The Caller

Eighty-Nine

Cory Russo was still looking at Mr. J with firm steady eyes.

Mr. J stared back at him calmly, his gun still aimed at his forehead. He didn’t mind the defiant look in Russo’s eyes or the challenging smirk on his lips. He seen it before so many times, he actually enjoyed it, because he knew that soon, very soon, that defiance, that smirk, the entire ‘badass’ attitude, would vanish. In its place would come petrifying fear, and a hell of a lot of begging and crying.

Mr. J reached into his pocket and took out a small, wallet-sized photograph.

‘Remember her?’

Russo’s eyes settled on the picture for no longer than three seconds. ‘Nope. Never seen the bitch before.’

Mr. J had been staring straight at Russo’s eyes. He saw the recognition in them. He saw the lie coming.

‘Is that right?’

Russo matched his stare.

Mr. J didn’t ask again. He simply squeezed the trigger on his pistol. The nine-millimeter round missed Russo’s left ear by a mere fraction, exploding against the white tiles behind him and sending shards and dust flying in the air. Mr. J had missed on purpose.

Russo’s hand shot up to his ear like a rocket.

There it was, the vanishing of the defiant grin. The crumbling of the badass attitude. The crying would come soon.

‘What the fuck, man?’ Russo yelled. ‘Are you fucking nuts?’

Another squeeze of the trigger. This time, the bullet missed Russo’s right ear. More shards. More dust.

Up came the other hand. ‘Fuuuuuuuck. What are you doing? Stop, man. Stop.’

Mr. J said nothing. He simply tapped his finger on the photograph.

‘OK, man, OK,’ Russo said. ‘You’ve got the wrong guy, though. She wasn’t one of mine.’

Mr. J found the answer a little odd. ‘One of yours? You better start talking plain English.’ He nodded with the barrel of his gun.

‘Yeah, man, she wasn’t one of mine,’ Russo said again. ‘She was supposed to be one of Toby’s.’ His chin jerked up slightly.

‘No. That still makes no sense,’ Mr. J said.

Russo saw the determination in Mr. J’s eyes and knew that he was about to squeeze the trigger again.

‘Wait, wait!’ he yelled, lifting his hands in surrender. ‘That’s how we did it, man,’ Russo began, his voice a lot less steady. ‘I scouted the ones for him, he scouted the ones for me, then we’d swop info. We live across town from each other and we thought that there was no way anyone could link the women back to us. On his nights, I made sure that I was in a place full of people, and I made sure that they remembered me, you know what I’m saying? On my nights, he did the same.’ Russo paused and nodded at the photograph. ‘But Toby never got to her, man. I did scout her out for him, yes. Gave him her picture and all, but he never did her, man. Not yet. She was... still to come.’

Mr. J was stunned. He now realized that he had the wrong guy. Cory Russo was a scumbag, but not the scumbag who had murdered Cassandra. He and his pothead friend, Toby, were two sack-of-shit rapists, who had devised a cunning plan so as not to be caught. In his job as a plumber, Russo would no doubt visit several homes a week. Toby would have a similar kind of job and did the same. They would then pick victims out for each other, probably based on some sick criteria. They would swop information, then choose a day. When Russo was out raping some poor woman that Toby had chosen for him, Toby would be at a bar, or at a park... somewhere with lots of people, and he would make sure that he was noticed. If the victim reported the crime, and Mr. J knew that the sad reality in the USA was that less than 50 percent of rape victims would report the attack, there was a chance that the investigating team would come knocking on Toby’s door, but Toby would have a number of witnesses who could vouch for his whereabouts on the day or night of the crime. The process would work the other way around when Toby was out raping.

A brand-new pit of hate began digging its way through Mr. J’s heart.

‘What was the time frame?’ Mr. J asked. Despite his anger, his voice remained unaltered.

‘What?’

‘The time frame. How long between the picking of the victims and the attack?’

Russo stayed quiet.

Big mistake. Mr. J squeezed the trigger for the third time. This one exploded against Russo’s right hand, splattering blood and flesh against the wall, fracturing several bones, and severing two fingers. They bounced against the cold tiled floor.

Russo went flying back, crashing against the wall, his face contorted in pain. Blood flowed from his mutilated hand.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Russo’s left hand moved to what was left of his right one. ‘Are you fucking insane? You’re a fucking cop, man. You can’t do this.’

‘The time frame.’

‘We waited six to eight months, man. Six to eight months.’ Spit flew from Russo’s mouth. ‘I’m going to fucking sue your ass, you motherfucker. I’m going to fucking sue the whole police department for this shit. You can say goodbye to your fucking badge, do you hear me?’

‘You’re as stupid as you look, do you know that?’ Mr. J said. ‘Let me ask you something. Do you know what this tube, this extension to the barrel of my gun is?’

The pain in Russo’s face was blurred by confusion.

‘Well, do you?’

‘Yeah, it’s a fucking muffler, a silencer, so what?’

The smirk was now on Mr. J’s lips. ‘How many cops do you know walk around with a silenced gun?’

Russo’s eyes widened.

The bullet hit him inch-perfect right between them.

As Mr. J exited the house through the kitchen door, he stopped by Toby, still unconscious on the floor.

Calmly, Mr. J grabbed Toby’s head with both hands and, in one swift but firm move, snapped his neck from left to right.