The Killing Kind

10

The afternoon sun streamed through the windows of the dead man’s flat-no, apartment, Engelmann reminded himself for perhaps the thousandth time, though the Americanism struck him as inaccurate and artless. Cruz’s apartment stood apart from nothing, being one of thirty units in the building-a squat, stuccoed box three stories high, from which jutted perfunctory balconies just large enough to place a hibachi and a single chair, and AC units laboring to make tolerable the city’s heat.

Cruz’s AC unit sat idle, and the windows were all closed. The apartment was oven-hot and stuffy, the air laden with sex and cheap, masculine cologne. As soon as he walked in, Engelmann’s face and neck broke into a sweat, and his hands grew sodden and clumsy inside their black nitrile gloves. Had it been this hot in the hallway, Engelmann likely would’ve taken twice as long to pick Cruz’s many locks. As one might expect, Cruz was a cautious man. Though in this case, Engelmann suspected the locks weren’t to protect against retaliation for his crimes but to bar entry to his wife.

This apartment was not the home they shared. And though the bedding was mussed and stained-the night-stand topped with oils, candles, and all manner of phallic appliances-Cruz’s wife had never seen the inside of its bedroom. Perhaps she suspected the existence of her husband’s little love nest, situated just blocks away from their tidy Little Havana bungalow, or perhaps not. Engelmann suspected it was the former-in part because one’s wife, he’d discovered in the course of many an interrogation, often knows a good deal more than she lets on, and in part because he’d seen her expression as she stood watching from the lawn as the Feds picked apart her home, one grandchild propped on each wide, matronly hip, another clinging to her legs. Though her neighbors gathered and watched, too, and with them the news crews, and though her youngest granddaughter buried her face in the woman’s ample bosom and cried, Cruz’s wife’s face showed neither shame nor distress.

Instead, her face showed rage.

At first, he’d assumed it was directed toward the agents ransacking her home. Toward the pretty agent in charge of the scene and her swaggering partner-the same agents he’d observed just yesterday investigating the scene of Cruz’s murder. But to them she was cordial, polite-even offering them something to eat while they waited for their crew to finish, as if she craved their approval.

As Engelmann watched, one of many in the crowd, he realized it was not their intrusion that vexed her. It was the fact that her husband had brought this intrusion upon her. She spit whenever the agents mentioned him by name; she shook her head in disgust when pressed for details about his work. As if she’d had no idea until his death what he’d done for a living. As if she had no idea what kind of man her husband really was.

Engelmann had seen this a hundred times in his profession. She was content to look the other way when her husband’s work bought them a tidy, sunny-yellow Craftsman home, the nicest on the block-tapered stone pillars propping up the clay shingled roof over the covered porch, a well-manicured lawn in front and back for kids to play on‚ fenced in as if to say to passersby “MINE”-but when it came time for her to face the fact that the fruits of his labor were plucked from a forbidden tree, mock horror was her response.

It made her a hypocrite, Engelmann thought-a liar to herself and to the world. Looking around Cruz’s spartan apartment, Engelmann knew the teak glider on the porch of his widow’s bungalow was not a purchase he would have made on his own, nor was the elaborate landscaping or the darling patio set he’d glimpsed around back.

No, those were his widow’s doing. And it seemed to Engelmann if she were so content to spend Cruz’s money, perhaps she shouldn’t hold his way of making it in such disdain.

No wonder the man had taken a lover. And no wonder he’d taken such pains to keep his wife out of this place. Having seen her reaction to having her husband’s earnings outed as blood money, Engelmann could only imagine how livid she’d become if she were confronted with the evidence that she was not the only one on whom he lavished it.

After a brief circuit to take in the gestalt of the apartment, Engelmann searched the dwelling slowly, methodically, without fear of discovery. The Federals knew nothing of this place. It was not leased under Cruz’s name, nor under any of his known aliases. In fact, the apartment wasn’t leased at all. The rental company’s paperwork listed it as vacant, though in ten years it had never once been shown, let alone rented.

The rental company was owned by the Cuban Mafia. The late Mr. Cruz’s employer.

All it took for Engelmann to find it was one call to his Council contact. The address was texted to his burner phone in minutes.

