Killer Instinct

TWENTY-NINE

Jessica fought the effects of the sedative, knowing somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind that the madman would prefer a mild sedative to a strong one, that he'd prefer to see some life in her as he drained it away to no life. It would be his way.

Images of the ugly Gamble and the dark, taller figure pawing over her body now played in her fevered mind, as if flashing on a screen at the back of her retinas. She clawed her way back, back, back toward consciousness, praying against hope that they had not found and removed her gun from her.

As she did so, she began to feel something.

She felt claustrophobic; she felt a heavy weight against her chest. She felt an animal presence over her like the stifling creature in a nightmare painting that might sit upon a woman's breast and suck the breath from her mouth. She felt Gamble at her breasts, pleasing himself over her where he had torn away her blouse.

She inwardly cringed and heard the other man saying, “That's enough, Gamble.”

“ I'm n-n-not fin-finished with her.”

She felt her slacks being undone and tugged over her hips. “Oh, Ch-Ch-Christ.” moaned Gamble, “w-w-what's this?”

“ It's a gun, you idiot. She's had it right along.”

“ I–I-I coulda been-been shot?”

“ Get off and get the gun. Give it to me,” the vampire demanded.

Gamble snatched at the leather pouch just as she tried to grab the gun. She was hit across the face with something feeling like a brick-a shoe with a foot in it-and it sent her back to the depths of confusion.

“ Make her ready,” said Matisak.

'Tmmmmmmm n-n-not finished w-with-”

“ You're finished, damn you. Gamble? Gamble? Put the fucking gun down.”

“ Y-y-you pro-misssssed mmm-me.”

“ All right, all right, but we don't have all night, Gamble.”

Matisak didn't want Gamble's semen in her. He didn't want another hotshot criminalist to question why the final victim of the Chicago vampire would be raped. Matisak had worked out a neat formula. The vampire was, in fact, two men: Lowenthal and Gamble. Now, with Lowenthal gone, Gamble finds himself unable to carry on, despite a valiant effort to do so with Dr. Coran. If the little prick penetrated her and left his DNA all over her, one or more of Coran's associates might simply pick up where she left off, too nosy for his or her own good.

But now Gamble, standing nude with his disgusting shape and his even more vile erection pointed at Matisak, along with the woman's. 38 Police Special, had the upper hand, and the man was downright crazy. For a moment, Matisak believed he was going to fire.

It hadn't taken much to talk the weak-minded fool into “sharing” a woman. Matisak knew all about Gamble's fantasies and proclivities and perversion. His was a sexual perversion, unlike Matisak, who had no interest in sex for sex's sake.

“ All right, all right, Hillary. You're right.”

“ And I don't want you here when I do it!” He was asserting himself with his big guns pointed, and the stutter had suddenly disappeared. “Wait in the other room.” Sure, sure, Hillary.” Matisak turned and did as he was told. “Take whatever time you feel is necessary.”

“ This is going to be the best night of my life,” Hillary Gamble explained. “She is beautiful.”

“ Yes, yes, she is.”

He closed the door behind him, giving Gamble enough time to begin to feel comfortable, pacing as he did so, rubbing his chin with his gloved hands. He then found his own gun, a Beretta. He located the stubby silencer, and he screwed this onto the gun slowly.

When he reentered the room, Gamble was at the woman again like a pig over the trough. He made of himself an easy target, but it must be done exactly right. He scanned for the other gun, but it must be below the sofa beside which lay Gamble across the woman on the floor. She was beginning to fight back, coming around again, when suddenly she pulled over a lamp and it came crashing down on Gamble's head.

She then pushed him off and slithered toward a back hallway. Matisak gave pursuit, telling her to halt or he would put a bullet into her back. She turned and looked up at him from across the room, still in a dazed state of mind, yet terrified of the blood-drinker. However, somehow she managed to call his bluff.

“ You won't shoot me,” she said. “You don't want to waste my blood.”

“ I will if I must.”

