https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KBIU1M2

Shades of Gotham

(A Kellerman Mystery/Thriller)

By

Al Lamanda

Copyright by Al Lamanda

The Kellerman Mystery Series

Checkmate

Lollypops

Hard Time

Cold as Ice

Chapter One

Johnny Sanchez smiled at the man. Usually when Johnny smiles at you it’s the last thing you will ever see in this world. Johnny’s sinister smile meant doom. The man was on his knees with his arms tied behind his back with nylon rope.

I tied the rope myself. I was in the Marine Corps. I know a bit about rope.

The man wasn’t sniveling. Not yet anyway. That would come a bit later. It always does.

Johnny was seated in a plain wood chair, the kind you find at every kitchen table. We were inside a warehouse he owned near the George Washington Bridge. There were no windows and the air was heavy and warm. I was soaked with sweat. Johnny was dry as a bone. In all the years I’ve know him I don’t think I’ve ever seen sweat. Even on the hottest days when he was wearing a suit, the man simply does not sweat.

Johnny looked at the man.

“I’m told that you like to molest little girls,” he said.

“That’s a …” the man said.

I moved forward a bit and backhanded him. Hard.

“Do not speak again unless I ask you a question,” Johnny said. “Now where was I?”

“Molest little girls,” I said.

“Right,” Johnny said. “Your brother reported to me that you molested his seven-year-old daughter. Don’t try to deny it. The girl was examined by a doctor. She will need years of therapy and will probably never be normal again.”

“Please,” the man said. “I’m sick. I know that. I belong in a hospital where I can get help for my sickness.”

“Your brother said to me that if the police arrested you the defense attorney will recommend a prison hospital where you will be fed, kept warm and studied by the shrinks,” Johnny said. “The problem with that is that one day they may decide you are fit enough to return to society. Your brother said that if you were to get out the first thing you would do is find another little girl to molest. I agree with him. I’m sure in your heart you do as well.”

I removed my suit jacket to expose the Glock .45 in a shoulder holster under my left arm.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t.”

The sniveling had started and right on time.

“By the way, this is my friend Kellerman,” Johnny said. “I brought him along because I thought it might be fun to watch him beat you to death and that’s one thing he is very good at you miserable worn.”

“I have rights,” the man sobbed. “Due process of law. You can’t murder me in cold blood like this. I demand to be arrested.”

I sighed and stepped forward.

“Wait,” Johnny said.

I stopped.

“He isn’t worth soiling your hands on,” Johnny said.

I removed the Glock and dug the suppressor out from a pocket and made the two one and then looked at Johnny.

“Allow me,” Johnny said.

I gave the Glock to Johnny.

“There are so few pleasures left in life,” Johnny said. “And this is one of them.”

And with that, Johnny shot the man in the forehead, killing him instantly.

Johnny was still for a moment and then he gave me the Glock. From behind us a man emerged from the dark interior of the warehouse. It was the man’s brother. He stood next to Johnny.

“Okay?” Johnny said.

The man nodded. “Every night my daughter cries herself to sleep,” he said. “Her nightmares will probably haunt her forever.”

“Go home and tell her the bogeyman is dead,” Johnny said.

The man looked at Johnny. “Thank you,” he said.

Johnny nodded. “A pleasure.”

“What about … the body?” the man asked.

“Do you want it?” Johnny asked.

The man shook his head.

“Go home,” Johnny said.

After I let the man out and placed the body into a large trash bag, Johnny said, “I’m hungry. The Italian place on 91^st serves the best chicken parm in the city.”

*****

I sliced into my chicken parm and tucked the piece into my mouth. It was as tender as butter.

The restaurant was packed with a line out the door, but the head waiter knew who Johnny is and with a few snaps of his fingers and choice words, a table magically opened up and we were seated by a window.

“So,” Johnny said. “There is somebody I’d like you to meet later in my office.”

“A client?”

“That’s up to you,” Johnny said.

Chapter Two

It was after midnight by the time we entered the bar Johnny owns on Ninth Avenue in the neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. It was half full with its usual two-fisted drinkers.

Simply called the Pub, the bar serves as Johnny’s headquarters. His part time bartender was slinging beers and boil-makers. Cindy, Johnny’s woman was waiting tables. She motioned with her eyes and Johnny led me to his office that was in the hallway between the bathrooms and storage closets.

A man was seated on the small sofa against the wall when we entered the office. He was around seventy-years-old, thin and sickly looking. He attempted to stand and reached for the cane on the sofa to give himself a boost.

“Take the desk,” Johnny said.

I watched as the old man made his way to one of the chairs and then I went behind the desk and sat.

Johnny went to the tall file cabinet against the wall, opened the top drawer and removed the bottle of his prized bourbon he always kept there and a glass.

The old man sat.

We looked at each other.

“You can start anytime,” I said.

“My name is Jack Pope. Are you Mr. Kellerman?”

“I am,” I said.

“Mr. Sanchez tells me that you are the absolute best at what you do,” Pope said.

“That depends on what you think I do,” I said.

Pope sighed.

I looked at Johnny. He was drinking bourbon.

The door opened and Cindy brought me a mug of coffee. She smiled at Johnny on the way out. I pulled out my smokes and lit one and then sampled the coffee. It came from a fresh pot and didn’t have that stale aftertaste.