Engelmann started in the kitchen. Small and galley style, it stretched along one side of the empty living room. A stack of take-out menus sat on the countertop. The phone jack on the wall was bare and unused. He opened each drawer in turn: empty. Then he removed the drawer boxes from their frames and searched each for false bottoms, or envelopes taped to their undersides. Still nothing. He searched the cupboards. All but one were bare. The cupboard nearest the three-quarter refrigerator contained two juice glasses, a corkscrew, and a box of plastic eating utensils. He dumped the utensils onto the yellowed linoleum floor and let the box fall after them once he saw that there was nothing left inside.

The oven was empty and appeared unused. In the refrigerator he found a half-empty six-pack of Cerveza Cristal and nothing else. In the garbage, a few rancid food wrappers and two empty wine bottles. He emptied the trash can’s contents onto the floor, but there was nothing hidden underneath them-nor between the bag and bin.

There was no furniture in the living room. No art. The beige carpet was stained, the window bare of curtains. Beside the window was a sliding-glass door over which hung a set of cheap vertical blinds, louvered open to let in the light. Engelmann grasped the chain that operated them and slid them back and forth. They moved easily on their track. He ran a hand along the top of the track, but felt nothing. And when he poked his head outside, he found the balcony bare.

What he was looking for, he didn’t know. Some clue as to how Cruz operated. Some indication as to how his quarry knew Cruz’s plans. He didn’t know if he would find it here, or even if such evidence existed. But given the attention to detail with which the woman agent conducted the search on Cruz’s family home, and the deflated air about her when, after hours of searching, she gave the order to pack up, he was certain there was no such evidence to be found there.

The apartment’s bathroom was a collection of dingy off-whites. The cheap faux-marble vanity. The putty-colored toilet-the seat up, the bowl streaked with rust. The yellowed fiberglass tub, blushed with mold at the corners and black from mildew at the edges of the fixtures. The popcorn ceiling was mottled black as well. The whole room smelled of damp.

He checked the vanity. The toilet tank. The hollow inside of the towel rod. Nothing. The fan rattled when he toggled the switch on and off, so he plucked a screwdriver from his pocket tool kit and removed the vented faceplate. Nothing but grimy fan blades.

Engelmann entered the bedroom. One could hardly call it that, for there was no door separating it from the living space-just the suggestion of a doorway as the room narrowed slightly before widening once more. There was nothing in the room but a nightstand, a combination light fixture/ceiling fan, and a mattress resting on a metal frame, draped loosely with unmade sheets of charcoal gray. There weren’t even any pillows.

Naturally, he checked the nightstand first. There was no lamp atop it. There was, however, a bottle each of strawberry-and chocolate-scented body oils, an amber prescription bottle half full of Viagra, a hot pink vibrator, and dildos in a variety of shapes and sizes-none of which were likely found in nature. Some were so oddly shaped, Engelmann wondered at their method of use. Then he found the Polaroids in the drawer and wondered no longer.

It seemed when Engelmann assumed Cruz’d taken a lover, he’d underestimated Cruz’s appetites. There must have been three dozen photos in the drawer, and at least three times that many partners. Each picture contained no fewer than two people, not counting the person behind the camera-who, by dint of his omission from the collection, must have been Cruz himself-and no two pictures contained the same combination of lovers. They ranged in age from maybe fifteen to twenty-five, and they ranged in gender from male to female to any combination thereof. Most were Hispanic, but many were black, with the occasional Asian thrown into the mix as well. None were white. Cruz apparently drew the line somewhere in his predilections.

Engelmann pored over these images of tangled limbs, toys, and genitalia for quite a while, but it stirred nothing in him. He was simply looking to see if they held some clue that could prove of use to him, but if they did, their secrets were as remote to him as the pleasures of the flesh they depicted. Only killing provided him the satisfaction these hollow images promised.

When he finished with the photos, he tossed them to the floor and returned his attention to the nightstand drawer. There was nothing in it but the old, bulky Polaroid that snapped those pictures, open and empty of film, and a tacky hardback crime novel, which he cast aside after shaking to see if anything fell out. Then he inspected the drawer box as he had the ones in the kitchen, but to no avail.

