and snatched the folder from the
table.
He stormed out of the gallery like a jilted lover.
* * *
Several weeks later, Dylan enjoyed a cup of drip coffee and a
Cannabis Brownie at Rosie’s Gateway Café.
Rosie had taken his marijuana operation out of the backroom and let the
barristas now serve the special brownies directly to certain customers with VIP
status. It was still done on the down
low, however, and he still kept all green and leafy sales in the back
room. If the yellow pages had such a
category, Rosie’s Café was no longer alone in the Marijuana Speakeasies
section. Another similar coffee shop
had opened in the U-District and a third in Delridge.
Dylan was seated at one of the outdoor tables on the brick
alleyway that separated Rosie’s from the SAW gallery. The brownie was still a half hour from kicking in when Rosie
reminded Dylan of the crazy kid.
“You know how you told me about some guy wanted to do a show with
pictures of corpses?” Rosie asked.
“Yup. Total freak. Said his name was Lou C. Fur.” Dylan told
his friend, who already had a mischievous grin having enjoyed his “special”
brownie an hour earlier.
“Well, his name is really Louis Chapman Fuhrman and the kid just
got himself busted. It’s all over the
front page of the Seattle Times.” Rosie
tossed the paper on the table and the two-inch headline nearly screamed at him.
“Serial Killer Arrested”
***
The phone call from
Dylan’s editor at The Stranger was not entirely unexpected. Ron had a way of hearing about things before
anyone else in town, which was probably the key to his success. Other than that, he was somewhat
incompetent.
“Is it true this
Lucifer character paid a visit to the gallery?”
“He pitched me his
show, but I turned him down.”
“Do you have copies
of the photos?”
“Sorry, Bruce. I never even saw them.”
“Have the cops
interviewed you?”
“Not yet. The only person who has bothered me about
this is you.”
“Well get on it
boy. We need it for Wednesday.”
“If you hadn’t noticed,
Ron, I write an art column these days.
Talk to Mudede if you want True Crime.”
“Mudede is doing a
follow up to that damn horse fucker story.
Besides, you know you’re the guy for this. It’s either you, or assign it to the new kid Jarmin.”
“Jesus. Don’t give it to that jackass.”
“Alright then, get me
something. I gotta go to a
meeting.” Ron made a habit of needing
to go to meetings when one of his staff was trying to negotiate with him.
Dylan’s return to the
world of newspapers was a necessary sacrifice he made upon his move back to
Seattle. His early retirement in the
Olympics was cut short the previous year due to some nastiness. When the fog of it all cleared, Dylan found
himself back in the city running the Secluded Alley Works gallery. Despite the common misconception that the
art world was filled with big money, Dylan lived in a tiny studio loft
overlooking the main gallery space.
Even with the frugal living, it was impossible to make ends meet, so he
accepted Ron’s offer of a weekly arts column.
At times it was fun
to pen the witty little reviews and critiques.
But this gig was about the writing, whereas his previous life in the
world of journalism was about the adventure.
In his youth, Dylan worked war zones.
In his middle age, he often went deep undercover to discover the seedy
underbelly of organized crime, organized religion, and organized politics. Now, he mostly wrote about disorganized
ideas being batted back and forth by privileged, overeducated slackers.
Dylan slung a recently
purchased messenger bag over his shoulder after packing it with his laptop, a
day’s supply of dog treats and his one-hitter to fend off the eventual letdown
from the brownie. Secluded Alley Works
was only a couple blocks from the East Precinct and it also seemed a good time
to walk Alley Dog and grab a bite to eat.
Dylan tried the cop station first, though the detectives who were
working the case were out in the field and his buddy Officer Ito was laid up
with a busted ankle. Dylan left his
number with the desk sergeant.
Dylan secured Alley
Dog’s leash to the bike rack in front of the Satellite Lounge and enjoyed half
a Clubhouse Sandwich before his phone vibrated.
“What da ya want
Massey?”
“Nice to speak to you
too Detective Probert. How’re the wife
and kids?”
“Listen dumbass, I have
a full plate right now and I don’t have time to pussyfoot around with you. Do you really have information on this case,
or are you fishing for some angle for that fag-rag that pays you?”
“I think the gays
prefer the term ‘homosexual’ these days detective. Besides which, you know The Stranger is not all leather
boys and dykes. I write for them after
all.”
“Unless you really
have information, this conversation is over.”
“I did meet this Lou
C. Fur kid a couple weeks back and he was trying to sell me on a show with
those photographs he took. So I thought
Seattle’s finest might be interested in my testimony. If you’re not, I’d be more than happy to return to my gallery and
light up a big blunt and forget the whole thing ever happened. Your choice.”
“C’mon down
here. I have another appointment in 20
minutes, so you better make it quick.
And this is going to be a one-way conversation. I’ll be the one asking the questions. You can leave your notebook at home. ¿Comprende señorita?”
“Sí, chilito.” Dylan replied. He had his waiter toss the sandwich in a carryout box.
Alley Dog always got
antsy when Dylan parked her outside the East Precinct, so he made a habit of
dragging her inside. The majority of
cops there were nice to him. Only a
handful of assholes gave him a hard time.
It seemed most cops had a soft spot in their hearts for Dylan in part
because he brought Alley with him.
Everyone loved a well-trained, good-looking Husky like her.
