Joe R Lansdale Read online

  Hanson raised his head here to say, "Oh, Christ."

  "You must be at the Jack the Ripper part," Clark said.

  Hanson didn't reply, just turned back to the column.

  ... or to be more exact, considering the condition of the body, a Houston Hacker. This killer shows no anatomical skill, but instead displays a desire to hack the body into ribbons of bloody flesh.

  The article then went on to describe the condition of Bella's body in very unnews- paper-like terms. Hanson raised his head again.

  Hanson said, "I can't believe a newspaper can get away with this." Then after a pause, "Had to be a cop tell him all this, it's too correct in detail."

  "I'm afraid so," Clark said.

  Hanson read more.

  Experts normally regard these types of murders as the work of a woman-hater or a paranoid schizophrenic, or both. This theory also suggests a man, although a woman is not necessarily ruled out . . .

  Hanson stopped reading, tossed the newspaper to Clark.

  "Crap!" Hanson said. "Pure crap! That's all we need. A lot of publicity and this guy will eat it up. Why does a newspaper editor allow this sort of shit?"

  "Bread and circuses, Gorilla. Barlowe's been with The Bugle three years, and he's been writing that column a year-and-a-half. It's brought The Bugle up from a third-rate paper to a first-rate one."

  "You call that first-rate?"

  "It sells copies. They let Barlowe ramble a bit, get away from strict journalistic procedures, allow him to make a conjecture here and there, and the public eats it up. Blame them."

  "This guy can't even write."

  "He knows how to catch your eye."

  Hanson leaned back in his chair, said stiffly, "Yeah, I guess he does at that. But that kind of stuff is going to set off every nut in the woodwork."

  "They're nuts to begin with. Written words don't make people nuts."

  "But it might set them off."

  "If they're already cracked, anything might set them off. If we're going to censor violence, why not censor humor. Maybe that sets some of them off."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Is it? If they're already cracked, anything could set them off. Like that guy down in San Antonio that cracked because a parade was going by his house. That was hardly violence that pushed him over the edge. We've got to quit coddling these goons. Fry em, hang em, but fuck temporary insanity, and I-did-it- because-I've-seen-too-many- Kojak-re-runs."

  "Hell, Gorilla, you love crime stories, read the hell out of them. Did it make you crazy?"

  "No...I mean I don't think so."

  "Of course not. That's a bunch of lawyer malarkey."

  "Oh hell, drop it. We just might be lucky and this is the one and only murder by this beast."

  "Yeah, and I just might find a thousand dollars stuck to my shoe when I get home."

  "Maybe it was just some guy passing through. Maybe he's out of the state by now."

  "Maybe."

  "It's a thought."

  "A weak one."

  Hanson sighed. "You know, Joe, for a college trained cop, you sound pretty goddamned hardcore. Aren't I suppose to be playing your role?"

  "I think maybe you are," Clark said, smiling. "But you see, I had a good teacher. A big, ugly nigger cop that looks like a fuckin' Gorilla."

  Hanson laughed. "You asshole honkey."

  *

  Tuesday morning a note addressed to Philip Barlowe arrived at The Houston Bugle. It was in a plain blue envelope. Barlowe opened it. It was from the murderer, who now, following Barlowe's lead from the Monday column, referred to himself as The Houston Hacker. The note was turned over to police immediately. Although the police asked that The Bugle refrain from comment, Wednesday's Bugle ran Barlowe's column on the front page as a major news item.

  The column read:

  I never wanted to say I told you so, not to something as brutal and heinous as the recent Fifth Ward slaying of Bella Louise Robbins, but Tuesday morning a letter arrived here at The Bugle addressed to me. It was constructed of letters cut from magazines and newspapers, and although the police have asked that this information be withheld, we at The Bugle believe it is the right of our readers to be in the know. The contents of the note follows:

  "You're right, Barlowe. It was me down in niggertown the other night hacking up the little brown Jig. Little Brown Jig how I loved thee. And man did I have a ball, and in more ways than one. Going to be at it again real soon, but I'm no nut, just a fun loving guy who likes to get his kicks, or maybe I should say hacks.

