I called him on his cell and filled him in on the latest.
“Yeah, I hope to God it’s not her, but nobody has seen Eleisha in a few days. She and a couple of her friends on the street usually meet for coffee in the mornings. The girls said they were worried. Hadn’t heard from her. One of ‘em phoned. Left several messages. No reply. I’ll call Captain Sullivan, do the concerned citizen routine. He won’t believe it, but he’ll let me in if he thinks I might have some info.”
“Sounds good. I’ll meet you at Bugsy’s at 4 P.M. unless I hear different.”
Bugsy’s was quiet, but it was a little early. I sat at my usual booth in the back. Bugsy knows me from the old days, used to be a pretty fair pimp, if there is such a thing. The bar was his retirement gig, hastened by a nasty run-in with the local mob. He still carried a limp from that encounter. He brought me a shot of Jameson with a water chaser.
“So how’s the new gig, Dee? You solvin’ lots of crimes.”
“No, Bugsy. Mostly chasing faithless husbands and wives and trying to make the rent.”
He laughed a little.
“Yeah, well I’ll be looking for the next Blue Dahlia murder. Put you on it so you can be a star. Then I can tell ‘em, ‘I knew her when . . . Maybe get interviewed on TV by John Hunt.”
“You da’ man, Bugsy.”
My partner, every girl’s Cuban dream, came in and collapsed across from me. He’s usually upbeat and charming. The ladies love his soulful brown eyes, the finely chiseled features, and the Ricky Riccardo smile. Laughter comes naturally and bursts out of him, the perfect combination of music and sex appeal. Today it wasn’t so easy. His skin was taut and lifeless, the eyes glazed. His mouth hung open slightly and fell at the corners.
“It was her . . . Eleisha. You don’t want to know what he did to her.”
“I don’t, but I need to.”
Bugsy set down a tumbler of Jack Black with a couple of cubes of ice. Ricky picked it up and drained a good half of it.
“Okay, you asked for it. She was on the table, gray as hell. I guess she had lost most of the blood in her body. She had stab wounds through both of her breasts and one just above her pelvis. Each one had penetrated the entire body. Large exit wounds on her back. He had carved a cross on her chest. It started at her neck and ended at her navel. Her head was in a tray beside the body, the blond hair matted red. Sullivan told me about the panties in the mouth. All some sort of hellish statement. The bastard screwed her – they think -- after she was dead. But it could have been before . . . maybe after he sliced through her neck. The cut was fairly clean. They think he used some sort of sword, very heavy and razor sharp.”
He reached for the oily brown Jack and emptied the glass. I thought Ricky had seen it all on the street, but his hand trembled. He waved to Bugsy and there was a refill on the table instantly.
“Anything else,” I asked.
“Yeah. Here’s where it gets really weird. Before the cops entered the room, one of them heard a dull clicking sound from within. When they opened the door, the sound exploded. There were hundreds of locusts all over the room. The floor, the furniture, the curtains, and her body . . . all covered with brown bugs. She had little bites all over her body. The cops had to step over and around them to examine the scene.”
“Locusts? How the hell are they gonna get in a motel room? One, maybe a few, but a whole room of them? That makes it even more strange. What else?”
“Not much. The cops did find a cardboard wrapper. One of those throw-away cameras you get at the drug store. The pervert must have taken pictures of his handiwork. No prints, no other physical evidence. My ID didn’t help much because they still don’t know her real name. Sullivan gave me the routine in his best stern warning voice.
‘Mr. Fuenes, this is police business. Warn Ms. Rabow that you and she are not to get involved in this investigation in any way. Let us handle it.”
“He said it loud enough for everyone in room to need earplugs. Out in the hall he pulled me over and whispered, ‘Ricky, quid pro quo.’ He’ll keep us informed if we keep him informed.”
“Fair enough,” I said, “so will Eleisha’s friend talk to us?”
“I’ll find out.”
The whiskey wasn’t doing it. I couldn’t erase Eleisha’s face from my mind. I went home hoping for some re-runs of “The Brady Bunch.” Maybe all of that big hair and giggles would cheer me up, but first I had to make a call.
Chapter Five
When I got back to the boat, I picked up the phone and dialed the number.
“So do you know?”
He cleared his voice. “Yeah,” he said in a deep whisper, “I heard about it right after it happened. I had to play dumb, but I made an excuse to look at the body. Jesus . . .”
“Yeah, Jesus wasn’t much help to Eleisha. Have you heard anything else from the blackmailer or the Abaddon creep? Any more requests for cash in a brown paper bags?”
“Not yet, but I expect it before long.”
“And he hasn’t tried to contact your fiancé or anyone else in your immediate circle?”
“No, I don’t know anything I didn’t know when I talked to you last.”
That was a rather large lie, but I didn’t know any better at the time. I told him I’d be in touch and put the phone of the table.
