Death Angels

35

lT WAS MlDNlGHT WHEN WlNTER GOT OUT OF THE CAB lN FRONT of his hotel. He paid, walked up the half flight of stairs to the second floor and unlocked the door. Standing in the hallway, he heard voices from the suite above him. A TV set was keeping someone company.

His mind was empty, cleansed by the jazz at the Bull’s Head down in Barnes. He had jumped into the taxi right after the Alan Skidmore Quartet finished their last encore.

Skidmore played the tenor sax, occasionally the soprano sax, his music heavily influenced by Coltrane. British music didn’t get any better. Winter had sat right in the draft, which had helped clear his head.

Music is like sex, Winter thought as he walked into his suite. When it’s good, it’s terrific and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

He had gone out wanting to find someone to sleep with, but the music had satisfied him. He hadn’t even looked at the women all night long, the package of condoms in his wallet forgotten.

He opened the window and pulled back the drapes. He smelled of smoke and sweat against the breeze, and when he washed his face, his head still had that pure, empty feeling. He undressed and stood under the shower. The water restored his body, and he reveled in the strength and purpose it gave him.

He pulled on a pair of clean boxer shorts and sat on the couch. The taste of smoke lingered in his mouth. He got up and brushed his teeth again. Sitting back down, he listened to the last strains of the music fade away inside him. Finally there was nothing left but silence. He tried to remember further and further back. Memories, fragments of conversations, continued to swirl around him when he went to bed.

Sound asleep, he heard a tenor sax wail to him in a maniacal Coltrane meditation, trying to split his subconscious in two.

The wail turned into a jangling sound that woke him up. His cell phone rattled on the floor where he had plugged it in. The room was as dark as the night outside.

He rolled out of bed and onto the floor, picked up the phone and pressed the green button. “Winter.”

“Steve here. We’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

Winter stretched as far as he could and snatched his watch off the nightstand. Three o’clock.

“It happened again,” Macdonald said.

“No.”

“Throw something on and wait outside for the squad car.”

“Where was it?”

“Camberwell, between Peckham and Brixton.”

“At a hotel?”

“Yes.”

“A Swede?”

“Yes.”

“My God.”

“Get dressed now.”

“When did it happen?”

“Tonight, but get a move on, dammit.”

The room at the New Dome Hotel was full of people when Winter arrived. Everything was hideously familiar.

“I had to come right away,” Macdonald said.

The police were hard at work. Blood clung to every surface in the room. The forensic team’s plastic bags glistened under the bright lights.

“Of course, it’s not necessarily Hitchcock,” Macdonald said.

“No.”

“It happened late last evening.” Macdonald handed Winter a piece of paper. “I have the kid’s name here.”

Winter read it: Christian Jaegerberg.

The victim had already been removed. Winter saw stains on the floor, footprints tracing a pattern from the door to the chair in the middle of the room.

The bed hadn’t been slept in. A little stack of CDs lay on top of it. The shades shut out the night. Voices droned on in low-key professionalism. Cameras flashed.

The plastic bags were everywhere, coded on the outside, filled with hair, teeth, bloody skin, flesh and bodily fluids.

We’re in hell, Winter thought. Hell on earth is right here, in this room.

He moved his head from side to side. Blood-swelling behind his forehead, roaring in his ears-had replaced the pleasant vacuum.

Macdonald told him what he had found out so far.

It was a critical moment for everybody.

“He was interrupted,” Macdonald said.

“What?”

“The owner’s son walked by and heard something. He pounded on the door and wouldn’t let up.”

“And then what?”

“He’s sitting in a room by the lobby. He’s mentally disabled, not to mention shocked as hell. We tried to talk to him but didn’t get anywhere. I’m just about to give it another shot.”

They went out into the hallway, which reeked of vomit that Winter hadn’t noticed before.

“One of our men,” Macdonald said. “It happens all the time.”

“They’re only human.”

“We’ve got dozens of officers knocking on doors in the neighborhood.”

They were sitting as though someone had screwed them into their chairs. The owner held the hand of his son, who was around thirty but could pass for twenty-five. His disability exaggerated his features. His eyeballs moved back and forth but lacked focus. He wanted to get up, but the owner held him firmly in place.

“I want to go-o-o,” he rasped, as if his vocal chords were weighed down by rocks.

“Soon, James,” the owner said.

“Go-o-o.”

“He walks around the hotel all day long,” the owner said. “That’s the only thing he does.”

Macdonald nodded and introduced Winter. They sat down on a couple of chairs that a uniformed policewoman had brought from the lobby.

“Tell us again what happened,” Macdonald said to the owner.

“James came down and started screaming and stamping his foot. He kept pulling on me, and I went back upstairs with him after a while.”

“Did you see anyone else on the staircase?”

“No.”

“No doors opening?”

“Not right then.”

“What happened next?”

“What?”

“What did you do after that?”

“We got upstairs and I saw it, all the blood.”

“What did James do?”

“He screamed.”

“Did he see anyone or anything?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get him to talk.”

“You didn’t notice anyone go up to the room?”

“No, I probably don’t spend as much time at the front desk as I should.”

“Nobody ran down the stairs afterward?”

“No.”

“Nobody at all?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“But James heard something unusual?”

“He must have, because he never bothers the guests otherwise.”

“He interrupted it,” Winter said.

James turned his face toward Winter, and his eyes regained their focus. “He-e-e came ou-ou-out.”

“He came out?” Winter repeated.

James nodded and squeezed the owner’s hand.

“Did the guy come out?” Winter persisted. “The guy who was staying there?”

No answer.

“Did a big man come out?”

James’s eyeballs began to roll again, then stopped when they got to Winter. “I pou-ou-ounded.”

“Go on.”

“I pou-ou-ounded on the door.”

“Keep going.”

“He-e-e came ou-ou-out.”

“Who came out, James?”

“Hi-im.”

“The guy?”

James shook his head harder.

“Hi-im.”

“Somebody else? Not the guy?”

“Hi-im,” James said, trembling.

“He must be talking about a visitor,” the owner said. He turned to James. “Was he white like him?” He took Winter’s wrist and pointed at the palm of his hand.

James continued to tremble, rocking back and forth as if a song were playing in his head.

“James,” the owner continued. “The man who wasn’t staying in the room, was he white like these two men who are sitting here now?”

James didn’t react.

“I think we need to get him to the hospital,” the owner said.

“Bla-a-ack,” James said suddenly, grabbing his head and running his hands down his cheeks.

“Black?” the owner asked, pinching himself and holding his arm up to James’s face. “Black like you and me?”

“Bla-a-ack.” James repeated the gesture with his hands.

“Black hair, did he have black hair?” Macdonald pulled on the strands that hung over the right side of his forehead. James gave a start.

Macdonald removed the rubber band from his ponytail and let his hair fall over his shoulders. “Long black hair?” he asked, tugging on his own. James twitched, continuing to sway from side to side like a mourner. His eyes resembled caves.

“Bla-a-ack,” he said again and pointed to Macdonald.

“And white?” Macdonald asked, running his fingers across his face and pinching his cheeks. “White? A white man? White skin?”

“Whi-i-ite.”