  And by the way. That little nigger bitch had some tasty blood and I fried the tits, chicken fried. If you want, I'll send you the recipe.

  Until then, Let There Be Blood!

  THE HOUSTON HACKER

  Chilling. The envelope and note have been turned over to authorities for examination. Let's hope our murderer is apprehended before he can kill again. But how do you catch a cold-blooded, calculating killer? Is the note authentic, or some sick joke? Personally, I feel it is the genuine article, and I think The Hacker will strike again. Soon. Remember, you read it first in The Bugle's Crime Scene. The most graphic and honest column concerning crime in the nation.

  Joe Clark read the column, cut it out and put it in the lefthand drawer of the desk he shared with Hanson. Henceforth, he would collect all material having to do with The Hacker.

  Hanson found the column so offensive he wouldn't even read it. They had spent most of Wednesday in The Ward again, running down futile leads, and if there was one thing Hanson didn't need, it was to top off another "perfect" day with The Bugle.

  Thursday a brown Volkswagen reported stolen Sunday night was found. It belonged to a James McBain. McBain worked as a cook in an all-night Jack-In-The-Box hamburger joint. He had not missed the car until Sunday midnight when his shift ended. He reported its disappearance Monday morning at 12:09. The Volkswagen was located in a nearby hospital parking lot. It was only six blocks away from the Jack-In-The-Box were McBain worked. There were stains on the seat.

  Lab technicians determined that they were of two origins:

  Black grease paint of the sort used by commandos to camouflage their faces at night.

  Blood which matched up with that of the victim Bella Louise Robbins.

  Since McBain had an air-tight alibi—his job—he was subjected to simple questioning and released with his car.

  Friday morning a blue envelope arrived at police headquarters in the mail. There was no return address. The mailing address was made up of letters cut from magazines and pasted to the envelope. The dispatcher, who was also responsible for the mail, was curious, and called Hanson to his desk.

  After seeing the envelope, Hanson returned to his desk and slipped on a pair of surgical gloves he kept for handling evidence. He then opened the envelope and fished the letter out.

  Suspicions were correct. It was from The Hacker.

  It read:

  Don't feel slighted, fuzz. Here's your own personal note. I'll have you some serious work soon. And don't just look for me in niggertown. I get around. He's here, he's there, he's everywhere, the good, ole Houston Hacker. But mostly, he's right under your big cop noses. I'll be cutting a new gal real soon. Like this weekend, maybe. I dedicate the corpse-to-be to you folks, Houston's finest. Until then, don't take any wooden intestines when I can offer you the real, warm, wet thing.

  Your Pal, THE HACKER

  P.S. I hope you don't find the signature too informal. But I do think Barlowe's The Houston Hackeris a bit overdone. Don't you?

  Part Two:

  The Beast Has Teeth

  ... I will do such things,

  — What they are yet I know not

  —but they shall be The terrors of the earth.

  —William Shakespeare (King Lear)

  The murderer's curse,

  The dead man's fix'd still glare,

  And fears, and death's cold sweat

  — They all are therel —Dana

  There is
such a thing as the pressure of darkness.

  —Victor Hugo

  Hacker in pieces in blood . . .

  From The Egyptian Book of the Dead

  FRIDAY ... 6:30 p.m.

  He unlocked his apartment and went into darkness and loneliness. The light switch could relieve the darkness, but what could relieve the loneliness? So far he had found only one thing: The gushing of blood, the ripping of flesh. Somehow, that did it. It satisfied deep in his gut the same way ejaculation satisfied. It gave him the urge to carry on, gave him strength, like some marvelous elixir brewed by the gods.

