Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 1–3: The Hundredth Man, The Death Collectors, The Broken Souls. J. Kerley A.
She slipped on her lanyarded reading glasses and peered into a file on her desk, frowning at some errant tidbit of information. “Davanelle’s good,” Clair said, nodding to herself. “Got a couple areas that need improvement. But she knows her stuff, a keeper. Have a good day, Ryder. Stay out of trouble.”
Three stacks of photographs rested on his green Formica table-top: one large, one modest, one small. The only other items on the table were chrome shears and a magnifying glass. The air was hot and windless but he didn’t feel it. Nor did he hear the roar of trucks a quarter mile distant on I–10, or the whine of jets approaching or departing Mobile’s airport. He was working with the pictures and they demanded relentless attention.
They would change the universe.
The largest stack, pushed to the table’s farthest edge, were the Culls, upside down so he didn’t have to look at them. Emaciated wigs or fat as hogs, matted with hair, or puckered with scars. The Culls were disgusting liars and he always washed his hands after touching their pictures.
Why had they applied for the position? Couldn’t the Culls read? His instructions, sixty-seven words drafted over three weeks, had been exceptionally precise.
Centering the table was a smaller stack of photos, the Potentials. Chests broad and pink. Hillocks of bicep, globes of shoulder. Stomachs flat as skimboards. But all had minor flaws: a strident navel, or puckered nipples. One had distractingly large hands. The Potentials were second-stringers on the sideline benches, there if needed, but hopefully kept from the field.
He swiped his hands on his khakis to blot sweat and reached for the closest stack of photos. There were five in all: the Absolutes, the chosen ones. From the seventy-seven photos he’d received, five had survived the most intense scrutiny. He arrayed the Absolutes before him like supplicants and studied them from chin to kneecaps.
Until the sound started up in his head.
Not again, please not again….
He sat back and pushed his palms against his ears. She’d started singing in the next room. He knew she wasn’t physically there, but the woman sang across time and between dimensions if she wanted. He hummed loudly to blunt her song, but it made her sing louder. The only way to stop her singing was push his pants past his knees and do that thing, his buttocks squeaking against the cupped plastic chair until down there made nasty business across the underside of the table and the floor.
It took two minutes to make her shut up. He refastened his pants in blessed silence, then spent five minutes at the sink attending to his hands: hot water, soap up to the elbows, scrub with the brush, rinse, repeat. Dry his hands with a fresh towel, toss it in the hamper.
He returned to the table and picked up a photo from the Absolutes. The pictured man stood grinning and naked against a cream-colored wall, hips cocked forward, the male-fruit displayed shamelessly for the camera. The man had a smile like actors grow, white as snow and lacking only a glint of light flashing from an incisor. He’d flashed the bright smile in the park when they met.
The man at the table picked up the scissors. Carefully aligning blades and photo, he snipped, and the head tumbled to the floor. He retrieved the scrap, tore it into dime-sized pieces, and brushed it from his hands into the toilet. The last piece sucked down the whirlpool was the white smile.
The man cocked his head and listened for her song, but she seemed to be resting. Gathering strength, probably; time was growing short. He’d been exceptionally careful, but she surely sensed he was closing in. He returned to the table, picked up the magnifying glass, and studied the men in the remaining photos—knee to chin, chin to knee—over and over, until he knew his choice was right.
“Quart of whores,” Harry said, “Rats back Rats back Rats back Rats back Rats Rats Rats Rats.” He scribbled aimlessly on his pad, then tore off the top sheet, crumpled it, and flicked it to the growing pile of paper balls in the center of the round table. The tables in Flanagan’s were too small for brainstorming, I thought. The lights too low. The noise level too high. The floor too wooden. Everything irritated me when the thoughts wouldn’t come.
“Eight rats,” I said, exasperated. “Four with backs.”
Harry doodled on his fresh page. “Ate rats? A-T-E?”
I thought about it. Shrugged. Nothing clicked.
“Rats anagrams to ‘star,’” Harry continued, drawing stars. “Eight stars, four stars times two, four-star restaurant, four-star meal, twice as good?”
I dry-washed my face. “Who in the hell warped the whores?”
The third round arrived. Eloise Simpkins picked up the dead soldiers, glanced at my pad, winced. I’d sketched a large rat.
“Yuck,” she said, wrinkling her nose, ratlike.
I craned my neck, stretching. Medium crowd at Flanagan’s, twenty-five or so, about half cops. Most were at the bar or tables near it. Harry and I’d sat up front where we could pull the curtain and look outside for inspiration. I opened the curtain. Rain in such solid vertical lines it could have been falling up. Four lanes of canal with a street beneath it, an occasional car splashing by. Across the way a chiropractor’s office, pawn shop, and boarded-up dollar store. A styrofoam fast-food carton rafted down the gutter. I closed the curtain.
“Zodiac,” Harry said. “Eight stars. Isn’t there a constellation or something—”
“The Pleiedes,” I said. “Seven stars, seven sisters.”
“Why couldn’t they have been the eight rats?” Harry produced another ball of paper and rolled it to the center. I saw gator boots moving to the table and looked up to see Bill Cantwell, a ranking detective in Second District. Cantwell was a lanky forty-fiveish former Texan who expressed his birthright through stovepipe jeans, ornate shirts, and tipped-forward Stetsons. Cantwell noticed my rat sketch, made a frame with his fingers, and pretended to study Harry. “That’s good, Carson,” he deadpanned. “A touch more mustache and you’d have him dead-on.”
“Another Steinberg,” Harry moaned.
“Seinfeld,” I corrected. Harry had one TV, a ten-inch black and white. He was a music man.
“I hear y’all might be handling this Nelson thing under Piss-it rules,” Cantwell said, propping a silver-pointed boot on a chair beside Harry. “Tell me again what Piss-it stands for, Harry. I ain’t looking through that damn manual, thing weighs ten pounds.”
“Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team, Bill,” Harry said. “Piss-it’s a lot easier to remember.”
Tomorrow Harry and I were meeting second district’s homicide dicks about canvassing Nelson’s neighborhood and checking the haunts he favored. They were, in fact, already doing it, since the killing had occurred in their territory. But under PSIT procedures information had to be routed past Harry and me, since we were the sole members of the team.
Cantwell nodded slowly. “I guess it makes sense Piss-it handles things. The case’s got crazy writ all over it, a chopped-off head and writing by the peter. There’ll be some grumbling from the guys, it’ll mean extra paperwork. But we’ll be fine with it, even if Squill ain’t.”
“What you mean, Bill?” Harry said. “Squill ain’t?”
“He was in this afternoon making noises, y’know. Like we didn’t have to be real cooperative if we didn’t want.” Cantwell scratched at an incisor and flicked something unwanted to the floor. “I got the notion ol’ Captain Squill ain’t real fond of Piss-it.”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry, Harry; we’ll be going by Piss-it procedures. We’re in till we hear