Night bait, page 5
"Don't remind me. ... It's not worth the risk. You're asking me to lay my life on the line. I'm not going to be target practice for a lunatic ... not for three hundred, not for all the money in the world."
Dignazio shifted in his seat and fingered his pencil. "It's a lot safer than what you did to Cadillac. You could help save a shitload of lives."
"Yeah, and lose my own in the process. Forget it."
"Let me show you something," Dignazio said, his voice calm. "Pictures, pretty pictures."
He handed Vickie a stack of color photographs. Without a word, she leafed through them. They were all pictures of Diane Slezak, taken during her autopsy. The first one was a close-up of the detective badge pinned into her breast, the silver spike pushed right through a bloodless nipple. The second picture showed the ugly, black puncture wound in the neck, circled by a dark blue bruise the size of a quarter. The third photograph was another high-grain close-up—the handle of a tiny pistol jutting out of Officer Slezak's vagina. Vickie could see how the tops of the legs were pure white, while the undersides were a dull purple from where the blood had settled to the low points of Diane's body.
The last picture was a face shot.
Vickie stared at it, horrified. Diane's dead eyes were opened wider than Vickie thought humanly possible, as if they were glass golf balls shoved into the skull. Strands of hair lay rigid over Diane's forehead like limp pieces of black insulating wire. But that was not the worst part. Vickie gritted her teeth at the sight of the officer's mouth. The lips were visible because a band of heavy-gauge tape—made of silver fabric, like the kind she had seen in the hardware store—had been wrapped savagely around the girl's head. The cheeks were grotesque and protuberant, so swollen that they looked as if they were about to burst open from the pressure of the tennis ball which had been crammed into her mouth.
The color of the girl's face resembled that of low-fat vanilla ice cream.
Vickie gulped. When she handed the pictures back to Dignazio, she thought that she might puke all over his desk.
"Pretty, huh?" Dignazio said in a stone-cold tone.
"I didn't need to see that."
"Sure you did. Think about what it's like for those girls. Think about the horror that goes through their minds when he kills them... And think about what he does to them when they're dead." He pointed to the photos. "If you don't help us, there's no telling how many more will end up like her."
"Get somebody else. Get one of your own girls."
"I'll be honest with you," he lied. "After that last one, all of our decoys resigned. No guts. And no one else will volunteer. You're the only one who can help."
"Why? Why me?"
"You're just the right type."
"What do you mean?"
"The Electrocutionist," Dignazio explained, "is only attracted by one type of girl. Scientifically, they're referred to as endomorphs. And it just so happens that you're an endomorph."
"Speak my language."
"An endomorph is a physical type. The only thing that all four murder victims have had in common is their bodies. They were all built the same: slender physique, slim hips, little tits ..."
"Thanks."
"No, I didn't mean it that way. You know, he just fancies slim girls. Doesn't go after those back-to-nature jug mothers who look like they got footballs hanging on their chests. Slim, attractive girls, that's what he likes. And that's why you're perfect for the case, because you are slim and attractive, and you know the streets well enough to put one over on him. All you have to do is go through the motions, pretend you're a hooker again."
Solemnly, she looked down. "I can't stop seeing my face on those morgue pictures. My eyes bulging. The tennis ball in my mouth."
"I understand. Sure, it's scary, but I guarantee you, nothing can happen. You'll be working with my best man, the best undercover guy on the squad. He melts into the crowd, and he knows the streets better than a numbers runner. Plus, he'll be packing heavy iron in both hands; you'll be the safest gal in the city. And if you do run into The Electrocutionist, my man will be right behind you, and if the killer even looks at you funny, he'll get his shit blown away right there on the spot. I wouldn't ask you to do this if I thought for a minute you'd be in any kind of danger. Look, Vickie, we need you; I need you. I beg you to help us get this guy."
Something didn't sound right. "Tell me one thing. Are you sure all of this is okay? I mean, are you allowed to hire civilians like this? I have a record, remember? Is the police chief or whoever runs this carnival of yours going to let you pay someone for this job? Pay me, a former prostitute?"
