Читать книгу Cruel - Jacob Stone - Страница 17

Chapter 9

Morris was running late, and it didn’t help that he had to park three blocks away from where he was meeting Charlie Bogle. He half jogged to his destination, and by the time he reached the front door of the Bottom Shelf his neck was damp and sweat dotted his forehead. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was twenty past eight. Yeah, he was going to get grief for this.

The basement-level watering hole was a block from the Wilcox Avenue precinct, and for the past three decades it had served principally as a hangout for cops. It didn’t surprise him that at that hour on a Friday night the place was packed. Almost any night after eight the Bottom Shelf was full with brothers and sisters in blue. He squeezed his way through the crowd, trading handshakes and small talk with officers he knew. He spotted Bogle sitting alone at a table in the back nursing a beer. When Bogle saw him approaching, he showed nothing in his expression. Morris took the seat across from him.

Morris said, “Yeah, I’m late. Sorry.”

“Never mind that. Where’s your twin?” Bogle deadpanned.

Morris smiled thinly. His hair, which was cropped close to the scalp, was still mostly dark brown with only some gray at the temples, while Parker’s fur was white, but with his short, compact body, spindly legs, thick long nose, and big ears, he and Parker proved the old adage of an owner resembling his dog. Given his somewhat comical looks, it made it all the more remarkable that he had ended up with a dark-haired beauty like Natalie.

“Nat doesn’t work Fridays, so the little guy’s keeping her company. You’re looking good. Babysitting the Hollywood elite seems to suit you.”

He hadn’t seen Bogle since his investigator had left MBI two months ago, and the change seemed to have done him a world of good. The heaviness that had been weighing Bogle down since he was shot in the chest was gone. But there were other changes, too. He looked more fit, more tan. When a smile cracked Bogle’s face, Morris caught a familiar glint in his eyes, one that he hadn’t seen since that fateful day.

“I do more than just fix problems for spoiled brat actors,” Bogle said. “That’s part of it, of course. Some of it’s pretty heavy lifting. For example, I had to deal with a nasty piece of blackmail just last week. But the studio has standard investigation work also, like intellectual property theft and employee background checks. Anyway, going to Starlight Pictures has been a good change. Thanks again for helping me get the job.”

“I was happy to do so, even though I hated to see you leave MBI. But who am I to stand in the way of progress? Charlie, I’m glad you could make it tonight, especially on such short notice. I hope I didn’t make you cancel a date with a hot actress.”

Morris said that half-jokingly. Bogle was good-looking in a tough guy sort of way and had a reputation for dating around, which finally caught up to him a year ago when his wife divorced him. Now that he was head of security at Starlight Pictures, Morris had no doubt his former investigator was juggling a bevy of gorgeous starlets.

Bogle half closed his eyelids. “I didn’t have to cancel anything,” he said. “Those days are long gone. Jenny and I are talking, and things are getting better between us. She might even give me another chance. We’ll see.” The glint that had shone in his eyes dimmed. “I never told you or anyone else this, but when I almost died six months ago I didn’t see a bright light or a tunnel or anything else. It was like a light switch being turned off, and there was only nothing until the doctors brought me back.” He lifted his beer and took just enough of a sip to wet his lips. “It made me think long and hard about what’s important in life, and for me it’s being back with Jenny and having a family again. But enough of such maudlin talk. I’m surprised I haven’t read anything in the papers yet about you putting a bullet in Polk’s ass. I was sure without me there as a buffer you would’ve done that by now.”

Morris chuckled. “It’s been tempting,” he admitted.

A waitress came over to take his order. He gave Bogle a questioning look and asked if he wanted wings. Bogle gave him a what-do-you-think look back, and Morris told the waitress to bring him a Guinness draft, another beer for Bogle, and a large order of wings with hot sauce. Once the waitress left, Bogle asked how things were at MBI.

“Busy,” Morris said. “One of the big insurance companies has been giving us their tougher fraud cases, and that’s now making up over half our business.”

“No more serial killer cases, huh?”

“Not yet. But that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. Back in 2001 you were working on the organized crime task force, right?”

