Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

Chapter 6

I SAT NEXT to Helen on one of the twin beds. We both had our feet up on the mattress to keep the possibility of them being overrun by bloodthirsty cockroaches to a minimum. No matter whose standards you used, this was one incredibly lame motel.

Thomas had taken the unmasked Headhunter (blonde fellow, kinda dopey-looking) into the bathroom and shut the door, but not before I glimpsed a coil of metal wire and what looked like jumper cables resting on the sink. The heavyset man started to pace around the room, sweating profusely, constantly wiping his hands on his pants.

“So…what’s the story?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just a little frantic, that’s all.” He took a deep breath. “My name is Craig Burgin, and I desperately need your help.”

“You’ve said that.”

From inside the bathroom, there was a cry of pain that was quickly muffled.

“What’s he doing in there?” Helen demanded.

“He’s getting information.”

“Does his FBI training manual include torture techniques?” I asked.

Craig smiled nervously. “He’s not FBI. He’s this private investigator who’s helping me find my wife.”

“Private investigator from where? What exactly is going on here?” I got off the bed and stood up, hoping my legs wouldn’t be devoured.

“Just let me explain, okay? Please?”

There were some more muffled cries of pain from the bathroom, and then a dull thump.

“Forget this,” I said. “We’re outta here.”

“No, no, I’m going to tell you everything.” He took another deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. “About ten months ago, my wife Charlotte was kidnapped. No ransom note, no demands, no nothing. Some drops of blood on my kitchen floor were the only evidence anything had happened. The police got involved, the FBI, the IRS, we offered this huge reward for any information, and we found nothing.”

“The IRS?” I asked.

“Sorry, no, not the IRS. Another one. Just let me talk, okay?”

He wiped his nose off on his sleeve. “One month to the day after she vanished, I got this videotape in the mail. It was a two-minute video of my wife, taken against this white backdrop. She was tied up and gagged…covered with cuts and bruises. There was this message on the backdrop that said ‘She’s still alive, but you can’t have her.’“

Craig’s voice cracked, and it took him a few moments to regain his composure. “Obviously we studied every second of the tape, but there wasn’t anything to go on besides the postmark, which was from Los Angeles. The next month, I got another tape, this one with a Pittsburgh postmark. There she was, tied and gagged, her bruises and cuts healed. She had this copy of USA Today on her lap to prove it had been taken the week before. Same message on the backdrop.”

I sat back down on the bed. Helen scooted close to me.

“It’s gone on like this for almost a year now. Every month I get this video, every month Charlotte ’s got this newspaper, but every couple months they add to the message on the backdrop.”

I waited expectantly, but he just went on pacing and didn’t continue. “What did they add?” I asked.

“It was meant to be funny, I guess,” said Craig, shaking his head. “After the first two months the message said ‘She’s still alive, but you can’t have her. Nyahh, nyahh!’ Two months after that they added ‘Neener, neener!’ Then ‘Nanny nanny boo boo!’”

I stared at him. What kind of kidnappers were these?

“Money, I could understand,” said Craig. “But turning it into this joke…that’s just, it’s just evil.”

There were some more muffled shrieks from the bathroom, these much louder than the ones before. They faded out quickly, and I swore I could hear faint sobbing.

“Sounds like evil is being punished,” I noted.

Craig shook his head. “It wasn’t the Headhunter. He was strictly after you.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring.”

“It’s the truth. Let me back up. Three months ago, I got this call from Thomas, who I didn’t know at the time. He said he had information that might help me find my wife. I didn’t hesitate to meet him, of course, and he explained how he’d been helping this other client search for her missing sister. Her sister was heavily into drugs, and she was scared she might even be dealing, so she never called the police. Sadly, Thomas only managed to find her head.”

The bathroom door opened. Thomas stepped out and closed the door behind him. “Have you explained everything yet?” he asked.

“Not yet, I’m getting there.”