She took her chances, knowing that remaining inside this madhouse meant certain death; she leapt to her feet and raced for the back door, tearing it open, expecting the death shot to come any moment. She felt the cool night air on her bare legs and torso, and she screamed again and again before she felt his weight descend like a boulder over her, knocking her into the patchy, weedy grass and dirt of Gamble's backyard where she caught a momentary glance at the van used to lure her into the trap. She'd had the wind knocked from her and now she tried to catch her breath, but at the same time his gloved hand smothered her and he spit into her ear, saying, “Bitch! Damnable bitch!”

He forced her to her feet and guided her roughly back toward the maw of the death house, propelling her through the entryway, but never letting go of the grip he had on her arm, twisting it until she thought it would come off.

Inside, facing Gamble, who was still in pain, his forehead bleeding, Matisak shouted at the small man, “You stupid little bastard! Maybe you'll listen to me now! Now we do things my way! Now, get the rope. We string her up. Now!”

He then said into Jessica's ear, “You won't be doing any more running after I cut your ankle tendons.” Gamble came around her with the rope, a ferret that made her skin crawl. As soon as her hands were tied, both men relaxed, and the one called Matisak, remaining in charge, shouted, “Get that black soldier out of here. It's time we went to work on her.”

“ Please… please,” she pleaded uselessly.

Gamble said, “I love to hear a woman plead.”

She felt the quick slashes to her ankles like bee stings when Matisak used his scalpel on her. She felt the first loss of blood trickling from her wounds and realized for the first time that she was going to die here. Her mind flashed on the horrible thoughts Candy Copeland's death had awakened in her that first night in Wekosha: It's different when you know you are dying… when you die badly… when suffering is prolonged… Just knowing your own death is at hand…

Worse still was knowing that Matisak could succeed with his diabolical cover-up, and no one would ever know the truth she would take to her grave…

She could hear them grunting as they worked to lower Kaseem's body so that she could take his place. Matisak must have had second thoughts about the police finding two bodies at the same location, for now he was ordering Gamble to help him carry the body to his van, saying, “I'll dispose of this problem later.”

Gamble, like an obedient lapdog, trailed out with the monster, an Igor to his Frankenstein. She shouted after them for Gamble to come to his senses and to realize that the other man was using him.

But they were gone and she was left to struggle against her bonds. When she did so, she came to realize that her bleeding, numb ankles had already been placed in the noose from which she would soon be dangling. Her heart raced as she fought to bring herself up to a sitting position. Tearful, dirty, all but her underclothes torn from her, she forced herself to be calm, relaxing her every muscle. She was double-jointed and she knew if she could concentrate, she could bring her arms overhead and at least get her hands out in front of her. Tied or not, they could be used as a deadly weapon, as she had learned at the academy. But her attempt was short-circuited when she heard them barging back through the kitchen, coming for her.

Gamble entered alone, coming for her, stretching his grimy hands out to her breasts as she shouted, “Dammit, Gamble, he's setting you up! Like he did Lowenthal!”

“ Lowenthal k-k-killed him-s-s-self,” he said to reassure himself, and she knew now that the thought had at least once been entertained by the retarded Gamble.

“ Don't be a fool, Gamble. He intends to kill us both. “

Suddenly Matisak was forcing something into Gamble's hand. It was the Beretta, pointed directly at the little man's temple. Matisak stood firmly behind Gamble with complete control over the shorter man.

“ Good night. Gamble,” said Matisak as he pulled the trigger.

Gamble's body fell with a sound like potatoes rolling from a gunnysack. Brain matter and blood sprayed Jessica where she sat, attempting to scurry from Matisak. Her hands still behind her back, her ankles bound in the tightened noose, she could offer no resistance beyond flailing and an attempted weak-kneed kick or two. He smiled down at her before jamming a gag into her mouth, his rubber-gloved hand almost breaking her jaw. He tied a gauze bandage around the gag to hold it in place, and he spoke as he worked.

“ Poor little bastard just couldn't take it any longer without his old friend and partner, Lowenthal. Gamble did his last victim, and then he did himself. Simple, neat and no guesswork. The cops'11 love it. Your bosses will love it. But enough about everybody else, huh?”