“I’m from Cincinnati,” Pope said. “I’m a defense attorney. Some say the best in the state. I have offices in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana. I have made many millions of dollars from practicing the law.”

“Practice makes perfect,” I said. “You have sixty seconds to tell me what you want before I bounce you on your ear and go home to my cats.”

“You have cats?” Pope asked.

“Two of them.”

“How strange for a man like you.”

“It beats having mice and rats. The clock is ticking.”

“Several years ago, I defended a man accused of raping and strangling a woman to death,” Pope said. “This happened in Cincinnati. He was suspected of at least six or seven deaths in similar fashion. The police officers that arrested him failed, in their haste, to read him his rights. I got the charges dropped on that technicality. The man vanished after that and hasn’t been heard from since. Until last week. When a woman was raped and strangled to death in Central Park.”

“And you think it’s the same man?” I said.

“I do,” Pope said.

“Why? In this city a murder like that happens every week,” I said. “Maybe in Ohio that’s a big deal, but in New York it’s commonplace.”

“His targets … the women he rapes and strangles are all between the age of sixty and eighty. The woman who was killed in Central Park was sixty-nine. It’s him and he’ll do it again and again until he caught or killed.”

“This city has forty thousand police,” I said. “It sounds like a job for them and not one man.”

“You misunderstand me,” Pope said. “I don’t want him caught. I want him killed and before I die.”

“When do you plan to die?” I asked,

“Sometime around Christmas,” Pope said. “If my doctors are correct.”

“Cancer?”

Pope nodded. “Liver.”

“You want me to ease your conscience before you die,” I said.

“I want to eradicate the mistake I made allowing this savage to walk free,” Pope said.

“The law did that. The cops who screwed up did that,” I said. “All you did was follow the system.”

“Many older women will die horrible deaths before he is caught,” Pope said. “Because of this system. I am willing to pay seven figures for your assistance in rendering justice.”

“Do you have a file?” I asked.

“In my hotel room.”

“I’ll pick it up around noon tomorrow,” I said.

“I’m at the Plaza,” Pope said. “Maybe you would care to have lunch?”

“Sure.”

“Twelve-thirty?”

“I will be there.”

*****

“What do you think?” I asked Johnny.

“He’s come a long way and went to a great deal of trouble to find me to get to you,” Johnny said. “That means he’s serious.”

We were in a booth beside the window. I could see my building across the street.

“Did you check him out?” I asked.

“I made some appropriate calls,” Johnny said. “He is who he says and he has that kind of money.”

I ignored the no smoking laws and fired up a cigarette.

“Then he can pay for lunch,” I said.

Chapter Three

I drank a cup of coffee at my kitchen window. It overlooked Ninth Avenue and the Pub. My apartment is on the fourth floor of the building I’ve owned for a dozen years.

My girlfriend of five months purchased a flat screen television for the apartment. It’s the first television I’ve had in two decades. I just don’t find TV that interesting. My Siamese cats, however, love it. They were on the sofa watching cartoons when I left the apartment around eight-thirty wearing grey sweats and sneakers.

I shoved my way through rush hour pedestrian traffic to the Y on 63^rd Street and entered the weight room. I had the room to myself as I usually do at that hour. There are fancier, more expensive gyms in Manhattan, but few have one hundred and thirty pound dumbbells, something I can’t do without.

I pounded on the weights for one hour and then entered the indoor track. Twenty-four laps to a mile. I ran one hundred laps and called it a day. I was home, shaved and showered by eleven.

I made fresh coffee and joined the cats on the sofa. They were watching an anvil fall on the coyote’s head after he skidded off a cliff chasing the road runner.

“You realize watching this rots your brain,” I told the cats.

A commercial came on and they started to fight. I sipped coffee and lit a smoke. As soon as another cartoon came on the cats settled down to watch it.

I left the cats to their vices around eleven forty-five and walked cross-town to the Plaza Hotel. The lunchtime crowds clogged the streets and slowed the city to a crawl. I arrived at the Plaza fifteen minutes early.

I crossed the street and killed time at the Grand Army Plaza by smoking a cigarette. Five minutes before twelve-thirty, I entered the lobby and went to the desk.

Jack Pope occupied a suite on the twentieth floor facing Central Park. He was alone and answered the door himself.

“Right on time,” Pope said.

He wore a silk robe over pajamas.

“Let’s eat in the nook,” Pope said.

The nook was larger than my living room.

“Since I no longer have to worry about my cholesterol, I am going to have the sixty dollar burger,” Pope said.

“Sixty dollars for one burger?” I said.

“I’ve tried and assisted on a dozer or more cases in New York and I’ve had it before,” Pope said. “It’s worth every cent.”

Pope ordered from room service and when a waiter rolled in a cart twenty minutes later, I had to agree with Pope on the burger. A full pound, it was smothered with six slices of thick cut bacon and came with a full pound of fries so thick I needed to cut them with a knife.

“Have you given much thought to my proposal?” Pope asked as we ate.

“Had I not, I wouldn’t be here,” I said.

“Good.”

