Slice

BUCKHEAD HIGHWAY MALL

On Tuesday evening, Daniel Bunkowski, in his neatly pressed suit, with infant safely nested beside him, was driving out of the crowded Buckhead Highway Mall and turning at the third light, a now-familiar interchange to him as he drives a route leading to money. He will check a rental property tomorrow morning, and if it seems adequate inside, having already cased the lay of the land and assessed its isolation factor, he will rent the base for his next operation.

The immense killer is not the same anthropophagous wild man who devoured the heart of a fresh kill only a few weeks ago. In fact, he can still feel himself changing. That thing that would come over him is growing weak inside him and he can feel its hold on him lessening. The thing that would force him to kill to appease the boiling pressure cooker, to make the awful heat subside, to do violence—the only kind of act that would slake the burning red thirst—no longer had its sharp fangs suck into his innards. He was changing.

All because of the little baby son. It was, indeed, a miracle. Bunkowski for the first time was acting out of regard for someone or something beyond his own survival. Above all else it was now crucial to him that the newborn be protected. His long-range plan, the creation of a self-sustaining safe environment for his pet monkey—involved the acquisition of money. To even make the move involving the computer hacker he needed lots of working cash. One more score on top of the recent windfall. Just a thousand, twelve hundred, would do it. Walking-around money.

“That be all tonight, hon?” the bored lady at the cash register said as he slid a quart of Wild Turkey along the counter together with a crisp new double sawbuck.

“That's got it,” he rumbled with a wide smile.

“How you been gettin’ by?” she asked with her usual familiarity. Having seen him five or six times he was filed away as a regular.

“Just so-so. I guess I can't complain."

“Well, you can complain but it won't do you a goddamn bit of good."

They both roared with laughter at this brilliant conversational diamond.

“That's for goddamn sure,” the big man agreed in his most jovial and pear-shaped approximation of ingenuousness.

“Ohhhhh, my God,” she said, stretching like a cat, pushing her chest forward to emphasize what Bunkowski suspected were outrageously padded breasts, “I got a back that's just KILLING ME, ya know?"

“Really?” he said. The state of her health and well-being was clearly the most important thing in the huge man's life. Everything about the sincerity of his facial expression, tone of voice, and the steadiness of his gaze said that her back pain was FASCINATING to him.

“I got the goddamnedest crick in my back I ever had in my life. I tell you it is MURDER.” She stretched again in the white sweater, moving her head from side to side as she did so. “I didn't sleep in my own bed las’ night and shit I tell ya I can't hardly move today. I stay over at my boyfriend's once in a while, ya know?” Daniel nodded. “An’ last night. God, I promise ya it wasn't cause we ... you know. BELIEVE me, we DIDN'T.” She shook her head knowingly, letting him know it wasn't because they'd done the deed hanging from a chandelier or anything. “But hell, you know how it is when you're not in your own bed."

“I sure do. I just don't sleep worth a damn when I'm not in my own bed,” he said.

“I can't even sleep good when I'm, you know, on VACATION or anything. I like my own bed.” Her head shook at the very thought of her own bed.

“Boy I hear that loud and clear. You know, I guess this job gets kinda scary once inna while, you know—guys coming in and sticking up liquor stores and that.” He said it innocently, shaking his head just the way she did as he slowly folded up the bills, letting her see the humongous wad of money he carried so she'd know he wasn't interested personally, just making conversation. A friendly non sequitur.

“The scaredest I've ever been was about four, five months ago this Mexican comes in here—well, I say Mexican, he LOOKED Mexican. Anyway he comes in somethin ‘bout a flat and hasta call somebody, he's lost his wallet, hell, I don't remember what all, so he's got a pint of whiskey and he comes over and he says. Put this on my tab."

“Uh huh."

“And I go. You haven't got a tab here, mister. I can't do that."

“Wow."

“And he says. You BETTER do it. And, you know, he just stares. And I stare back at him. And I mean he is STARING at me, you know. I figure he's gonna shoot me or stab me with a knife or somethin’ bad is gonna happen. And I move on across like this"—she moved down the length of the counter to show him—"and I said, ‘Listen, mister, if you don't get outta here I'm gonna step on this buzzer back here, and as soon as my foot hits THAT, the shit hits the fan down at PO-LEECE headquarters. NOW GIT THE HELL OUTTA HERE!’”