Bogle picked up his beer, peered at what was left in the glass, and drained it. “Morris, you’ve got a good memory. But yeah, after I was promoted to detective in 2000, I was assigned to Vice and worked on the OC task force until I joined you at Homicide and Robbery in 2005. Why?”

Morris dug into the briefcase he had brought with him and pulled out the two police sketches he had of the Nightmare Man. He showed Bogle the first drawing and explained that it was how a witness had described the suspect back in 1984.

“I was fifteen back then,” Bogle said.

“I know. I was fourteen. But here’s a drawing of the same perp showing how he might’ve looked in 2001. Any thoughts?”

Morris handed him the second drawing. Bogle studied it for a solid minute before handing it back.

“In 2001 I was trying to crack a smuggling ring at the docks, and this joker could be any one of a dozen low-level mob guys I encountered. The first drawing you showed me—the one where your perp’s in his forties—that one looked more familiar, but I can’t think of why.”

“They’re both of the Nightmare Man.”

Bogle made a face, as if he couldn’t believe he didn’t recognize the drawings. “I remember them now. Both when I was a teenager and later when I was on the force. You think that psycho was working for the mob?”

“It was a theory my dad had. He worked the 1984 killings.”

Bogle lazily scratched his neck. “I never knew that. Small world, huh, what with you working the 2001 murders. Did you find a mob connection then?”

The waitress returned with the beers and wings. Morris waited patiently as she deposited them on the table. After she left, he took a long drink of his Guinness.

“I was blocked,” he said. “I was new to Homicide, and the senior detective they partnered me with was none other than Martin Hadley. He didn’t see any merit in that line of investigation.”

“Good old Hadley was always a political animal. Since the idea was yours, he wouldn’t want to give it a chance of paying off and seeing you outshine him.”

“That might’ve been part of it, but I think it was more vindictiveness on his part. Martin knew it was my dad’s idea, and he was still harboring a grudge against my dad for back in the day royally reaming him out in front of the precinct over one of his stupider blunders.”

Bogle snorted out an angry laugh. “I’d pay a month’s rent to be able to go back in time and have a front row seat for that.” He picked up a wing and chewed it slowly, an eyebrow raised as he studied Morris. “Why worry about this Nightmare Man business now?”

Morris took another long drink. He lowered the half-filled glass back to the table, fixed his eyes on it, and began rolling it between his hands, somehow keeping the stout from sloshing out. Keeping his voice low, he explained why the number seventeen meant something significant to the killer. He further explained that Tuesday would be the seventeen-year anniversary of the start of the Nightmare Man’s 2001 killing spree, just as the first spree back in 1984 had also started on October second.

“And you think this guy is waiting to start killing again? Even if this psycho is still alive, he’s got to be in his eighties by now.”

“People are running marathons in their eighties these days.”

“Yeah, but this is different. Has there ever been an active serial killer that old?”

“I don’t know. But this guy is a special kind of sickness, and he well earned the name he was given. I wouldn’t put it past him to keep killing as long as he can draw breath into his body.”

“This is all based on a gut feeling and nothing else?”

“That’s all,” he admitted.

Bogle sat back in the booth and tugged on his lower lip as he mulled this over. He had known Morris long enough to know that a person could go broke betting against his friend’s gut feelings.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked.

“I tried calling Hadley, and it went as well as you could probably guess. Namely, he threatened to pull MBI’s license if I went public with my concerns, or even if he found out I was doing anything private with them. But the hell with him. I’m going to do what I should’ve done seventeen years ago, which is dig into the mob angle.” He placed both police sketches flat on the table so they faced Bogle. “Can you think of someone connected back in 2001 who’d know if this guy was a mob hitman?”

“That’s an easy one. It would be the same guy you’d search out today.”

“Big Joe Penza?”

“He’d be the guy. He took over for his old man around the time I joined the OC task force, and he would’ve been intimate with all the players. He would’ve known them all back in 1984 also.”

Morris’s lips twisted into a grim smile. “I guess I’ll be looking to have a chat with Big Joe Penza.”