By the time I was done with lunch, my stomach seemed about to burst, but there was room for coffee. We each took a cup in the living room at the sofa. On the coffee table was a thick manila envelope. “You’ll find the complete file on him in that envelope,” Pope said. “I will stay in town until I hear your decision.”

I sipped some coffee.

“If your decision is yes, I will deposit seven figures into the account of your choice and pay whatever expenses you require,” Pope said.

“My expenses to start with are fifty thousand dollars,” I said. “I don’t bother with receipts so you’ll just have to trust me. The agreed upon fee is to be delivered in cash to my associate Johnny Sanchez. He will hold it in a safe place for me until the job has concluded. Those are my terms and I don’t bend them.”

Pope nodded. “Mr. Sanchez said that you lived under the radar,” he said. “Is that why you don’t have a phone?”

“I don’t like phones,” I said. “I’ll be back tomorrow around seven with my answer.”

“Either way, will you stay for dinner?”

“Sure.”

*****

His name was Jeremy Ocean. He is of Scottish and Irish descent. This past July he turned thirty-five-years-old. Born in a small town along the Ohio River to a family of farmers. Reached the height of six-foot-six by age eighteen. Played football at Ohio State. Dropped out in his second year to join the Army after 911.

After his first nine month tour in Afghanistan, Ocean applied for Army Ranger School, was accepted and graduated top of his class. He returned to the battlefield in Iraq where he served three tours and saw a ton of combat. He was highly decorated and achieved the rank of E6.

That was my rank in the Corps.

In 2007, Ocean was discharged at Walter Reed in Washington after being evaluated at mentally unfit for combat service. Post traumatic syndrome was the eval. After a year of psyche treatment, Ocean returned home and collected disability for a while.

Around 2010, he left the farm and disappeared.

His family received no word on his whereabouts until 2014 when Ocean was arrested in Cincinnati and charged with rape and murder. A dozen such rapes and murders took place in Ohio over the course of six months. Ocean was believed to have committed all of them.

His MO was simple. Choose a victim between sixty and eighty, and follow them around for a while to learn their patterns and habits and then strike when they were vulnerable.

The sixty-seven-year-old woman he chose as his next victim lived alone on a quiet street in the suburbs. She was gardening in her backyard one morning when Ocean hopped the fence with the idea of rape and murder on his mind.

Only this sixty-seven-year-old woman had no intentions of becoming Ocean’s next victim. She had a canister of police grade pepper spray hanging around her neck and unloaded in his face. By the time Ocean’s eyes cleared, six deputy sheriffs were in the backyard and it took all six to bring him down. Four of the deputies required a trip to the hospital for various broken bones and internal injuries.

Three days later, Pope was brought in by Ocean’s family and took immediate advantage of the Miranda Rights Law screw-up and Ocean walked.

Then disappeared again.

For more than two years.

And according to Jack Pope, surfaced in New York City just a week ago.

I was on the sofa and set the reports on the coffee table and stood to stretch my back and get some coffee. The television was off and the cats were napping on my bed.

I lit a cigarette at the kitchen window, sipped coffee and watched the streets. Afternoon rush hour was in full bloom and it was push and shove clogged.

I returned to the sofa and picked up Ocean’s psych evaluations from Walter Reed. His breakdown was a clear-cut case of Post Traumatic Syndrome or combat fatigue. Except that as I read, Ocean’s case became less clear-cut and more muddled.

Reports from the shrinks at Walter Reed uncovered a deep-rooted hatred for his stepmother who raised him since the age of seven. His mother died when he was five and his father remarried two years later. The hatred for his stepmother was a double edged sword according to the shrinks who evaluated Ocean.

He hated her and desired her sexually at the same time.

Probably since he reached puberty.

Coupled with a case of combat fatigue, Ocean’s hatred and sexual attraction to his stepmother manifested into murdering women of about the stepmother’s present age.

I got up to stretch my back and grab more coffee. I smoked a cigarette at the window and watched the patrons of the Pub come and go. Some I recognized as regulars, others were just faces in a crowd.

The cats were up and fighting on the living room floor. I turned on the television and a cartoon was showing. I turned the volume low and the cats joined me on the sofa.

I opened the file containing police reports from Ohio. All the victims were older women that, in Ocean’s mind, reminded him of his stepmother.

Love and hate.

Attraction and repulsion.

Plain and simple.

I closed the file and decided to grab some dinner at the Pub.

*****

Cindy served up a plate of roast beef with gravy and French fries, bread and coffee. I was at a window booth with Johnny. He drank straight bourbon from a glass.

“Have you decided to accept Mr. Pope’s proposal?” Johnny asked.

“I’m not sure what I can do working alone that the largest police force in the world can’t,” I said.

“We both know the answer to that,” Johnny said.

I finished the last bit on my plate and looked around for Cindy. She brought me a fresh coffee and glass of bourbon for Johnny.

Johnny is sixty-three or four, around six-foot-one, wears a pencil thin moustache and has the greatest capacity for liquor of any man I have ever met. I’ve seen him drink a fifth of bourbon during a chess match and not even be remotely drunk.

“I have something to tell you,” Johnny said.

I ignored the no smoking laws and fired up a cigarette.

“Twice this month, about a week apart I observed Maria watching your apartment from a car parked on the street,” Johnny said.

“Was she alone?”

“Far as I could tell.”