Probert was one of
the assholes, but despite his stack of grudges against Dylan, he did not hold
it against the dog. Dylan figured Alley
would be on the detective’s good side so long as she did not start flaunting
illegal drug use in a column in some fag-rag.
Detective Probert had once used the term “impressionable kids” when
lecturing Dylan about a pro-hemp column he’d penned in response to a local
artist’s arrest on drug charges. The
very notion that he might be seen as hurting children hooked Dylan and he
became so pissed he spit out a diatribe against right wing, racist, sexist,
asshole pigs. Since then, the two grown
men traded barbs nearly every time they met.
They pushed each other’s buttons the way unsupervised 10-year-olds chose
floors in an elevator.
This time, however,
Probert wasn’t fooling around.
The minute Dylan
walked through the door, he saw that the detective was red-faced with
anger. He held a department issue
Spanish-English dictionary in his hand, and now appeared cognizant that the
translation of chilito was “little
dick.” Dylan noted with a sly grin that
he’d touched a nerve here.
Probert took Alley’s
leash and hollered for two patrol officers.
“I want you to take Mr. Dylan Massey here through booking and be sure
and search him for drugs.”
Dylan could do nothing
but grin. He wanted to kick his
ass. He wanted to run away. He wanted to spit on him. Instead he froze like some chicken-shit and
gave him a screw-you grin.
“And the charge will
be?” Dylan was practically laughing now.
“Maybe we’ll start
with five counts of accessory to murder one.”
“You have got to be
kidding me. I came here to help you.”
“Hmmm… In that case,
we’ll have to settle for possession.”
Probert looked to the officer who leaned over Dylan’s messenger
bag. The officer held a smile on his
face and Dylan’s one-hitter in his hand.
Dylan shook his head
in disbelief of his stupidity and carelessness, while Alley Dog resigned
herself in a Husky curl beside the detective’s ankles. Damn dog traitor.
Chapter Two
Naked Sick People
Several Weeks Earlier
Naked sick people
existed by the hundreds just outside George’s kitchen window. They usually just lay in bed and watched TV,
though he’d seen them dance, puke, screw, and pace. Pacing was very popular among the sick; some walked back and
forth all night.
The situation was
even worse before George and his wife Georgia moved upstairs; in the garden
apartment, he only had views of legs and ankles.
George never peeped on anyone before he moved into this building
and became manager of the Langley Apartments.
The job offered a free basement two-bedroom unit – a garden apartment they
called it because the windows offered views of shrubbery and landscape
bark. One night, new in the garden
unit, he was placing a mousetrap under the baseboard heater when he glanced up
as a hot pair of foxy legs passed by the window. These were followed quickly by more legs – men’s legs, women’s
legs. There were very few children’s
legs – this being Capitol Hill and all - but that suited George just fine,
‘cause he wasn’t a perv.
Just a few days later, when her returned to check on the
mousetrap, he saw his first glance of panties up a short skirt. That was when George decided to rearrange
the furniture a bit. He moved his
recliner to the opposite side of the room – just there nearly against the wall,
up close to the baseboard heat. Georgia
was somewhat surprised when she returned home.
What with her being the one who was always too cold and him always too
hot. George explained it away by
telling her that the hearing in his right ear seemed to be shot and he could
only hear the TV by moving his chair to the other side.
“Well, maybe you should go see a doctor,” she advised.
“Oh, I’ll get there eventually,” he said. He sat there in his chair watching TV and
keeping the legs in his periphery. He
made a mental note to pick up a Like New Good Condition Cozy Blanket for her on
his garage sale rounds next weekend.
George soon realized that the Mrs. would get wise if he kept
looking over toward the window, so he had to relegate the legs and panties to
the outside fuzz of his vision. To
solve this problem, George eventually hung the kitchen clock in an unlikely spot:
the thin strip of wall above the window.
“I want to be able to see what time it is,” he explained while
waving the TV Guide and a smile in her direction. Now he could glance over that way whenever the mood struck him.
Georgia’s shot him a curious expression and he mentally added a
Like New Good Condition Kitchen Clock to his list for the sales.
Eventually, though,
George had to leave legs and panties behind.
The garden apartment was prone to flooding, prone to rodents, prone to
what sounded like bowling balls falling on the ceiling from above.
On one occasion the
flooding took out several boxes of their Ebay inventory, the garage sale finds
that were stacked up and ready to package up for shipping to eager
bidders. George won the argument with
Georgia regarding whether or not to send the water-soaked books, the
water-damaged phonograph and the waterlogged antique maps of Europe.
“They’ll never think
we sent them in that condition. After
we box ‘em up, we’ll soak the packages in water and drop them in the bin at the
post office. They’ll blame the USPS.”
“Maybe we should buy
the postal insurance so they can get their money back from the post office,”
Georgia argued.
“Are you crazy
woman? The postal inspectors would be
all over our butts. I’m not messing
with that.”
The week of the big
move, Georgia lost the argument about the squealing mouse they discovered in
one of the mousetraps.
“Why don’t you just
take it somewhere and let it go?”
“Listen woman – its
leg is broken. It’s in pure agony. It would be inhumane just to let it go.”
“But drowning it
doesn’t seem right.”
Over their bickering
voices, the tiny mouse’s squealing pleas rose and fell in pitch. Its leg was definitely broken there in the
trap. Not just broken, but smashed flat
as if the tiny bones disintegrated; the leg had the appearance of an empty
sausage skin.