"What do you take me as, Vickie? A liar?" Dignazio lied again. "I wouldn't do this without permission. The chief's all for it, straight from the word go. No problem. Green light all the way. ..So come on; what do you say?"
She took a long breath. "I need some time to think, okay? It's a big decision; I can't say yes or no right off the bat. I'll give you an answer tomorrow."
"Fine. Tomorrow it is—hey, Dave!"
Elliot stuck his head back into the room.
"Take Vickie back to work now." Dignazio looked over at her as she was getting up. "And, Vickie, remember just how much you'll be helping the city when you come to a decision. Give it some serious thought."
She took her coat from Elliot. "I will. I'll get in touch with you in the morning; how's that?"
"Great; thanks. Oh, and don't mention this to anyone; we don't want word getting around that we're setting up another decoy project. Stuff like that travels fast."
"I know."
Elliot held the door open for her, then took her back to the car.
A few minutes before noon on Monday, the dark blue Mercedes, shiny under a new coat of wax, slowed and turned left off of South Dakota Avenue onto Bladensburg Road, a hodgepodge thoroughfare which bisected the district line and eventually led out of Washington and into Prince George's County, Maryland. It was lunch hour; the road contained twin bumper-to-bumper lines of automobiles, all waiting for the misplaced traffic light at the intersection of Bladensburg and Brentwood Avenue to change green so they could continue their stop-and-start trek which would lead them out of the city to a decent place to eat.
He waited as his Mercedes idled at the light. To his right, there was a long, rolling expanse of luxurious grass enclosed by an endless rectangle of wrought-iron fence. The entire section of property was marked by uneven rows of stone blocks. He considered the irony—directly across from this beautifully well-landscaped cemetery there was a Frito-Lay factory where he had dumped his most recent exploit. The newspapers had really gone berserk on this one; the victim was a female police officer, but of course, he had known that beforehand. Wouldn't it be funny, he thought, if they buried the girl in the adjacent graveyard? The two locations were so close that the corpse could practically be thrown from one spot to the other.
The man in the Mercedes nodded and smiled within the tinted glass that surrounded him. The newspapers were already referring to him as The Electrocutionist. He had murdered and raped—in precisely that order—four girls so far, and was becoming a notorious figure throughout the city, really shaking up the populace, as well as the police department. The idiot newspaper reporters were already speculating about when he would strike next, and how many victims he will have taken by the time he was caught. But this only made him chuckle out loud. The fact that the police were trying so hard to apprehend him, yet failing so miserably as they tried, made the entire affair even more amusing. His tactics and methods were being pored over and analyzed; he was making fame through his murder, was already being compared to the most prominent killers of this age, Berkowitz, Speck, Bonin, Bianchi, Gacy, and all the others. He was aware, though, of the difference between these men and himself. They were all insane. He was not.
At last. The traffic light turned green, and the Mercedes lurched forward, away from the cemetery and the Frito-Lay plant. The car passed the district line and then crossed over into the state of Maryland. There was a sign erected on the sidewalk which read YOU ARE NOW ENTERING CALVERT CITY. WELCOME TO MARYLAND. Calvert City, he thought to himself. What a strange name for a place such as this. It was only ten blocks long, and so small and secluded that it really wasn't a city at all. Just a town. So tiny, so private.
A good place to drop off unwanted parcels.
Yes, he would have to keep that in mind.
He couldn't understand why there were so many traffic lights on a road which ran through so small a town. At this rate, it would take him a half an hour to get to College Park, and it was only a few miles down the road.