“If you spot her again, let me know,” I said. “I don’t have the time for that crap.”

Johnny nodded. “Will do. How about a game?”

Fifty-seven moves later, I surrounded my king and beat a hasty retreat home for some much needed sleep.

Chapter Four

I left my apartment around nine and walked south along Tenth Avenue to Roth’s Boxing Gym. A dozen or so fighters, mostly welterweights and middleweights were working out.

Roth was in his chair ringside, watching a pair of middleweights spar.

I stretched in a corner for a few minutes and then grabbed a jump rope. I banged out thirty minutes with the rope to loosen up and work up a good sweat. I switched out the rope for the speed bag and spent thirty minutes perfecting my timing and reflexes.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler Roth always had in the corner and polished it off in several long swallows.

Then I selected a pair of heavy bag gloves off a shelf and went to town on the one hundred and twenty pound heavy bag. After thirty minutes of steady, hard punching, my shoulders were on fire and my hands ached.

I called it a day, grabbed another bottle of water and went to sit in the chair ringside beside Roth.

“What do you think?” Roth asked in his gruff voice.

A pair of lightweights were dancing in the ring.

“Mexicans?” I asked.

“One. The other is from PR.”

I watched the bang each other for a few minutes.

“I think they’d rather die than lose,” I said. “Too bad neither has any talent.”

“Fuck,” was Roth’s response.

*****

I tapped on Mrs. Parker’s door and she opened it and I asked to borrow her phone. She went and got it and handed it to me. Years ago she quit asking me why I didn’t have a phone of my own, but as I own the building and charge no rent to any tenant she put up with the minor annoyance.

I sat on the stairs and called Ellen at work.

“Thank God it’s Friday,” she said. “All morning I’ve been soaking wet thinking of you on top of me.”

“I have to meet a client,” I said.

“Don’t do that to me, Kellerman,” Ellen said. “I’m unstable you know.”

“Seriously, I have to meet a client,” I said.

“What’s her name?” Ellen said coldly.

“He and his name is Jack,” I said. “So I’ll be late.”

“How late?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Not a minute later,” Ellen said. “Or else.”

“Or else what?”

“The barn door will be closed,” Ellen said and hung up.”

*****

I took a nap and woke with the cats entwined on the bed next to me. I left them undisturbed and shaved and showered and then selected a charcoal grey suit, white shirt and black shoes.

In the bathroom, I opened the medicine chest and reached for the bottle of L Arginine and took five tablets. Usually I take the supplement before working out to increase blood flow for the added oxygen.

I skipped a tie and tucked the Glock into the small of my back and left the apartment. The first stop was at Mrs. Parker’s where I told her to watch the cats until Monday morning.

The next stop was the Pub. I grabbed a stool at the bar. Johnny was bartending and served up a mug of coffee.

“Meeting with Pope?” Johnny asked casually.

“In about an hour,” I said. “Do me a favor and keep an eye out for me. I’ll be with Ellen for the weekend.”

“By an eye you mean Maria?”

I nodded.

“Do you require action?”

“God no,” I said. “Just let me know if she’s around.”

Johnny sighed. “Things are getting boring around here.”

“See you on Monday,” I said.

My car, a twenty-year-old Lincoln is parked in the lot adjacent to the Pub. Johnny owns the lot and pulls in a nice dollar from daily and monthly fees. I have a reserved spot next to Johnny’s Cadillac. He buys new every two years like clockwork.

Thanks to rush hour traffic, it took twenty minutes to drive the eight blocks to the Plaza Hotel.

*****

Pope and I ordered the rib-eye steak from room service and ate in the nook.

“I’ve decided to take you up on your offer,” I said.

“Excellent,” Pope said.

“I don’t know if I can find and stop Ocean, but if I take your money I will do my absolute best to fulfill my end of the bargain,” I said.

“That’s the reason why I sought you out,” Pope said.

“I work by my own set of rules and tolerate no outside interference,” I said. “Realistically, how long do you expect to live?”

“I might see the new year,” Pope said.

“Three months,” I said. “I need fifty thousand upfront in expense money and the seven figures delivered to the Pub no later than next week.”

“Agreed,” Pope said.

“I’ll take the expense money before you return to Cincinnati,” I said. “And a phone number where I can reach you night or day.”

“Not a problem,” Pope said.

We shook hands. I finished my steak and left.

*****

Traffic was clogged as usual and I moved at a snail’s pace to the ferry. Once on the opposite side things picked up and I made it to Ellen’s house with a few minutes to spare.

Ellen answered the door wearing a grey tee-shirt that reached the top of her knee. Her blonde hair was down past her shoulders. She was barefoot and her toenails were pink. Her blue eyes had the look of heat in them. One look at her and the L Arginine kicked in.

As with most men, straight or gay, young or old, I’m a slave to the tube of meat between my legs.

Ellen grabbed my belt and led me directly to her bedroom. She pulled the tee-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor.

“I’m going to show you this move I learned in aerobics class and you’re going to respond with your tongue,” she said.

I removed my jacket and tossed it on top of Ellen’s tee-shirt.

As I said, a slave to the tube of meat.

*****

I woke up around two in the morning with my skin slicked in a sheen of sweat. Ellen’s tiny body was a furnace of heat. I untangled myself from her, put on my shorts and went to the kitchen.