Engelmann stripped the mattress of its sheets, which were stained, soft from countless bodies, and smelled of sweat. The mattress appeared intact-no openings or hand-stitched seams to suggest Cruz’d hidden anything inside-but Engelmann sliced it open and searched it regardless. Soon the room was littered with springs and batting as well as tawdry photos, but Engelmann was no closer to the clue that he was looking for.

He disassembled the metal bed frame, but that was empty, too. Nothing was taped to the upper surface of the ceiling fan blades, nor stashed inside the glass dome that encased the bulbs. All Engelmann found in the heating vents were mouse droppings, and moving the appliances yielded nothing but dust bunnies and dead roaches.

Engelmann stood shaking with frustration in the center of Cruz’s ruined apartment. Filthy and sweat-soaked, he retreated to the refrigerator, yanking open the door, grabbing one of Cruz’s beers, and cracking it open. Then he lowered himself stiffly onto the linoleum, letting the chill air from the open refrigerator pour over him as he drank.

His gaze wandered the apartment, dispassionately taking in his handiwork. He found no joy in the mess he’d made-only disappointment. He’d been so certain there

was something here to find. And yet.

And yet.

As his eyes lit upon the hardback novel lying spine-up and open on the floor, he felt a rush of discovery, of revelation. The cover, he realized, was in English, though his dossier indicated Cruz held the English language in disdain and would not permit it to be spoken in his home. Perhaps the lack of white lovers indicated he preferred other tongues in his love nest as well. And anyway, the lack of furnishings made it quite clear Cruz didn’t spend much time here that wasn’t spent in bed.

So why the book?

Engelmann hoisted himself up off the floor and bounded over, his beer and exhaustion both forgotten. He picked up the novel, turned it over in his hand.

It was Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

He thumbed through it and found that, here and there, letters were underlined, seemingly at random.

Engelmann smiled and fetched his burner phone from his pocket, fingers clumsy in his sweaty gloves.

That was fine. The Council was on speed dial.

The phone rang once. “Yeah?” his contact answered. Not angry, simply succinct.

“Yes, hello. I believe I’ve discovered something of interest.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Nothing you need concern yourself with-I’m working it.”

“Then why’re you calling me?”

“Because you and your constituent organizations have been naughty boys and girls indeed.”

“How’s that?”

“You’ve been passing notes in class.” Engelmann tsked. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask to see them.”

There was a long pause-so long, Engelmann wondered for a moment if he’d pushed too far, if his contact would simply fail to answer.

Then his contact said: “Our communications are encrypted. Locked down.”

“Not so locked down as you might think,” Engelmann replied, his self-satisfied smile reflected in his tone.

“You’re gonna wanna watch the way you talk to me,” his contact spat. “We’re not a bunch of fucking morons, and we don’t take kindly to people who suggest otherwise.”

Engelmann was chastened, his smile dying on his face. “I wouldn’t dare suggest-”

But his contact cut him off. “Good. Keep not suggesting.” Then he sighed, and when he spoke again, he was once more composed. “If this shitwad’s cracked our communications, he’s even better than we thought. If I get you the access you want, are you good enough to get this guy?”

“Yes. There’s no one better.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say. But I swear to God, if I find out you’re using this information to fuck us over, we’ll hire the number two through five guys to hunt your ass down and make you live just long enough to regret it. You get me?”

Engelmann paused before answering. “I do.”

“Good. Check your phone. I’ve forwarded along some links to sites you’re gonna wanna take a look at. I’m also gonna put out the word to my organization that our communication network should go dark until you find our man.”

“No. That could signal to him that something’s amiss. Your communications should remain undisrupted.”

The line was silent for a moment. “You understand that’s one hell of a big request.”

“I do.”

“You’d better. Because if I don’t plug this leak and any more of our guys die by his hand, it’ll be on your head.”

“Until today, you were unaware your network had been breached. It would be folly to squander the tactical advantage this discovery affords us.”

“All right. I’ll give you a week. Then we’re changing the locks whether you got the guy or not.”

“Understood.”

“All right, then. Good luck.” And with that, his contact hung up.

No, not good luck, Engelmann thought. Good hunting.