Finally, the second light changed, and again the stream of traffic pushed forward. No more unnecessary interruptions. The car cruised over the bridge, then veered automatically to the left and took the College Park exit. The intersection of Bladensburg Road and US Route 1 seemed to be a colossal cloverleaf, cars and trucks changing lanes at random, swerving this way and that, so not to miss their exits. At times such as this, the junction seemed a gyrating cluster of confusion, like a concrete maze occupied by countless blind men. There were so many different ways to turn that it was hard to remember when the proper exit ramp was coming. But that was not a problem to the man driving the dark blue Mercedes. He had always had a superb sense of direction; once he'd been to a place, he would never forget how to get there. Though he'd only lived in this area for a few weeks, he already knew his way around so well that one would think he had lived in Washington all his life.
There was a patch of ground in the middle of the cloverleaf, and on that small circle of land, a fifty-foot stone cross had been erected. The people in the area called it "Peace Cross," and it had come to be regarded as a major landmark. It was a monument to religion, an impressive one, yet the man saw little evidence of serious Christianity since he had moved to Washington. The first time he had seen Peace Cross, he had noticed graffiti on it: THE CRAMPS 999 BRING BACK SID GO GONZAGA EAGLES had been scrawled on its white stone surface in crude spray-painted letters. Yet that had been a week ago, and the graffiti was still there, indicating that no one cared enough to efface the defaming words. Where he came from, religion was taken seriously, and if someone desecrated a public monument like that, heads would roll.
But the desecration of the Peace Cross didn't bother him; he wasn't a Christian.
He crossed over another long bridge, which turned into US Route 1. The traffic wasn't so congested here; lots of the cars had thinned out at the Peace Cross junction. He would be at the shopping center in minutes.
As he neared his destination, the going became slow again. More traffic lights. College Park was another congested city, mostly because of the students. There were droves of them. The city seemed to be constructed around the University of Maryland, a large college accommodating, from what he had heard, over thirty thousand hashish-smoking radicals, who spent more time protesting the government than they spent in class. He had never liked college students very much, even the ones where he came from. Though they had some good ideas, their blind fanaticism reduced them to little more than revolutionary hotheads, too aggressive to be of any value. These young people, he thought, will never realize that change takes time. Nothing happens overnight. He wondered if the students here were the same way. But again, he really didn't care. It didn't matter.
Waiting at the light by Berwyn Road, he opened his monogrammed cigarette case and removed one short, filterless cigarette wrapped in black paper. After lighting it, he inhaled deeply, sucking the rich smoke into his lungs. Unlike his current errand, cigarettes were one item he couldn't go out for. None of the tobacco shops in Maryland carried his brand; in fact, there was only one shop in Washington that did. And that was something he would not compromise on. Life held so few delicacies, and he would not go second best on any of them. He was, and always had been, a man of exquisite taste. He would not settle for anything but the best, whether it be cigarettes, liquor, food. Anything.
Especially women.
Towering high above an automobile dealership, next to another light, he noticed a billboard the size of a movie screen, and it was plastered with a color picture of a very attractive blonde, dressed only in a brief, yellow bikini, lying sidewise on a surf board. Under it, mammoth letters spelled the word COPPERTONE. Typical American logic, he thought. Advertising the suntan lotion in October. But still, the poster pleased him. It stirred his male awareness: that slim, luscious blonde, almost naked; the nut-brown abdomen; the wet flash of white teeth; the imperial curve of the hips; and the long, lubricated legs. Yes, a tantalizing sight, he mused. Oh, how I would love to ...
Car horns blared, shattering his sweet thoughts. Instantly, he pressed the accelerator, and the car lunged forward, away from the line.
Now, he entered the student-oriented sector of town; bars, liquor stores, sub shops, and the like lined both sides of Route 1. Young students congregated on each corner, some going from one collegiate pub to the next. Do these students hold such a low regard for their studies that they can drink in pubs when they should be in the classroom? he asked himself. And so many of them are girls; some of them dressed like the prostitutes on 14th Street: tights pants outlining the folds of their genitals, no bras, headfuls of soft shiny hair blowing freely in the breeze. There didn't appear to be an ugly one in the lot. Yes, they were all very pretty. Very slim and supple.
Perhaps he would consider broadening his horizons. The hunting looked very good out here.