“Please George – just
let it go. Toss it in a dumpster
somewhere.”
“But Georgia…”
“If you take it over
to Volunteer Park or someplace blocks from here, it won’t come back.”
“That’s not even my
point. You’re not frigging listening to
me. I’m not worried about it coming
back. I just don’t want it to suffer.”
“Please?” Georgia
asked with tears in her eyes. Her
squeals were no less annoying than the mouse’s.
“Fine.” George
said. He grabbed a shoebox and stomped
out of the house with the shrieking mouse under his arm.
On the passenger seat
beside him, the box full of mouse danced about like Mexican jumping beans. It continued its shrill pleas. George drove the van to Volunteer Park where
he parked beside the public restrooms.
He’d be darned if
he’d just sit there and let this mouse suffer.
He walked into the restroom with the box of shrieking mouse and entered
a stall and lifted the lid of the shoebox.
He dumped the contents: one shrill, damaged mouse attached to one
standard thirty-cent mousetrap. A
little package of desiccant fell into the toilet as well. The desiccant was, no doubt, a remnant of
the boxes former purpose - meant to keep the New In the Box Shoes from becoming
moldy.
Everything plopped
into the toilet.
The mouse first
landed upside down under the trap, but managed to flip itself over and attempt
to crawl up the slick slope of the toilet bowl.
George pushed the
mouse back into the water with the box lid and held it under with the lid’s
corner.
There were bubbles,
but it wasn’t long before the bubbles stopped.
It took only a few seconds for the thrashing to end after that. George considered how much longer it would
take for a person to drown.
With the soggy corner
of the box lid, George scooped up both dead mouse and trap and flushed the
receipt and desiccant. He would have
flushed the mouse as well, though that would have involved either opening the
trap, or separating the mouse from its mangled leg. Neither of these options sounded pleasant.
The shoebox would not
fit through the hinged door of the restroom trash container, so he laid the box
on the ground and slowly stepped on it.
He felt each corner give and then accordion flat to the ground. For his final act, he slowly lowered his
foot into the center of the box. He
felt a crunch. George’s shoe was
noticeably larger than the box on which he stood. He had no interest in stomping up and down and squirting mouse
guts all over. The whole thing was flat
enough to slide past the trashcan lid now.
As he pushed the box
into the opening, the lid squeaked. For
a moment, George was worried the squeak was from the mouse, but the lid made
the same sound as it slammed shut and George felt confident he had done the
right thing.
“Did you set it
free?”
“Yeah.” He answered
morosely.
“Was it still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Was it able to run
off with the bad leg?”
“By the time I got to
the park, it had already chewed its own leg off and was convulsing all over the
box.” He told her.
“Oh my god,” Georgia
said.
“So, I opened the
box, but it was just a bloody mess in there and the mouse scampered off in the
grass still shrieking. I could hear it
halfway across the field.”
They spent the rest
of the day moving upstairs to their new apartment. They said little to each other.
George already knew
what lay in wait outside the new apartment’s windows. As manager he had a good grasp of the layout of his building and
it’s surroundings. Each time a tenant
moved out, George took his tools and Good Condition, Slightly Scuffed
Binoculars up to the vacated unit and spent a few weeks painting, making
repairs and doing neighborhood surveillance.
The upstairs unit
that George and Georgia moved into did not have the best views, but there were
only a handful of two-bedrooms, and they needed the space for inventory. Their new apartment faced Northwest Health Cooperative’s
Urgent Care Building and now naked sick people existed by the hundreds just
outside George’s kitchen window.
Chapter 3
Dark Alleys
Dylan knew the
charges would never stick. Probert had
always enjoyed chest pounding, but it took big cajones to try a stunt like
this. Dylan imagined big cajones and a
wee small chilito on this guy.
Probert’s superiors would ream him a new one when the whole thing hit
the papers. Unlawful search. Unlawful imprisonment.
Dylan was not
immediately relegated to anything resembling a jail cell. The room was tiny with white walls and a
regular door with a thin window and a typical doorknob. An empty phlegm-colored desk was pushed up
against one wall. It looked as if it
were built sometime during the Eisenhower administration and built like
Eisenhower himself. It stood guard over
the room. Beside it, three heavy chairs
from the same era leaned forward – each on two legs as if they were about to be
frisked or receive a rectal exam.
Dylan seated himself
on the heavy desk’s corner and stared at the door.
He’d been in the East
Precinct dozens of times and at the King County lockup and the Juvie jail on 12th
and even out to McNeil Island and Monroe, but he was always chasing a story,
never a prisoner. He was never more
than a shout from freedom.
He didn’t know if the
doorknob was locked, but challenged himself to stay put on the desk. He would take this in small steps - prolong
any reaction to the panic that beat inside him. He became aware of his heart pounding like war drums. The enemy inside was closing the gap.
“Aaaaarrrrggghhh.” He
allowed himself one deep groan to counteract the rat-tat-tat of his anxiety.
It helped quiet the
beat, though it did not slow it.
Beads of perspiration
caught on Dylan’s brows, and he wiped them away with the back of his
wrist. Jesus. The last thing he needed in this situation
was a goddamn panic attack.
He reminded himself
to breath deeply, and then reminded himself to ignore his breathing.