  Originally he had suppressed his urges, absorbed himself in his job. He was damn good at his job, it put a blanket on his passions. But the dreams became less and less satisfying. Dogs and cats didn't suffer enough. They took their doom too stoically. The job became an intrusion instead of a diversion. It was the sort of job where you were acquainted constantly with death. And each time the urge grew stronger within . . . Until there was no other thought but death.

  Death!

  The mere thought of it brought terror to the hearts of most. For him, it had replaced the word love. It had been that way since his early teens. (Thank you, Doris Johnston.) But he had denied it. Felt as if he and his thoughts were out of place. Unusual, yes, but out of place, not in the least. From now on he was the elite. Death was his god and the bringing of death was his equivalent of prayer. I am the new Messiah. I bring a new doctrine. Not one of love and peace. But one of death and destruction.

  Let there be blood!

  He didn't bother with the light switch. He would need a short nap; something to give him strength for later. His mind would need to be sharp, sharp as his blade. He went to his wall bed and pulled it down, threw himself across it. He closed his eyes and determined himself to sleep approximately an hour. The ability to sleep an almost given time was something he had trained himself to do. In his job you had to be ready to go at any moment. You had to learn to sleep when you had the chance.

  After a moment he drifted into a semiconscious state where the life he had lived and the life he intended to live walked with entwined fingers. One of his dream world inhabitants was Doris Johnston, his first love.

  And still he loved her. She had been beautiful. Long and sleek with dark brown hair and big, soft, puppy eyes of gold-flecked brown. He had never touched her . . . alive.

  He could remember when he asked her for a date. It was as clear as yesterday. She had been wearing a yellow dress. It was short. Her legs were very dark, very beautiful. The hose she wore made them darker, sleeker, sexier.

  He had been at his best. Clean body, clean hair, clean clothes; his best clothes—a red and blue short-sleeve, western-cut shirt and crisp blue jeans with plenty of blue still in them. His black wingtips were polished to gun metal brightness.

  Simple words in front of her locker at school. He had asked her out. A movie, he remembered. She had turned him down, and not gently. He remembered how he had suddenly felt in his simple clothes. Neat at first, but with her denial, cheap. Like a sorry, plastic product all spiffed up with spit and polish and bright red paint, but still a cheap product; a two dollar Japanese camera in a roadside gift shop stuffed full of brittle peanut candy, miniature cactus and highway maps.

  But fate works its little surprises. Less than a week later, while crossing the highway, a carload of drunks ran a red light and came down on her car like a blazing meteor and crushed her beautiful face into her steering wheel.

  He remembered the funeral. All tears, flowers and regrets. Mostly young men regretting that such a ripe and lovely piece of ass was no longer among the living and the ready. But it had not been that way with him. He had truly loved her. Deep down and rock hard. And now that she was meat on the mortician's table, and soon to be a cold, white body in the dank, cold ground, he loved her no less.

  That was when the compulsion grew. He knew that she was his slave in death. She could no longer deny him her love. She had no say in the matter.

  He still remembered the moon. Full and staring down with a milky eye; like an eye made blind by a wound. Like a dog he had once had. A black cur with one hang-down ear and a bleached out eye. An eye like the moon that night. Blind. Staring. Uncaring.

  Then there had been the tombstones rising in the darkness like soldiers in crisp white uniforms. But they were lousy sentries. He set his box of tools by the grave (he had stolen them from his uncle, the old tight wad), and with the shovel he began to dig in the still loose dirt. He dug down to the shiny, blue metal coffin, and down in the grave with the box of tools, he opened it and dragged out the swollen, mashed body of Doris.

  At the graveside, in the soft dirt, he had raped the body with an inhuman force of will. With his knife he had carved it into a masterpiece of hard, dead flesh. When he had finished, he returned the body—piece by piece—to the coffin and filled in the grave. All except the head. He took that with him. He kept it buried in the field behind his house, in a shallow grave of sweet loam next to the creek. He put a large rock over the small grave to keep out animals. He slid the trowel just under the edge of the rock. He urinated on the grave because he had once read that animals were reluctant to bother anything another animal (human or otherwise) had marked with its urine. He didn't know if this was true or not, and he didn't really care. It gave him a strange satisfaction to whizz his steaming water on the site.