Over the rise of the street, he spied the sign of the shopping center. Unless he had miscalculated, this was the place he was looking for. That's what it had said in the phone book. It wouldn't take him a minute to find the right store.
It took a while to find a parking space. There were so many cars there, many of them illegally parked. Moments later, a pregnant woman waddled between the cars and got into her yellow Datsun station wagon. He pulled his Mercedes in just as she left, but the space was so small that he had to back up several times in order to park and to leave enough room on his side for him to get out. He made sure to lock the car up before heading to the shopping center. From what he had heard, big cars were the favorite target for thieves around there. The last thing he needed was to come and find some young hooligan rooting through his glove compartment. The intent didn't bother him; there was nothing of great value in the car. The point was that he would prefer not to be seen, and surely an encounter with some petty thief would cause a ruckus. His objective here was to come, to get what he wanted, and to leave, all in as short a time as possible, so not to draw attention.
Standing on the edge of the parking lot, he glanced along the row of stores. There it is, he said to himself. He smiled and walked across the pavement.
The window of the store was full of lifesize mannequins with smooth, artificial faces, and display racks loaded with athletic footwear. He walked in, stood for a second, then proceeded to the rear of the store. His eyes combed the merchandise, moving back and forth as if he were watching a ping pong tournament.
When he found the right aisle, he marched immediately to the end, picked up an inexpensive can of tennis balls, and took it to the cashier.
Jennifer must be home, Vickie thought when she saw that the front door to her apartment was slightly ajar. From within, she could hear the distant rumble of disco music booming from Jennifer's bedroom at the far end of the apartment.
For some reason, Vickie felt exhausted, but her fatigue was more psychological than physical, like a college student cramming for an exam for forty-eight hours straight. She had felt fine that morning when she had gone to work, and the twelve-hundred-dollar typewriter sale made her feel even better. Yes, she felt great, until that business with Dignazio had come up. That slapped a damper on her spirits, and from that point on, the rest of the day went right down the tube. The decision of taking Dignazio up on his offer or not was slowly sapping her mind.
She shuffled into the apartment, almost narcoleptic, and threw her coat down on the ottoman. Then, with a sigh, she slumped down into the soft cushions of the sofa.
Suddenly, the disco music got louder; Vickie looked down the hall and saw her roommate, Jennifer Currie, coming out of her bedroom with a pink towel wrapped around her head, wearing only panties and a skimpy bra. When she noticed Vickie sitting there, she traipsed out into the living room.
"Hi," Jennifer said. "You know, we're going to have to raise hell with that fat landlord of ours. There's never any hot water in this place. I'm tired of taking showers in ice water."
Vickie, still limp on the couch, smiled warmly. "I'll give him some shit next time I see him. Probably won't do any good; nothing ever does...How come you're home so early from work?"
"My boss had to fly to L.A. for a business conference, or so he says. Sounds more like a homo convention to me. But I don't care; he won't be back till Friday. I get the rest of the week off, which suits me just fine. That job's driving me up the wall."
"Going out tonight?"
Jennifer's eye lit up. "Yeah, I'm going down to The Plum and disco my ass off."
"Is Dean going with you?" That was a shaky question. Vickie knew that Jennifer had just gotten into a spat with her boyfriend, Dean Modakis, a big, broad-shouldered Greek who was a research technician at the National Institute of Health.
Jennifer shot her a self-assured grin. "Get this, he says on the phone today that he'll meet there if he decides that he wasn't mad at me anymore. How's that for balls, huh? He'll show up though; I know he will. He's crazy about me. You watch; it'll be the same old thing. First, he'll bring me flowers or something. Then he'll say that it was all his fault and how sorry he is. Next, he'll tell me he loves me more than anything in the world, and I'll wind up spending the night at his place. Say, why don't you and Steve go along? It'll be fun."
Vickie shook her head sluggishly. "No thanks. We're going to take it easy tonight. Steve's bringing over Chinese food. We're just going to have a leisurely dinner, sit around, watch TV, and relax."