There was a pang of
something in his kidney. A thump in his
chest. His left foot was falling
asleep. His neck was stiff. His brain felt like it was filling with
fluid and growing too big for his skull.
Damnit.
He hated himself for
being so weak, but it was becoming hard to breathe in the tiny room. He really had no alternative but to test the
doorknob. If it turned, he would duck
around corners and smile at passers-by and get the hell out. He could send someone else to retrieve Alley
Dog. Pack up his things. Get the old truck started up again and head back
to his land. Last time he visited,
everything was overgrown and some squatter had dumped an old teardrop trailer
out there. Dylan carefully towed it
down the steep switchback drive and left it along the roadside. He bought new locks for the gate and headed
back to Seattle with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The sick feeling
could not hold a candle to the raging flames engulfing his body at the moment
though. He reached for the doorknob,
and when it did not turn, Dylan freaked out and everything became a gauzy
blur. He pounded on the door.
He kicked the door
and pounded on the door until Probert answered it and a cool breeze washed over
Dylan from the hallway.
“I’m sorry man, but I
really gotta take a dump.” Dylan
lied. He floated like a feather back
toward the earth and his body.
Detective Probert
gave him an expression of disbelief.
“Dude, you either let
me go take a dump or I’m going to have to shit in the corner. I thought you’d prefer the former.”
“Go.” Probert told him with a backhanded wave
toward the restroom.
As Dylan opened the
stall door, he considered that the detective could not be all that serious
about any charges. He did not have
Dylan cuffed and didn’t send along an escort.
Probert was just screwing with him.
Though Dylan didn’t
really need to go, he dropped his pants and took a seat and enjoyed the feeling
of freedom. If he wanted to keep
enjoying it, he would have to play the game.
As much as it pained him, he’d have to kiss the detective’s ass and save
kicking it for another day.
Probert was waiting
back in the room, seated on Dylan’s corner of the desk. Dylan eased the door shut as he entered,
allowing the bolt to rest against the strike plate so it was not latched.
“Alright
Detective. You have my attention here. How can I be of service to you?” Though unintentional, Dylan could hear the
hint of sarcasm in his phrasing and tried to let the sincerity melt from his
eyes to make up for it.
“Here’s the thing
Massey. I got myself a problem here
with the bust on this kid and it seems you may be the only person who can help
me out.”
“So you start
twisting the arm of the only person who can help you out?” He regretted the words as they spilled from
his mouth.
“Listen jack ass – I
have Carte Blanche this time around. I
have the friggin’ American Express Black Card here. Mayor Emery and Chief Herer personally told me they’d back me up
all the way on this one. If that means
pulling some Guantanamo shit on some pothead like you…well…that’s just the
cherry on the pudding.”
Dylan cleared his
throat before speaking. “So this Lou
kid called me up at the gallery a few weeks back and…”
“When exactly?”
“It would have been
the first Thursday of the month, ‘cause I remember I was setting up for an
opening. And the kid tells me he has a
proposal for a show and he’s not willing to talk about it over the phone or
mail a proposal, so I agree to meet him during gallery hours that Saturday.”
Probert tapped his
thumbs on his Blackberry, taking notes.
He stared down at the keypad, rather than meeting Dylan’s eyes.
“Did they take away
your notebooks and pens?” Dylan gave
the detective an understanding nod in an attempt to form some connection with
him. Play it like they were old buddies
- coupla old dogs forced by a changing society to hump the high-tech fire
hydrants that they used to piss on.
“You want that I
should scribble all this crap down and then spend half my day retyping it into
reports when I can just hit send?”
“No, I uh just…”
“So what does the kid
tell you about the pictures he took?”
“He doesn’t say
anything over the phone, but when he meets me at the gallery, he says he has
these photographs of dead bodies posed with things.”
“What sort of
things?” Probert appeared to ask the
question of his thumbs and tiny keypad.
“He mentioned a
picture of a fat guy with mousetraps on his nipples and genitals.”
The detective looked
up and cringed.
“A dead baby with a
hand grenade between its tiny hands”
“Christ.” Probert said. He was the sort of guy who was
not easily shocked, but he stared at Dylan as though the world was even more
screwed up than in his darkest nightmares.
More perverse than the things he did to Mrs. Detective Probert in their
dark bedroom at night after a few drinks at the Blue Room.
“He also mentioned
there was a photograph of a young woman posed with bananas and cucumbers and
carrots. I didn’t ask how he posed her,
because frankly I didn’t want to hear him say it.”
Probert continued
tapping, so Dylan continued talking.
“He told me all this
stuff and of course I asked him whose bodies they were. I asked him if he worked at a funeral home
or something. And he told me no. He said he didn’t want…”
“Hold on. Hold
on.” The detective demanded impatiently
as he maneuvered his fat fingers on the thin phone.
Dylan looked around
the room while Probert caught up with his notes.
“When are you people
going to quit giving an outlet for these kinda freaks?”
Dylan wasn’t sure if
“you people” referred to gallery owners or reporters or both.
“Well?” Probert prodded.
“Detective, I’m
trying to help here. I don’t know how
to answer a single syllable rhetorical question.”
“Where did he say he
got the bodies?”
“He wouldn’t tell
me. He said he would not be able to
provide any information about that, so I told him the conversation was over. I
couldn’t even consider it if he didn’t have some sort of release from the
families of the dead people.”
“And you would
have a messed up show like that at your so-called art gallery if he had
permission?” Probert sounded disgusted
by the idea.