I opened the fridge and poured a glass of cold milk. My smokes were on the table and I lit one.

After a few minutes, Ellen stumbled into the kitchen. She wore a sheer nightgown that she didn’t bother to close.

“What?” she said as she sat at the table.

“Nothing. I was hot. It woke me up,” I said.

Ellen reached for my cigarettes and lit one. “She’s been calling me,” she said.

“Who?”

“Your ex, that’s who,” Ellen said. “She calls and when I answer she hangs up. I have caller ID and it always says unknown number.”

“It’s her,” I said.

“How did she get my number? It’s unlisted.”

“She was a cop for twelve years, she knows the system.”

“I don’t share,” Ellen said. “What’s mine is mine and she can fuck off.”

“I’ve told her that.”

“Tell her again,” Ellen said. “I teeter on the brink everyday of the week, Kellerman. It wouldn’t take much to send me back to using and I like being sober.”

“I don’t know where she is,” I said.

Ellen glared at me as she sucked on the cigarette, flared her nostrils and blew out smoke. “Are you fucking her?” she snapped.

“You know better than that,” I said.

“Do I? You’re a man and like all men you’ll stick your dicks in any open hole that falls into your lap,” Ellen said. “In her case it’s like putting on an old shoe.”

“We seem to have this same conversation every week for the last five months,” I said.

Ellen flicked her cigarette across the room into the sink. Then she slipped under the table.

“You want to tell me to fuck off, but you can’t,” she said. “My hooks are in you and we both know it.”

Then her mouth found the target and I closed my eyes.

A slave to the tube of meat.

*****

“If you tomcat on me it would destroy me,” Ellen said.

“I won’t,” I said.

We were back in bed with her face pressed against my chest.

“Swear it,” she said.

“I swear,” I said.

“On your balls.”

“What?”

“The ancients Romans would place their hands on their testicles when they swore allegiance to Rome,” Ellen said. “That’s where the word testify comes from. Swear on your balls or get out.”

I sighed and placed my right hand on my sack. “I promise I won’t tomcat on you,” I said.

“Ever,” Ellen said.

“Ever.”

“Good.”

I removed my hand and stroked Ellen’s hair.

“I’m curious,” I said. “What did ancient Roman women swear on?”

“Go to sleep,” Ellen said.

*****

We held hands as we walked along the shore. Although it was close to October, Indian Summer was in full mode and the temperature was above seventy. A few idiots in wet suits were surfing the waves.

I had a closetful of clothes at Ellen’s house and wore a casual jogging suit with sneakers. Ellen had on a blue warm-up suit with walking shoes.

“She’s going to keep calling me until she works up the nerve to say something,” Ellen said.

“I don’t think that’s it,” I said. “I think she’s waiting for me to answer the phone.”

“I think you might be right,” Ellen said.

“If she calls I’ll pick it up,” I said.

“And tell her off,” Ellen said.

“If by tell her off you mean reason with her, I shall do so.”

“I mean tell her to drop fucking dead,” Ellen said. “I don’t get it. I thought she turned lesbian anyway.”

“Apparently she’s become a switch hitter,” I said. “Let’s get some lunch. I’m hungry.”

*****

“So do you really have a client?” Ellen asked.

I nodded as I bit into my burger. “Another lawyer,” I said.

“Complicated?”

“Very.”

“Dangerous?”

“Potentially.”

“Good. Danger makes you horny.”

“Being with you does that,” I said.

“A compliment,” Ellen said. “I like.”

“I try to ration them so you don’t get spoiled,” I said.

“I’m already spoiled,” Ellen said. “Don’t you know that?”

“I do, but I don’t care,” I said.

“That’s only because I’m really cute and good in bed.”

“Who am I to argue?”

“Let’s go to the boardwalk and hold hands in the dark like teenagers,” Ellen said.

After lunch, I drove us to the Staten Island shore and we walked the boardwalk until sunset. We found a vacant bench, sat and watched the sun dip below the horizon.

“I’ll need to go to a meeting tomorrow,” Ellen said.

“Morning?”

“Hell no,” Ellen said. “I want to fuck in the morning, then we’ll go to church.”

“To pray for our sins?” I said.

“To pray for the strength to keep committing them,” Ellen said.

“I like your attitude,” I said.

“Let’s get some ice cream cones so you can practice your licking skills,” Ellen said.

I stood up from the bench. “Who am I to argue,” I said.

*****

I sat in a back row with Ellen and listened to some fucked up woman spin her tale of woe. In the past five months I’ve heard just about every miserable story possible from some screwed up individuals.

Ellen attends at least three AA meetings a week. I usually make one of them with her. She never speaks. We usually just sit, drink coffee and eat donuts. I usually leave a twenty spot in the basket that covers the cost of the coffee and donuts.

Today was no different.

Afterward, when the host or whatever you call him ended the meeting with a prayer, we scooted out without speaking to anyone.

*****

Ellen’s backyard is protected by a ten-foot-high wood fence that makes it impossible to see over from the street. By two in the afternoon, the late September sun drove temperatures to the mid-seventies and as we reclined in lounge chairs, Ellen removed her bikini top.