  Nightly he rose from his bed and worked his window up. Then, silently, he made his way to the creek bank. Not that he really needed to be stealthy. His mother slept like an anvil when she wa wasn't entertaining some fat john whose wife was on her period or blessed with the nightly headache. He never could understand why anyone would pay her for what she had to offer. Often he left to the sound of the bedsprings in the next room rising to fever pitch above the lustful gruntings of the john and the uninspired moans of his flatbacking mother.

  He would make his way to the creek bank and remove Doris' head from the grave. He would then hold it in his arms and press his lips to her hamburgered lips and toil his tongue against her dirt caked teeth. Then he would place the mashed head at his feet, look down into her eyeless, maggot-infested face and masturbate, ejaculate his sperm on the ruined skull.

  When his ritual was finished, he would return the head to the grave, replace the rock and trowel and make his way home. If home is what you call four walls and a bed. It was a place to eat and sleep, nothing more.

  When the head was little more than bleached bone and nauseous odor (the smell was like perfume to him), he buried it for good. Deep, and with the rock pressed firmly on top.

  No one ever knew the body had been touched. No one ever suspected, not even those who worked attending the graves at the cemetery. He had been careful to put the dirt back carefully and expertly. And with the head buried deep and the rock in place above it, it too was safe from discovery.

  He tried to forget the ruined face of Doris. He could not. It came to him in dreams. Not dreams of fear, but dreams of desire. The dead were his people, and he would bring new disciples to his fold.

  He had been careless with the nigger bitch. He had known his victim would be from The Ward—he had been determined to erase his childhood fears of the area—but he had not planned his movements in great detail. He had stolen the car and picked his victim at random, surprised her, forced her into the alley.

  But from now on he would pick them with care, learn their habits, their names . . . just like the long-legged blonde girl he had been following this week. Evelyn. Lovely Evelyn.

  Thinking of her, he slipped from the semiconscious state and descended into the world of dreams.

  He was bathing. Not in water but in blood, urine and feces. He was in a massive, deep tub. He washed himself all over with the gore and waste, rubbed it in his hair, submerged himself, sank deep down into its depths, tasted it, filled his eyes with it . . .

  . . . why the tub was on a main street. Women were passing by. Women wearing only panties and
high platform shoes. The panties were all the colors of the rainbow. The women all looked like Evelyn; tall, blonde, with tanned, muscular legs. They were all passing by and looking at him.

  One stopped and kicked off her shoes, removed her white panties, dropped them in the tub. The panties saturated, became heavy and sank. She turned her back to him, squatted with her ass over the rim of the tub . . . she was peeing on him, peeing all over his face. The other women, all looking like Eyelyn, surrounded the tub to watch.

  And the urine was turning to blood.

  *

  Refreshed, like a vampire rising for his nightly feast, he awoke.

  He checked his watch. 7:38.

  Very good. He had a little over an hour before Evelyn was out of her night class. Plenty of time.

  A sudden passion, like a cold chill, raced up his spine. His hands began to quiver with anticipation.

  "Soon," he said aloud. "Soon, sweet Evelyn. Soon."

  FRIDAY ... 9:18 p.m.

  Late classes were a drag. Of that one thing Evelyn DeMarka was certain. But it seemed to her most anything besides the disco was boring these days. Work as a secretary all day long and learn accounting all night long. Christ! This growing up was for the birds.

  Evelyn parked her Plymouth in the lot of the Western Division Apartments, got out and started up the walk.

  There was one reprieve from all this work, she reminded herself as she neared the metal stairs that led up to her second floor apartment. There was a hot shower, coffee, and at eleven Frank would be by. Tonight they would have fun in the sack, watch the late, late show—providing they weren't still supplying their own superior entertainment—and then tomorrow they could go on the picnic they had been planning; top it all off with a night at The Lost Weekend Disco.