“No, wait,” I said. “Before you get back into the story, I want to know what’s going on in there.”

“Actually, I don’t suspect you do,” Thomas informed me. “And even if I’m wrong, I’m certain your wife doesn’t. I can’t imagine that either of you have any great love for the man in the bathtub.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I approve of him being tortured!”

“Tell me something, Andrew. When that maniac abducted your children last year, would you have approved of a little torture if that helped you find them?”

“This is different.”

“Certainly, it’s not your family.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s…forget it, I’m not getting into a discussion of sadism ethics here. Craig, continue.”

Craig closed his eyes, clearly trying to get back into his train of thought, and then began speaking again. “Anyway, the story gets fairly involved, Thomas can fill you in on a lot of the details, but he ended up breaking into the Headhunter’s car.”

“This was in Manhattan,” Thomas said.

“Yes, Manhattan. He only had a minute or so to search, but he found this letter. It was typewritten-”

“Not typewritten, printed out on a computer,” Thomas corrected. “There was no name on it, but the letter was addressed to the Headhunter. It discussed how the person writing the letter looked forward to meeting him for the big party. Everything was purposely vague, but the closing of the letter was, and I quote, ‘Until next time, nyahh nyahh and nanny nanny boo boo!’ Now, that information as it related to Mr. Burgin’s case had been withheld from the press, as things always are to filter out those unhappy individuals who confess to crimes they didn’t commit, but I knew all about it. So I contacted Mr. Burgin and he graciously agreed to fund my investigation.”

He checked his watch. “Pardon me, I need to get back to work. Please continue,” he said, gesturing to Craig as he re-entered the bathroom, again closing the door behind him.

“So he tracked Ned-that’s the Headhunter, Ned Markstein-for a couple weeks. He snuck into his apartment, went through his things, all that stuff. He found more letters, nothing that identified the kidnapper, but there was enough evidence in them to prove that the person writing them had Charlotte. Last week, he hacked into the Headhunter’s personal computer and found this letter in progress. It’s here somewhere…”

Craig opened a briefcase, flipped through a couple of files, and then took out a manila folder and handed me the printout of the letter inside.

“ Buddy,

Time’s getting close, isn’t it? It’s been too long since I’ve had a nice vacation. I’ll definitely bring my share of the party favors, but I’ll take it one step further. I’ll bring you Andrew Mayhem and Roger Tanglen. And then we can ”

“Can what?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. We never saw the finished letter.”

“So how do two people like this meet? What, did he take out a personal ad? Single White Psychopath Seeks Same?”

“I think it started on the Internet, actually.”

“It’s always the Internet, isn’t it?” I said, annoyed. “So why the hell didn’t you go to the cops? My wife and I almost got killed!”

“Thomas told me not to. He said we couldn’t let the Headhunter know that we were on to him, or he wouldn’t lead us to Charlotte ’s kidnapper. So we followed him down to Chamber.”

“And let him kill all the party guests.”

Craig bit his lip. “He wasn’t easy to keep track of. We weren’t expecting him to do anything like that. I think he was just trying to show off before he brought you to the kidnapper, make himself look better.”

“You didn’t even think to warn us?” I was furious. “My wife almost got her head chopped off, too!” A horrible thought occurred to me. “How do I know he didn’t get Roger?”

“Oh, no, no, Roger’s fine. Really, he wasn’t going to kill you, just your wife. He needed you.”

“This certainly makes me feel special,” Helen muttered.

Craig stared to reply, but seemed to sense that he was losing control of the conversation. He knocked on the bathroom door.

“I’m just a bit busy,” said Thomas from inside, annoyed.

“I need you to explain the plan.”

“You know the plan.”

“But I need you to explain it to them.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the toilet flushed. Thomas emerged, wiping his hands on a towel. We all stared at him.

“What?” he asked.

We continued staring at him.

“Oh, grow up. So what’s the problem?”

