Chill of Night

61

“Who found him?” Beam asked.

“Delivery man with takeout from a restaurant a block over,” said the uniform who’d been first on the scene. He was a tall, thin man with a weathered face and the long fingers of a concert pianist. Beam had seen him around; his name was Alfonse something.

“That what’s all over the hall floor?” Beam asked.

“Yes, sir. Chinese.”

That explained the peculiar, pungent scent in the hall that Beam had noticed when he stepped out of the elevator.

That, the aftermath of gunfire, and what was left of the back of Knee High’s head.

Beam had almost stepped on the food mess when he’d first approached the apartment’s open door. His gaze had been fixed on Knee High lying on his back just beyond the doorway, staring up at the ceiling in something like wonderment at having obtained a third round, dark eye just above the bridge of his nose. On his very still chest lay a neatly cut out red cloth letter J.

The crime scene unit had arrived shortly before Beam and was crawling all over the apartment beyond the body. The halls were quiet, guarded now by men and women in blue and made off limits except for tenants. On a small, ornate iron bench halfway to the elevators, next to a brass ashtray and a stalwart looking uniform standing with his arms crossed, sat a glum Hispanic man in his thirties. He had on jeans and a white shirt, worn down Nikes, and was wearing a white baseball cap lettered GW. His arms were heavily tattooed.

“Delivery man?” Beam asked Alfonse.

“Him. Says his name’s Raymond Carerra.”

Beam walked toward the man, who kept his head bowed and refused to acknowledge that anyone was approaching. Beam saw that the tattoos were mostly of snakes and flowers. “Raymond?”

Carerra nodded without looking up at him. Beam thought he appeared a little sick to his stomach. He showed Carerra his shield and introduced himself as police.

“I already told what happened,” Carerra said, with a slight Spanish accent.

“You watch TV, Raymond. You know I need to hear it again.”

“I did nothing but come here as usual and deliver Mr. Knee High’s egg foo yung.”

“From?”

“Great Wall. Place where I work just a block away. Mr. Knee High’s regular order.”

“That all he ever orders, egg foo yung?”

“Always, that’s all. Because ours is very good.”

Beam didn’t know whether Raymond was being a smart ass, so he let it pass. He got out his notepad and pen. “So tell me how it went, Raymond.”

“I came to deliver the food, got off the elevator, walked down the hall to that apartment, and that’s what I found. The door was open, and Mr. Knee High was laying there like that. I was so surprised I dropped my take-out boxes, then I got scared. At first I thought I might be in trouble and figured maybe I should get out fast. Then I remembered I was sent here by the restaurant, and I knew there were cops all over the building, guarding Mr. Knee High. Where was I gonna go?”

Raymond looked at Beam as if he might actually answer his question. Beam shrugged.

“I decided I’d go back downstairs,” Raymond said, “and find a cop, tell him what I saw, then come back up here with him.”

“Who’d you find?”

“That man.” Raymond pointed to Alfonse.

“Was the letter J already on Mr. Knee High’s chest?”

“Yes. Everything was just as it is now. Exactly.”

“There are some ten-dollar bills in his right hand.”

“They were there, to pay for the egg foo yung and my tip. Always the same amount. Mr. Knee High was a big tipper.”

“You call upstairs on the intercom before entering the main lobby?”

“Yes, sir. I said hello to the doorman, too. He told me go ahead and use the intercom instead of calling up himself and announcing me, like they sometimes do.”

Beam was surprised. The doorman was actually an undercover cop.

“Ever seen the doorman before?”

“Sure. Last three nights. Never before that. I been delivering to this building for two years. Doormen here, they come and go. Lots of picky tenants, I guess.”

So he was familiar to the cop-doorman, deemed safe.

Beam pointed toward the mess on the floor down the hall. “I see the egg foo yung that spilled on the carpet when you dropped the order, but what’s in that other, smaller box that didn’t open when it was dropped?

“That’s Mr. Knee High’s fortune cookie,” Raymond said. “I guess maybe I should have delivered that first, by itself.”

Beam decided Raymond was okay, a guy with a sense of humor poking through his apprehension. “Did you see anyone else down in the lobby, somebody who might have overheard what you were doing here, where you were going?”

“There was nobody else in the lobby. And I didn’t say into the intercom where I was going, just that I was here from Great Wall.”

“Was anyone else in the elevator?”

“No.”

“See anyone else in the halls?”

“No one. And I saw no one after I got in the elevator until I saw Mr. Knee High…like he is.”

Beam scribbled, then put away his notepad and clipped his pen back in his pocket.

“You guys aren’t gonna take me in, are you?” Raymond asked.

“Maybe, just to make a statement. Recorded, signed, that kind of thing. To make it official.” See if there are any contradictions.

“You mean I’m gonna have to tell my story again?” Raymond asked.

“No doubt about it.”

“You mind if I borrow your notes?”

Beam smiled. Raymond was tuned in, all right.

So simple, the Justice Killer thought, sitting in the back of the cab speeding through the neon and sodium-lit night. He’d simply waited for the inevitable food delivery from the Chinese restaurant, and made his way to Knee High’s apartment just ahead of the deliveryman. Knee High, hungry for his supper but not his death, had eagerly opened the door and received death.

Justice.

It had gone precisely as planned. The police profiler, who kept telling lies about him on TV and in the newspapers, was proved wrong again. Justice wasn’t coming unraveled. He wasn’t increasingly burdened by the deaths he’d caused-the executions. Why should he be? He was simply setting right what the city let go so very wrong.

Those who’d died by his hand deserved death.

Except for Richard Simms. Cold Cat. Pathetic sociopath who thought he had talent.

Who didn’t deserve to die young.

Damn it! The crime is in the intent! And the intent remains pure.

It’s Beam and his fellow hunters who are coming unraveled, not me. Surely public opinion must be convincing them they’re wrong and I’m right. Look at the polls. They have only to look at the polls. The people want the city to be a place of peace and order and justice. Justice. The people-The cab struck a series of jolting potholes and for a moment was airborne, landing with a thud that caused the driver’s sun visor to flip down and jarred the Justice Killer’s teeth.

He’d bitten his tongue and almost slid off the worn-smooth back seat.

Christ! Whoever’s responsible for patching these potholes deserves to be shot!