He began tugging on the rope looped through a notch hole in the overhead beam and she began to feel herself being dragged toward the position that Kaseem's corpse had occupied only minutes before. Her eyes were wide with horror, the helplessness of her position making her wish for a quick and painless end.

“ Yes, enough about others and the outside world, Jessica,” he continued his devilish taunts. “Let's talk about us… about you and me, and about your blood…”

Otto Boutine knew the city well, having spent a number of years in the Chicago field office himself. He had sped away from Matisak's place toward the crime lab, hoping against hope that he might find Jessica curled up on a cot in an internist's room somewhere there, catching up on her sleep. Along the way, he received a patch-through from Quantico. It was the blood specialist, Robertson, telling him that Jessica had called D.C. in search of him, and that she seemed to be on to something, and had asked him to fly to Chicago tonight.

The news only added to his depression. She'd been trying to get him, and he had been unavailable to her. One of the operatives at the field office had finally come forward with a story about her having telephoned there for Brewer, claiming that the Chicago vampire had telephoned her at the crime lab. It had been this news that had sent them racing to Matisak's place. But now all leads seemed to end in a blind alley. Where on earth could she be? Would they not know until it was too late? Had she been abducted by Matisak?

The radio crackled with static and then a rough voice said into it, “This is Sergeant Iverson, Precinct 13. Seems we got a call through dispatch from your APB-''

“ Dr. Coran!” He was instantly excited. “When?”

“ Well over two hours ago, sir, just before I came on shift. Just happened to be looking back over the log when I saw it.”

Otto was frantic, but he tried to recall where the 13th Precinct fell, somewhere on the North Side. He had had a good friend who worked out of a decoy unit at the 13th, so he knew something of the area. He now pleaded for more information on the call. “Did Dr. Coran leave any word for me?”

“ Negative, sir. Something of a strange call, actually.”

“ Look, do you have it transcribed? Can you read it back?”

“ Sir, we have it on tape. We keep all incoming calls on tape for thirty days before we discard, and-”

“ Well, for Christ's sake, Iverson, play the damned tape.”

“ Coming to you, Inspector Boutine.”

Boutine instantly recognized and reacted to Jessica's voice, although it was going through a maze of relays from a tape not the best of quality to begin with, but it was wonderful to hear her. She was asking questions about an address that led to someone named Hillary Gamble. The name sounded familiar but he couldn't place it.

He listened to the police dispatcher's reply and waded through the ceremonies as she was then speaking to a duty sergeant. The duty sergeant pulled what they had on Gamble.

Otto racked his brain for where he had seen the name before, and then he recalled that it had been in the list of personnel folders he had shared with Brewer at Balue-Stork.

He continued to listen to the tape. Jess asked for a rundown on Gamble. It was given, and Boutine stored the address in his mind for safekeeping. He knew the area, knew that he could be there in five, ten minutes tops. He swung the car completely around, tossing the strobe light overhead as he did so, causing two other cars to collide behind him as he peeled away.

The final remark on the tape was the desk sergeant's explaining how Gamble had been arrested for indecently exposing himself on an occasion of his having called police out on a complaint against a neighbor.

Otto bore down on the neighborhood where Gamble lived. As he did so, he thought of the bizarre triangle that Lowenthal, Matisak and Gamble created. He wondered if they could all have played a part in the killings, or if Jessica had been right about Lowenthal's being an old-fashioned patsy. So how did Gamble figure into it? Hillary Gamble was male. At Balue-Stork, Otto had set his personnel file aside, thinking that a woman working in the mailroom was of no importance to the case. But Hillary was a man, and from the sound of him, a man who could be dangerous.

Otto called the precinct back. “Sergeant Iverson.”

“ Yes, sir?” the sergeant responded militarily.

“ Check your records for any complaints filed against a Matthew Matisak.”

“ Have earlier done so, sir, when the APB was run on him, and sorry to say, but nothing-not so much as a parking ticket.”

Otto was crossing Irving Park Road at Ashland, having come off the Kennedy, headed for Gamble's address.

Brewer's voice broke the static of the radio. “I've got your destination, Otto, and I'm behind you.”?