“Just tell them what we need,” Craig said.

Thomas tossed the towel aside. “Andrew, we need you and your friend Roger to serve as bait.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “First of all, if I understand Craig’s story right, Helen and I acted as bait this evening, and we almost died.”

“Not you, just Helen.”

“You know, this is starting to piss me off,” Helen said.

“I apologize, ma’am; that was unprofessional. Here’s the situation. Three days from now, our friend in the bathroom is supposed to meet the man who kidnapped Mrs. Burgin in New York City. Queens, to be specific, and he’s supposed to have you-” he pointed at me “-and your friend with him. Naturally, he won’t be showing up. I will. The kidnapper doesn’t know what the Headhunter looks like, so I’ll be playing his part. You and Roger will be safe in the car, pretending to be prisoners. Once I’m satisfied that he’s the right individual, he’ll find a gun in his face, and then he’ll go through the same line of questioning the Headhunter did. He’ll tell us where Charlotte and the others are, don’t worry.”

“Others?” Helen asked.

“Oh yes. Apparently there are several others. At least ten, though we don’t know how many for certain. Most likely they all have families who are going through the same mental anguish that Mr. Burgin here is suffering. You can see what it’s done to his ability to outline a simple plan.”

“If you know all this is happening, why don’t you go to the police?” I asked. “Why do this by yourself instead of letting the NYPD handle it?”

“It’s bad enough that your wife has to know about it,” said Thomas. “Listen to me, Andrew. I don’t know who the kidnapper is, but I do know that he thinks this is all a big game, a way to have a few laughs. He doesn’t care if Charlotte or the others live or die. But I can make him care. Believe me, the NYPD might not be able to get him to reveal where the prisoners are, but I definitely will.”

I didn’t doubt that.

“Why does he want me?”

“Why wouldn’t he? From what I understand, you were responsible for quite a few deranged individuals getting what they deserved. Maybe this deranged individual had a friend among them, or maybe he just wants to strike a blow for his fellow deranged individuals, I’m not certain. But I promise you, you won’t be in any danger.”

“Like behind the planetarium?”

“That was a less controlled situation,” Thomas explained. “We were the ones in pursuit. This time the culprit is coming to us.”

“Please,” said Craig. “You’ve got to help us. I’ll pay you anything.”

“Naturally, my client doesn’t have the financial resources available to pay you anything,” said Thomas. “But you will certainly be generously compensated, and you’ll get a free New York City vacation out of it, though naturally you won’t be permitted to leave the hotel until after the meeting. But this isn’t about money or vacations; it’s about bringing these poor people back to their families. And all you have to do is sit in the car.”

“Is it safe to sit in a car in Queens?” I asked.

“Not really,” Thomas admitted.

I knew perfectly well that, left on my own, I’d end up accepting his offer. I’m not all that heroic, and I don’t devote my life to the betterment of mankind, and I’ll occasionally pretend that I don’t have any change when the Salvation Army Santa Clauses are standing outside of shopping malls ringing the hell out of their red bells, but to refuse to help people who’d been kidnapped by an obvious sicko just wasn’t going to cut it. I mean, it’s not like I had to worry about missing work.

However, I made sure to get the opinion of the person who kept the Mayhem household supply of common sense. “What do you think, Helen?”

“I think you’re going to do it no matter what I say.” She turned to Thomas. “If you put my husband in danger, the guy in the bathroom won’t be the only one looking to chop off your head.”

“Understood.”

“Thank you so much,” said Craig. His tone of voice made me concerned that he might drop to the floor and start slobbering all over my shoes in gratitude, but fortunately he didn’t.

“So what’s the next step?” I asked.

I NOTICED that Roger had a new scratch as he opened the door. He frowned as he saw Craig and Thomas standing behind me.

“What have you gotten me into?” he asked.

“So, Rog,” I said, giving him a reassuring smile, “got any plans this week?”