I lit a cigarette and peaked at her hard nipples from under my sunglasses.

“I want to get married,” Ellen blurted out from the blue.

“To me?”

“To your stupid cats,” Ellen said. “Of course to you.”

“When?”

“As soon as I feel stable enough,” Ellen said.

“I’m not sure what that means,” I said.

“Secure enough that you won’t cheat on me. Secure enough that I can handle marriage without falling off the wagon. Secure enough to maybe have another baby before my eggs dry up. Secure enough to be a good wife and mother. That’s what it means.”

I sat up and looked at her. “I never thought I would ever say this, but I’m ready to marry you,” I said.

“Being tied to a nut case like me doesn’t frighten you?”

“If it did I wouldn’t be here right now,” I said.

“You realize I could change my mind inside the next five minutes,” Ellen said.

“You have really great nipples,” I said.

“I do, don’t I?” Ellen said. “And speaking of which, why don’t you put those practiced licking skills to good use.”

*****

Early Monday morning, Ellen left for work and I took the tunnel back to Manhattan.

As we parted ways, Ellen said, “I wish to hell you’d get a phone. I get lonely out here you know.”

“I’m still not used to having a television,” I said.

When I parked the car in the lot, the Pub was still dark, so I walked to the diner of 57^th Street and grabbed some breakfast. I read the sports pages in the Post while I ate and left it on the table along with the tip when I left.

Johnny was behind the bar when I tapped on the window. He motioned for me to use the rear door. I went through the alleyway and entered through the rear door.

“I just made a pot of coffee,” Johnny said.

I took a stool and he served up a mug and one for himself.

After lighting a cigarette, I sampled the coffee.

Johnny reached under the bar and came up with a thick white envelope. I looked inside at the five stacks of twenty dollar bills for my expense money. There was a note written in pen on Plaza stationary.

Call when received, the note read.

Johnny set the phone on the bar and I dialed the number and put it on speaker.

“This is Jack Pope,” Pope said when he answered the phone.

“Kellerman. I received the expense funds,” I said.

“Good. I shall return to Cincinnati this afternoon and make arrangements for the agreed upon amount to be delivered to the same location,” Pope said.

“I’ll begin work today,” I said. “I have your home number and I’ll call with updates when available.”

“Good luck,” Pope said.

I hung up and looked at Johnny.

“You’re going to need it,” he said.

Chapter Five

I hit the weight room for ninety minutes to work out the kinks and burn off the calories from the weekend.

After a shave and shower, I dressed in a charcoal grey suit minus a tie and headed out to see my old friend Cal Hawkins.

Hawkins is an attorney and a damn good one. We’ve worked together many times, although sometimes I have to bend an elbow or two to get him to cooperate. This would be one of those times.

His secretary is a woman in her sixties named Alice.

“Mr. Kellerman, when are you going to learn to call first,” she scolded me when I entered her outer office.

“I don’t have a phone,” I said.

“Get one,” Alice said. “1880 was a long time ago.”

“Is he in?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t announce me,” I said. “He likes surprises.”

“Fuck,” Hawkins said when I opened his office door and stepped inside.

“Nice to see you too, Cal,” I said.

“I’m up to my ass in paperwork, Kellerman,” Hawkins said. “What do you want?”

I took a seat in one of his plush leather chairs, pulled out my smokes and lit one.

“Is there any laws you obey?” Hawkins asked.

“The laws of physics and gravity,” I said.

Hawkins sighed. “Don’t flick ashes on the rug,” he said as he opened a drawer and produced an ashtray.

“Thanks.”

“So what is it this time?”

“I need your services,” I said.

“For?”

“Research.”

“On?”

“A deranged and very dangerous ex Army Ranger who rapes and strangles older women because they remind him of his stepmom who he wants to have sex with,” I said.

Hawkins stared at me.

“Get out,” he said.

“Just research,” I said. “And I’ll pay one hundred thousand for your time.”

“You do realize I’m a greedy bastard,” Hawkins said.

“It’s one of the things I love about you,” I said. “Meet me at the Pub around seven-thirty tonight.”

“I want to say no,” Hawkins said.

I crushed the butt in the ash tray and stood up. “But you won’t,” I said.

*****

“Mrs. Parker, where do I get a phone?” I said.

She looked at me. “Halleluiah,” she said.

“That doesn’t answer the question,” I said.

“Take my phone and call the phone company and make an appointment to have one installed.”

“A cell phone,” I said.

“There’s a phone store on every block,” Mrs. Parker said. “Haven’t you ever noticed?”

“Not really.”

“Try the big store on 57^th.”

“Thanks.”

I left Mrs. Parker and entered my apartment. The cats were watching giant robots beat each others robot brains out on the television.

In the kitchen I made a pot of coffee and while it brewed I took the catnip plant down from on top of the refrigerator and tore off several leaves. I fed them to the cats and after a few minutes they went bonkers.

Back in the kitchen, I smoked a cigarette at the window with a mug of coffee as I gathered my thoughts.

When I left the apartment I had the complete file Pope gave me and I walked it to the library on Ninth Avenue to make copies. I use the library computers on a regular basis and in return I make a thousand dollar donation to it every year.

From the library I went to the Pub and dropped off the folders and told Johnny that Hawkins would be by around seven-thirty.