“I doubt it.” Dylan answered truthfully. “But I would have been open to discussing it
all further. I was curious about this
kid. I wanted to know more about what
makes a guy like that tick.”
“I’ll tell you what
makes guys like that tick. Feces in the
brain. Filthy stinking bad genes and
feces in the brain is the only excuse for an evil, disgusting perv like this
guy.”
“Well, could be. But I never found out any more because he
took his photographs and went home.”
“You’re trying to
tell me he didn’t leave any of the pictures with you?”
“I didn’t even see
the photos detective. He never took his
hand off them.” Dylan let the sticky
wheels of his own crap-addled brain make slow turns. “Wait. You guys haven’t
seen the photos either? How did this
kid end up your suspect then? From what
I’ve read, there wasn’t any evidence the five deaths were related. How do you even know it was the work of one
guy?”
“What did I tell you
about who would be interviewing who?”
Dylan felt the air
thicken with Probert’s self-righteous anger.
“I’m really sorry detective.
Just a habit. I’ll shut up.”
“Oh. Now you’re going to shut up on me? You think you’re done answering questions?”
“No, no I just meant
I’d shut up and quit asking any ques…”
“Well I guess you
need a little more time to think about it then.” Probert hit a button on his phone and put it to his ear. “Can I get a couple of officers to room four
to escort Mr. Massey here to a cell?”
“I’m really sorry
Detective Probert. I just meant I’d
quit asking questions and concentrate on answering yours.”
“Looks like its too
late now,” Probert scoffed. “Maybe
tomorrow I’ll feel like conversing with you some more.”
Dylan weighed his
options: Opening his mouth only seemed
to sew his fate. The door wasn’t
latched and he doubted the Detective would shoot him in the back if he made a
mad dash, though it seemed unlikely he could get far.
Before he devised a
good plan, two cops entered the room and flanked Dylan on either side. All the panic and anxiety that had washed
out to sea when Probert let him use the restroom crashed back like a
tsunami. Dylan’s mind left his body and
watched from some corner of the room as he yanked his arm away from one cop,
then attempted to twist away from the other.
Probert jumped into
the fray and slammed a knee into Dylan’s back.
Dylan whipped around
like one of Alley Dog’s chew toys and connected his elbows with jaws and
kneecaps and groins and before it was all over, a half dozen officers dragged
him down the hallway to a holding cell.
He bounced on his
right elbow as he landed and the bars slammed behind him. He felt drained from the fight, which turned
out to be a blessing, because he was too exhausted to have a big panic attack. Unlike the earlier room with a knob that
locked, this was the real deal. Again,
seemingly untouched since the 50’s, there were four tiny cells with iron bars
and steel toilets and stained mattresses on spring frames that drooped like a
fat guy’s belly over his belt. The
whole thing seemed desperately anachronistic located within the reasonably new,
modern building that housed the precinct.
In the cell beside
Dylan’s, a homeless guy snored and slept in fits and starts. The back of the guy’s shirt looked as if
he’d been wearing it for weeks. His
pants were situated halfway down his butt exposing both his lack of underwear
and lack of personal hygiene. The guy
wore a red tennis shoe on one foot and a black leather boot on the other. Though his back was turned to Dylan, it
appeared as if he was scratching a deep itch down the front of his pants in his
sleep. Dylan hoped that’s what he was
doing.
Dylan sat on his bed
and tried hard to think of pleasant things.
He tried to transport his mind to images of open fields and wide
expanses of beach. The mind trick
worked for a while, until, at some point, it flipped and served only as a
reminder that he could not get to any grass or sand. He was in a tiny cage and the roar inside him began to grow
louder once again.
Before the panic
could take hold, the homeless guy in the adjoining cell mumbled something, then
turned over and met Dylan’s eyes with his own.
His pupils lit up like an Independence Day sparkler when he recognized
Dylan. Dylan laughed and considered
that maybe, somehow, everything might just turn out alright. He reached through the bars for a handshake.
When the guy pressed
forward with his right hand, Dylan spoke up.
“Do me a favor, Wyoming, and gimme your left hand.”
Wyoming gave him a
familiar expression of confusion, then laughed as if he thought Dylan was going
to play some sort of joke on him. He
pushed his right hand forward even more, but Dylan shook his head and withdrew
his own digits.
“Seriously, Wyo, give
me your left hand to shake.”
Wyoming did as he was
told and Dylan shook his good hand - the one that had not been digging at the
deep crotch itch.
* * *
“…and then after that whole business in Spokane, I needed to find myself
a pair of numchucks or throwing stars or something, ‘cause a guy just isn’t
safe any more. Even around a bunch of
nuns. Who knew? So then I talked to this guy Rob
Lodermeir…you know him?”
Dylan shook his head and let Wyoming ramble on. Though Dylan didn’t know how it worked, Wyo’s circumloquacious
ways kept Dylan’s demons at bay.
“Anyways, this guy Rob, he told me I couldn’t just cook up a road kill
bird in the microwave at his convenience store, so I needed to leave the
premises. But I’m thinking that bird is
better than a lot of that crap they sell there…You look like you’ve really
packed on a few pounds. What have you
taken to eating lately? Last time I saw
you, you were just a stick. Must have
been all that living out in the boonies.