They both laughed at her amazing audacity in the face of peril.

“God! That's really something,” Chaingang said, amazed by this woman's bravery and quick thinking, moving around to look where the buzzer was as he told her how great she was. “That was really something!"

“There AIN'T NO BUZZER,” she screamed, and they both roared again with laughter.

“Wow! Goddamn, you sure were great. That's pretty fast thinking.” He obviously admired her for her cleverness.

“Well, you know, I had to do somethin'. It was all I could think of."

“I don't think MY mind would have worked that fast."

“Wally don't have nothing in here. We don't even keep a gun."

“Hell. Looks like they'd have an alarm to that—whaddyacallit—that security company deal."

“Naw. We ain't got shit in here."

“Well, don't that beat all. Hell, I bet if some stickup guy hit you now he'd get a thousand dollars cash!"

“Shit. He'd be lucky to get a hunnert and a half.” She leaned on the counter. “Weekends when the money stacks up good."

“Bet you could hit a liquor store like this on a Friday, eight, nine o'clock, come away with plenty."

“No.” She shook her head. She knew what she was talking about. “I'd make it Saturday night about ten or ten-thirty,” nodding firmly, “yep, that's when the most cash would be on hand."

“Hell, a guy'd probably get two, three thousand on a Saturday night,” he agreed.

“Ummm.” She shrugged, obviously disagreeing. “He might get fifteen hundred, MAYBE two thousand on a real good Saturday."

They bid their friendly good-nights after a bit and Chaingang got into his car and drove off. It never failed to astonish him ... the remarkable degree of openness with which people revealed their innermost secrets to casual strangers. He in particular had this ability with people. He could just look at someone and they'd be telling him their life story inside of five minutes. Something about the look of him. A trust thing. Something across the bridge of the nose, in those doughy wrinkles and crinkles, ail be lacked was a white beard and a ho-ho-ho. And now—a pillow for padding.

He had a reason for every move he made, if only subconsciously. He'd picked this liquor store to patronize for a specific reason. He was going to hit it, and this imbecile had just told him when the best time was and how safe it would be for him. She'd even given him a guided tour of her behind-the-counter surprises and a peek at her hole card.

It was what he did, this matter of sizing up situations and making instant assessments of the vulnerability and access quotients. He'd gone into the mall nearby and turned at the third light instead of the second light, by mistake, and seen this little cluster of stores and services.

A fast-food chicken shack, a car-care center, a disreputable-looking motel, a busy gas station, the package store, a small ma-and-pa operation, and the assessment printout was there in that first heartbeat.

When one looked at the chicken shack one saw food; Daniel saw a bustling interior full of witnesses and a drive-in window with one of those shatterproof, revolving Lok-Tite jobs, and looked away. The car-care center smelled like easy money but there were eight, nine bozos milling around. Again, too many people. The run-down motel was okay as far as the access, isolation factor and vulnerability quotient went, but it was TOO run-down. Paint chipped from the doors. No guests. Nickels and dimes. The busy gas station. Impossible for his current needs. He wanted no witnesses and no MO. He'd probably cold-cock the clerk as soon as he had the money, pop them into the open trunk, and be gone before the next car pulled in. He'd hit the store right after dark Saturday. Daniel figured it to be his last small job.

The next step was the cop. He needed to summon all his powers of persuasion. He'd charted it out on paper and it could work. The policeman Eichord was a known quantity within certain boundaries. If he didn't overreact to the killing of his friend, and to Bunkowski's track record, it boiled down to a simple trade-off. Would the cop be willing to guarantee him unofficial amnesty of sorts in return for Bunkowski's guarantee that the killings were over for good? It was a shot.

What did the detective have to lose? He didn't know, of course, that Daniel had lost his taste for murder and mutilation. That at last the normalcy of building a regular life and raising a child had pulled Chaingang's head out of the sewers. Such was the uniqueness of Chain's madness that he could have this dream, and it was so real to him he now believed it. And for this strange, bizarre killer of hundreds, to believe was to be.

He would first try to convince the cop that the killings had come to an end. He knew this arrogant man would let him get close. The lure of a confrontation would be irresistible to him. And he would pay for his temerity with his dying screams and the thought of this filled Chaingang's head with a hot crimson wave of overwhelming need. A final kill.