I left the Pub and found the phone store on 57^th between Sixth and Fifth Avenue.

A clerk tried to sell me a phone that had so many features I had to ask if it actually made calls. I finally settled on a slim basic phone that, if I wanted, had internet service and took pictures. That plan was forty dollars a month.

Back in my apartment I took a nap while the cats did their best to kill each other on the sofa while the television showed a Popeye cartoon.

Around six, I showered and put on a dark blue warm-up suit and left the apartment and walked to the Pup.

Johnny joined me at a booth and we played a game of chess until Hawkins arrived at seven-thirty.

The three of us went to Johnny’s office. I took the desk.

“Would you care for a shot of the good stuff?” Johnny asked Hawkins.

“I could use one,” Hawkins said.

While Johnny filled two glasses with his prized bourbon, Cindy brought me a mug of coffee.

“So what am I researching?” Hawkins asked.

I picked up the thick file off the desk and handed it to Hawkins. “Read all this first,” I said.

While Hawkins read, I sipped my coffee and smoked a cigarette.

“This is a very sick individual,” Hawkins said.

“He is,” I said.

“Shouldn’t this be a matter for the police?”

“Who said it wasn’t?” I said. “But he’s only killed once in New York so far and I have the advantage.”

“What’s that?” Hawkins asked.

“I know who he is. The police don’t.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“History,” I said. “Leopards don’t change their spots and neither does this guy. Dig deep for credit card statements, places he frequents, sources of income, anything and everything. What he liked to do in Cincinnati he’ll like to do in New York.”

“This will take some doing,” Hawkins said.

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t.”

“I’ll need copies.”

“Those are yours.”

“Who did he kill in New York?”

“An elderly woman taking an early morning walk in Central Park.”

“I read about it,” Hawkins said. “Horrible death.”

“He won’t stop until he’s caught or killed,” I said.

“So we’re doing a public service,” Hawkins said.

“That’s one way of saying it,” I said.

“What’s the other?”

“The plan is to kill him,” I said.

Hawkins stared at me. Then his head slowly nodded. “I don’t have a problem with that provided I’m not implicated in any way.”

“You know better than that,” I said. “Take the files and I’ll stop by your office tomorrow with the promised amount.”

“I should disclose that I recognize the name Jack Pope on the letterhead,” Hawkins said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “He’s dying of cancer. He’ll be gone before the new year.”

“Well, we best work quickly then,” Hawkins said.

After Hawkins left, I ate a plate of meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy and then played another game of chess with Johnny.

Afterward, I stopped by Mrs. Parker’s to borrow her phone.

“I thought you were getting a phone?” she said.

“I did. It needs to charge overnight.”

She gave me her phone and I called Ellen.

“I just got back from a meeting,” Ellen said. “She called twice tonight. Two hang-ups when I answered the phone. She didn’t call when you were here. I think she’s watching my house.”

“No, she’s watching my apartment,” I said.

“Do something about this for God’s sake,” Ellen said. “She’s becoming a real pain in the ass.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said.

“Just you remember what I said about an old shoe,” Ellen said.

“I made you a promise, remember,” I said.

“No, you remember,” Ellen said. “Or you just might wake up one morning separated from your manhood, snip-snip.”

“I take my promises very seriously, especially when I swear on my balls,” I said.

Ellen laughed and her voice was like the sweet sound of church bells ringing in the distance.

“It’s late,” she said. “I have an early meeting. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I said.

“For real?”

“For real.”

I returned the phone to Mrs. Parker, entered my apartment and plugged the cell phone in to charge overnight.

The cats were watching Tweety Bird when I went to grab some sleep.

Chapter Six

When I returned from the Y after a ninety minute workout, I put on some coffee and while it brewed I went to my bedroom closet.

The rug in the closet appears nailed down, but it isn’t. I removed the rug to expose a trapdoor. In the large storage closet in the floor was my gun safe and a cash box. I removed the box and set it on the bed.

The cash box contained two hundred thousand in emergency funds. I removed half and replaced the box and rug.

I drank a mug of coffee on the sofa with the cats. A Japanese cartoon was on the television. The cats were engrossed in the action as a Japanese superhero saved Japan from a giant sea monster.

After a shave and shower, I tossed on a grey pinstripe suit minus a tie and left the apartment with the hundred grand in my jacket pocket.

I opted to walk the mile and a half to Hawkins’s office.

The streets were clogged and the walking was slow, but it was a nice day and I didn’t mind. At 34^th Street, I headed east to Park Avenue South.

When I arrived at Hawkins’s office, Alice said, “Well, this time you’re expected.”

I found my way to his office, knocked once and opened the door. Hawkins was behind his desk, elbow deep in paperwork.

“From the look on your face I’d say you haven’t seen the news,” Hawkins said.

“I never watch the news,” I said. “It’s depressing.”

Hawkins nodded to the flat screen television mounted on the wall above the sofa. He picked up a remote and clicked it on. A cable news station report was showing.

Jeremy Ocean had struck again last night. In Forest Hills in Queens. He followed a sixty-six-year-old woman who left her home around eleven-thirty to walk her dog in the quiet park across the street. The dog was a small pug. He knocked her unconscious with a blow to the head and then killed the dog. He dragged her body deep into the park where he raped and strangled her.