When I was living in Key West back in the day, I would…”
Dylan had packed on some pounds over the last several months. It snuck up on him. The city life was short on exercise and
Dylan found it too easy to go out for fast food or eat the huge portions they
served at two-star restaurants. In a
short time, he’d gone from toiling the land for fruits and veggies to filling
white bags with saturated fat. He’d
gotten so lazy, he often drove his truck the few blocks to the KFC or down to
Dick’s Drive-In. All this in spite of
the heavy camper resting on the old Ford’s back, keeping his gas mileage near
single digits.
“What are you doing for a place to stay Wyoming? Did you ever get back your rig?”
“No, you know it just never worked out too well for me on that
front. I had been staying at that
shelter down on Alaskan Way by the stadiums, but I don’t think they are going
to let me back on account of last time when I accidentally got into some
trouble around some of their rules. The
sign in the laundry there said “No Gas Rags” in the machines, but I didn’t
realize that meant kerosene too, so I suppose when I get out of here, I’ll need
to find something else. One thought I
had was…”
“Do you want my rig Wyo?”
He again looked at Dylan as if it were a trick question.
“I mean we could work out some kinda deal where you can make payments to
me. Of course, you’d have to find some
work, but I wouldn’t be looking for too much money. Maybe $600?”
“How about $800?” Wyoming offered
and Dylan laughed.
“I don’t think you get how the whole haggling thing works buddy. I’m supposed to give you a number and then
the number you say back is supposed to be lower, not higher.”
“Oh, I know, I know. But I’m not
some sort of charity case. I want to
pay what it’s worth, plus the extra can be the interest on the loan.”
“Alright. How ‘bout we say $650,
and if you feel guilty about it, you can take me out to dinner some night when
you’re back on your feet.”
Before they had a chance to shake on it, a commotion erupted in the
adjoining room. When the door opened,
Dylan was relieved to see the concerned face of Detective Stephen Ritter.
“What took you so long?” Dylan
asked as Stephen unlocked the cell.
“Nobody told me you were in here.
I just happened to overhear Probert bragging.”
Dylan nodded towards Wyo’s cell as well.
“Think you could help him out too?”
“What’s he in for?” Stephen asked
without looking in Wyoming’s direction.
“What are you in for Wyo?” Dylan
asked.
Wyoming shrugged his shoulders and Stephen rolled his eyes. “I’ll look into it.”
Dylan patted Stephen on the shoulder as a thank you. “If that jackass ever allowed me my one
phone call, I was going to call Mathew at home; I figured he’d get hold of
you. How’s he feeling?”
“He’s ok. The ankle is still a
little swollen, but I think his illness is more psychological than
anything. My mom is coming to town next
week, and though she loves him and all, she still gets a little uncomfortable
with the whole gay thing. She still
refers to him as ‘Stephen’s friend’ to all the ladies in the sewing circle.”
“Little old ladies still have sewing circles?”
“I guess I should say “virtual” sewing circle. They meet in an online chat room.”
“Is there somewhere we can go and talk about this Lou C. Fur kid?”
“You mean Louis
Chapman Fuhrman? If you’re up for a drive I think
I know just where we should go.”
After retrieving Alley, the damned dog traitor, Stephen covered the back
seat of his car with an emergency blanket to keep the dog hair contained, and
they headed to the U-District. Just off
the Ave, north of 50th, Stephen pulled into an overgrown gravel
driveway. The house’s windows were half
boarded up. The address was
spray-painted on one of the boards and someone had decorated the front door
with a skull and crossbones. Yellow
caution tape was tacked across the threshold and a new hasp and padlock secured
the premises. Stephen opened the lock
and they stepped into the musk-scented darkness. A few steps further in, the musk scent turned into the obvious
smell of death. Stephen pulled two
eucalyptus soaked cotton balls from a medicine bottle in his pocket. After taping one under his nose, he handed
the second to Dylan.
“This is where one of the victims was found?”
“Yep. And this would be the homestead of your buddy Lou.”
“Was he squatting here?”
“Sort of. The house is owned by
one of these U-District slumlords.
About a dozen kids camped out in this dump and paid him $50 a month or
something. The city has been after this
guy forever. Several times, they’ve
sent inspectors or process servers and he chased them off with a shotgun. I’m pretty sure the girls who stayed here
paid him in other ways besides cash. No
electricity. No running water. You’ll see as we get deeper in how bad it
gets. Mold everywhere. Whatever you do, don’t lift the lid on any
of the pickle buckets in the bathrooms.”
Dylan surveyed the dark surroundings.
Beer bottles filled with what appeared to be cigarette butts and piss
littered the living room. As he
followed the detective down a rickety staircase, Alley Dog stopped at the top
and refused to venture further.
“Cmon’ girl.” But she wouldn’t
budge, so he tied her leash to the banister.
“Have it your way.”
After passing through what appeared to be someone’s bedroom, they felt
their way in the dark along a short corridor and Stephen pushed at a warped
door while kicking it at the bottom to get it moving. A sudden burst of light caught Dylan off guard as he entered the
lair of Lou C. Fur.
The smell began to overpower the eucalyptus.
The room was nothing like the rest of the house. Lou’s bedroom was clean and light and
breezy. None of the windows were
boarded over and two of the four were opened enough to let the air
circulate. Though there was a faint
odor of bleach, the overwhelming scent was that of floral incense. It had embedded itself into the walls, the
twin-size bed, the shelves full of books.
The bed was made. The books were
lined up neatly. Dylan opened a dresser
drawer to discover neatly folded clothes.
Even socks and underwear looked as if a Nordstrom’s window designer had
staged them.
Dylan ran his fingers over the book titles. The shelves were divided into sections on art, death and
technology. The art books ran the gamut
from photography to art theory to outsider art. The books on death focused on medical titles and serial killers
with a smattering of volumes dedicated to famous suicides. The technology books showed schematics for
designing circuit boards for a variety of gizmos.
“This is what you have to see.”
Stephen pointed to the wall behind Dylan, opposite the bookshelves.
Dozens, perhaps a hundred framed photos and drawings covered the wall
floor to ceiling – salon style. They
were in mismatched frames, probably thrift store finds. There were a handful of empty spots, and it
seemed obvious to Dylan that they had not always been empty.
“What we have here are 44 photos of four different people.” Stephen informed him.
“Eleven each?”
“No, that varies. This here is Mr. Frank Kurle.” The detective pointed to a fat man lounging
on a deck chair. “And this is Frank
Kurle. And this is Frank Kurle.”
He continued to point at several images of the guy. Occasionally in suits. Once in a hideous golfing outfit. Frank Kurle had a cherubic face and an easy
smile.
“Frank Kurle died several months ago from what were thought to be natural
causes. A brain aneurysm while on the
back nine.”
“And now you think it was something else?”
“Don’t know. He was cremated.”
“And the baby?” Dylan pointed at
a shot of a slant-eyed infant. His or
her features seemed a little off.
Perhaps the kid suffered from the results of Downs Syndrome, or
inbreeding, or maybe just bad luck.
“The baby is Lexus Mercedes Smith.”
Dylan shot Stephen an as-if glance, but the detective shook his head with
a sad-but-true nod.
“Little Lexus Mercedes allegedly died in February of sudden infant death
syndrome.”
“And the true cause of death?”
“To find out, you’d have to head down to Hollywood and get hold of some
of that shit they use on CSI, then you’d have to hire some good script doctors
to make crap up and some actors to sift through the ashes.”
“Cremated?”
“You know it.”
“The old lady here?”
“Her name is Georgia Flanders.
Shot during an armed robbery at a convenience store. She was out in a van with her husband when
the perp ran from the store and decided to take her out as a witness. The guy also killed the store clerk, though
the clerk’s picture is not on this wall.”
“And the girl?” Dylan nodded to
the raven-haired young beauty with the piercing blue eyes and pierced
everything else – lips, eyebrows, a steel stud for a dimple. In younger pictures, she had auburn hair and
an Issaquah smile, but as the years progressed, she began to wear her
dysfunction on her face. Though her
smile saddened, it never completely disappeared.
“That would be Rene McKinnon. As
in Plum Micro-Tech founder Rodney McKinnon.”
“His daughter?”
“His one and only.”
“Natural causes?”
“Nope. OD’d on dope.”
“Shit.” Dylan said.
“Bad shit,” Stephen added.
“Cremated?”
“Ashes dropped from a helicopter over Mount Rainer, just like she
wanted.” The detective pointed to a
framed handwritten poem amidst the wall of photos:
Father, when the sun sets
and you’ve raped my soul for the
last time
Start those rotors spinning
and drop me like a bomb over the
mountain
Leave me alone at last.
Let me float to some green canopy where
I can be alone with my putrid thoughts, my ashen remains.
“She ain’t Angie Dickinson, but it seems alright for a kid,” Stephen
said.
“Emily.” Dylan replied, though Stephen stared
blankly. “Angie was the one on Police
Woman – that cop show.”
“That’s right. Pepper Anderson.
Well, she ain’t Emily Dickensen, but it seems alright for a kid.”
They stared at the wall of photos and took them all in. The faces were full of life, not a cadaver
in the bunch.
“According the PI, this Lou kid had five victims. Who is the fifth?”
“Well, sir, that there is the golden question. That’s what has Detective Probert’s panties in a bunch. The fourth vic is a woman named Melanie
Riser who died in a fire last week.”
“So why is Probert all tweaked about her?”
“We had the kid in custody when the fire happened.”
“So…obviously he didn’t do it.”
Stephen shook his head. “Your
buddy Lou told us about her before she died.”
***
A week following Dylan’s brush with Probert, he and Rosie enjoyed another
brownie in the alleyway that separated the café from the gallery. The alley was paved with red brick, and had
once led back to a discreet parking lot behind Rosie’s Café when the coffee
shop shared its building with a strip club.
The small parking lot was now filled with storage sheds and piles of
broken down restaurant equipment.
The alleyway itself looked nice.
Plants hung from both sides and despite the season, white Christmas
lights criss-crossed overhead. Rosie’s
tables and chairs were mismatched outdoor furniture, while the gallery featured
bronze versions of deck chairs that had been bolted to the bricks.
“This is taking too long to kick in.
Want to head inside and hurry it along?” Rosie asked.
Dylan nodded and they walked through the bustling café and wound their
way through the kitchen to Rosie’s secret back room. Rosie pulled a glass bong from behind the bar and packed the
bowl. After passing it to Dylan, he
brought the wall-size TV to life with the remote and flipped around until
settling on an episode of City Confidential.
They stared at the screen for a couple passes of the pipe.
“I’m not really getting this.”