Police were trying to establish if the murder of a woman in Central Park last week and this murder are related.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

Hawkins clicked off the television.

“I’ll have comprehensive police reports on both by tomorrow,” Hawkins said.

I removed the envelope and set it on the desk. “One hundred large,” I said.

“If I have expenses?”

“I’ll pay them.”

“So we’ll have lots to discuss tomorrow,” Hawkins said.

“Let’s make it over dinner,” I said.

“As long as you’re buying.”

“Sure.”

“Not the Pub.”

“You pick,” I said. “I’ll call you late in the day.”

*****

I took a cab home and stripped off the suit and made fresh coffee. I took a mug to the sofa and used the remote to find a cable news channel. The cats were napping on the bed and didn’t mind.

The murder in Forest Hills was top banner. When his wife failed to return by midnight, the husband called 911. She was diabetic and he was worried something might have happened.

The husband, upon hearing the news collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.

Police were investigating the possibility that the murder in Forest Hills and Central Park may be related.

I sat through a commercial for adult diapers and another for car insurance and then the host returned and interview a retired homicide detective. The detective said that although the two crimes were similar in nature it was yet to be determined if they were the work of the same person or a copycat.

I used the remote to turn off the television.

In the kitchen, I filled a mug with coffee and smoked a cigarette at the window. The police knew damn well the two murders were the work of the same man but were unwilling to commit for fear of creating a citywide panic that would make shut-ins of every woman over the age of fifty.

I was restless and the gears weren’t turning.

I needed to clear my head.

*****

The kid was just twenty-two and around two hundred and thirty pounds. Twenty of it was soft fat around his middle. He wouldn’t make it past three rounds with an average fighter, one round with a good one.

I carried him for a round and let him bang me on the shoulders for a bit.

Roth, a disgusted look on his face, sat in his chair with a stopwatch.

“Time,” he yelled.

Exhausted, the kid lowered his gloves and backed away.

“Get outta my Goddamn ring you big fairy,” Roth yelled at the kid.

The kid slinked away.

I climbed down and sat next to Roth.

“Fuck,” Roth snarled.

“He’ll get himself killed if you get him a four rounder,” I said.

“I know,” Roth said. “Feel like giving my welterweight a run.”

“Welterweight?”

“He’s got his first eight rounder at the Paradise in two weeks,” Roth said. “He’s fighting a guy who should be a middleweight. After the weigh-in, he will be and my guy needs to feel a bigger opponent in the ring.”

“You want me to hit him?” I asked.

“Fuck no. You crazy?”

A few minutes later, the welterweight stared up at me in the ring. He was from PR and from the looks of him he was a tough nut.

“This a joke, right?” he said to Roth.

“In two weeks when you climb into the ring, your opponent will have ballooned up to his regular weight of one sixty or more,” Roth said. “You’ll be one forty-five. He’s gonna lean on you hard to tire you out. Best learn how to deal with that now.”

“I can handle fifteen pounds,” the kid said. “Not a hundred.”

“Billy Conn weighed one sixty-five when he fought Joe Louis who weighed two twelve,” Roth said. “The fight went fifteen rounds and only exhaustion lost the fight for Conn.”

The kid nodded. “Okay.”

“Time,” Roth said.

The kid danced around me for three minutes and peppered my arms and shoulders with jabs and hooks. He was too short to land head shots and they wouldn’t do much damage if he had.

In the second round, I started to lean on him. He kept pushing me off and I’d lean on him again. He’d land some body shots and I kept leaning on him. After two more rounds of leaning on him the kid was so tired he could barely walk.

“Okay, kid, call it a day and grab a shower,” Roth told him. “We’ll discuss your fight plan when you’re dressed.”

I sat next to Roth and drank some water from a bottle.

“You look pretty good for an older guy,” Roth said.

“Anybody in this place I can actually hit?” I asked.

“Not today.”

“Then I’m going home,” I said.

*****

I picked up the Post and News on my way back to the apartment and read the stories on the Forest Hills murder at my kitchen table. Details were sketchy and comments by the police were few and far between.

There was a soft knock at my door and when I went to the living room a piece of paper had been slipped under my door.

The note read, Out of town package arrived. J.

*****

Johnny opened the steel case on his desk and I looked at the million dollars in cash. The bills were not knew but not work either.

“Take out your fee and lock the rest in the safe,” I said.

Johnny withdrew one hundred thousand and stuck it on the top shelf of his safe. The steel case went on the bottom. He shut the door and spun the dial. Then sat behind his desk.

I took a chair and lit a cigarette.

“Appears Mr. Ocean has struck again,” Johnny said.

“A week apart in two completely different boroughs,” I said.

“Does that mean anything?”

“Everything means something,” I said. “The question is what?”

“I think it means he’ll kill again in a week,” Johnny said.

“Because?”

“After the kill he’s satisfied for a few days,” Johnny said. “After that the appetite starts to get wet. It takes him a few days to select a new victim and a few days to plan his attack. Then he strikes. There’s a week. Then he’ll repeat the process.”

I blew a smoke ring and mulled that over.

“How does he select, that’s the question,” I said.

“Answer that and you’ll find him,” Johnny said.