Rosie said through the slight haze of smoke. “Why do they even think this kid killed anyone at all?”
Dylan slurped from the bong and after briefly holding his hit, he exhaled
toward the recently installed exhaust fan.
“So, the cops get a call from one of this guy’s housemates who say they
are suspicious that something funky is going on down there in the basement of
their little house. It smells like
something died. When the cops finally
get there a few days later, it turns out they were right. This girl who had OD’d is all laid out in a
white dress with flowers on this kid’s bed.
He had been keeping her down there for the last few days.”
“Christ. So he’d taken pictures
of her?”
“So they say, but nobody has ever seen the pictures. The day the kid came to talk to me was
probably the day after she died. The
night before he came to see me, he’d rented a darkroom at Photo Center
Northwest, down on 12th.”
Dylan and Rosie let the bong take a break from the back and forth.
“So how do they tie the guy to all these other deaths? Doesn’t even seem like they were all foul
play.”
“The kid has a diary. He details
how he killed these other people. He
details how he gave this golfer guy an overdose of insulin. He snuck into the baby’s nursery and
smothered it with a pillow. In the
diary, he claimed he happened across an armed robbery at a convenience
store. After the gunman ran off, Lou
said he pulled out his own gun and shot some old lady. He claims he was scared off by her husband before
he could get hold of her body and take it away for a photo session.”
“So, he claims he didn’t kill the store clerk?”
“Nope, says that wasn’t him.”
“Do the cops buy it?”
“Yeah, they say it was two different weapons. All the kid’s stories add up, except the diary and the OD’d girl
are the only hard evidence.”
“I’d think that would be enough.”
“Probably would be, except for the woman who died in the fire.”
“And how does she fit in?”
“The kid says in his diary how he is going to kill his next victim by burning
someone up in a fire. He says he is
going to post pictures on his website.
The only thing is, Lou C. Fur, is in jail when the fire happens. He is in jail when, sure enough, photos of a
burnt up woman pop up on his website along with an ad for a future show over at
the gallery.”
“Your gallery?”
“Yeah, but I had our tech guy at the paper do some digging, and he says
the web page listing a show at SAW was written before I even met him in
person. Just wishful thinking.”
“But if Lou was in jail when some lady became a crispy critter, it seems
obvious Lou had an accomplice on the outside.”
“And if you ask Detective Probert, that would be yours truly.”
“You are damn lucky you’re not in jail dude.”
“Don’t I know it. I have a
guardian angel on the force.”
“Divine intervention?”
“I guess. But with Lou C. Fur on
the other side, I feel like I am stuck in the middle some otherworldly battle.”
With that, the walls of Rosie’s Gateway Café began to shake and
shudder. Plastic tiki lights above
Rosie’s bar swayed back and forth, and two framed paintings fell from the
walls. Dylan latched on to instant
sobriety.
“Holy shit. Earthquake?” Rosie asked as he quickly stood.
“I don’t think so. It’s something
else.”
The building ceased its swing and sway, and Dylan now heard the sound of
breaking glass from across the alley.
It sounded as if it were coming from the gallery now.
“You’re not scheduled for demolition to make way for another parking
garage are you?” Dylan asked Rosie in a
half-nervous joke.
From the window of Rosie’s back room, they could only see a few feet down
the alley – the angle cut off by a dumpster.
But it was obvious that something was headed their way.
The deep roar of diesel was accompanied by the sound of breaking,
scraping and crunching. The café began
to shake again and now, things fell from shelves.
The buzzer that alerted Rosie to a customer began its shrill alarm. Obviously, one of the barristas was trying
to get his attention from out front – give him a warning that something bad was
happening.
Rosie quickly locked bags of marijuana and smoking paraphernalia in the
safe behind the bar as Dylan headed for the door.
As both men entered the hallway toward the kitchen, the crunching sound
was upon them. Something huge was
scraping along the exterior of the cafés brick wall. Dylan and Rosie stopped and turned when glass exploded into the
room behind them. A large plastic
object poked through the window and suddenly the scraping, and quaking and
crunching stopped. The deep roar of
diesel continued for another few seconds, but then it ceased as well.
“What the fuck is that?” Rosie
asked with a nod to the plastic rectangle protruding through the window.
The object looked familiar, but also wrong. And obviously out of place.
“I think it’s a…it’s a…side mirror from a truck?” Dylan answered and Rosie nodded.
A little triangle of broken mirror remained in the frame.
“Someone drove a fucking truck down the alley?”
The silence was broken by the sound of a man’s voice barking orders. Dylan cautiously returned to the room and
poked his head past the window’s threshold enough to see what was
happening. He quickly pulled back and
put a finger over his lips to silence Rosie who began to speak. He shuffled Rosie into the kitchen, where
they heard chaotic chatter from the café.
“What the hell is going on?”
Rosie asked.
“It’s a Metro articulated bus.”
Dylan said, though he shook his own head in disbelief as he said it.
“Who the fuck is driving it?”
“I only got a glimpse, but it looked like a scared shitless bus driver
with a gun to his head.”
“What the hell?”
Dylan continued shaking his head.
“Who’s got the gun? Terrorists?
Some crazy guy?”
“You’re not going to believe me if I tell you,” Dylan said.
“Try me.”
“I swear the gunman looks just like Rodney McKinnon.”
“The Plum Micro-Tech guy?”