Then I did something I should have done a couple of days ago. I Googled Abaddon. There were several entries, but they all led to the same place. Abaddon was the Angel of the Abyss, the darkest pit of hell. He carried out the punishments of God and was said to lead an army of locusts. That explained a few things, but mostly it told me we were dealing with a legitimate psycho. I sure as hell didn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, at least not without my old pal, Mr. Smith and Wesson.
By now, the booze was making me a little stupid. I crawled up into the v-berth and was out in seconds. Actually, I slept like a brick.
I met Ricky at the office at about nine the next morning. He was already busy working the phones. He covered the receiver with his hand and spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t get too comfortable. We are meeting Lana, Eleisha’s best friend, for coffee at The Big Mug at ten.”
I nodded. The Big Mug was right around the corner, better coffee and pastries than any Starbuck’s on the planet. I kept myself busy and nursed a well-earned headache. Gotta cut down my alcohol intake. Of course, I’d made that promise more than once.
Ricky and I got there a few minutes early. Lana came in right at ten, looking like the wrath of Hades. Her hair was stuffed up under a Dolphin’s cap. A few strands trickled out underneath the band. It was candy apple red, but her attempt to hide it wasn’t working. The hair was thick and shimmered like crimson silver. Deep circles under eyes the color of dark emeralds. No makeup. A wrinkled green t-shirt and gray sweat pants. Green flip-flops completed the ensemble. Too bad. She was going for dowdy and exhausted, but the disguise didn’t work on a girl who was strikingly beautiful. She tried a smile, but it didn’t work. She sat down on the wooden chair in a lump.
Ricky ordered her a latte and The Big Bun, a giant pastry slathered in cinnamon and creamy icing. She nodded thanks. Then he began.
“Lana, I know you’re grieving and probably scared. There’s violent butcher out there. I hate to even be here, but we are trying to get anything we can to get closer to a stone killer. I wanted Dee to be here. She used to be a ‘working girl’ and you can trust us both.”
She gave me a quick once-over. “So you did the streets?”
“I did. Started in the strip clubs. Got trumped up on the junk. Lost it for a while. Then on to bigger and better things.”
“But you got out?”
“I got out, but not before I damned near cashed in all of my chips. Thank God I had some friends. Now I’m clean, a private investigator, next best thing to a lady cop. But one who understands the life, ‘the good stuff’ -- at least what there is of it -- and the endless shit.”
She looked deep into my eyes, brushed a red tress off of her forehead. Then she bit down on her lip and went on. I thought I saw a trace of trust in those emerald eyes.
“Cops . . . yeah. To them Eleisha’s just another whore who maybe got what she deserved. They’ll go through the motions, then stuff it in a cold case file in the basement.”
A single tear swelled in her left eye and crept down her cheek. I had to check my gut. I remembered Angie. I placed my hand on my thigh under the table and buried my nails in the flesh.
“So you want to know what I know about her. Actually a lot. I met her in New York. We were doing auditions, hoping for a walk-on in a soap opera, maybe a commercial, anything. But beautiful girls are a dime a dozen in a place like that. We ended up working the street for a guy named Ray Renato. He was a bastard, but a sweet bastard. He didn’t beat us up or anything like that. Kept the Johns in line. Kept us away from the bad dope. We got our money regular and he treated us like ladies.”
“It’s a long way from New York to Florida,” I said.
“Yeah. Well, she was such a knockout. When she’d walk in a joint, the guys would drool all down their shirts. But also very classy, smart, a student at Columbia, working her way through school. Her family was from Ecuador, Peru, someplace like that. I don’t remember. They had money at one time, but it had dried up. She found herself broke, but she wouldn’t give up. She was gonna stay in school and make something of herself. Hell, she studied all of the time when she wasn’t on her back. Loved the movies. We used to wear out the damned matinees, especially all that romantic stuff. We must have heard Clark Gable tell Vivian Leigh he ‘didn’t give a damn’ a hundred times. We’d split a tub of buttered popcorn and a large Coke. It was damned good fun.”
She got a little misty, but tried to catch herself.
“Ray said he knew some people, claimed to be producers or some such shit. They operated out of Miami. They wanted her. I was her best friend and I got a few of my own attributes. They took us as a package deal. I’m sure Ray got paid off.”
Ricky spoke up again. “So did she have any kinky Johns . . . anybody into bondage, s and m, any of the violent crap?”
“Not that I know of, but I hadn’t seen her as much lately. She was moving up. Doing the high class call girl gig. With her brains and her looks, she could get away with it.”
“So who was her pimp?” Ricky asked.
“Don’t know. What I do know is I’m still stuck on the street. I’m doing okay, but I’m getting out soon. Just like you, Dee.”
Angie had said the same thing. She was out, but she was dead. The yellow acid welled up in my throat. If I had a dollar for every hooker who’d told me that, I’d be in the Bahamas on the sand in a lounge chair. I’d be swilling pink island drinks with little umbrellas served by beautiful oiled beach boys. Hey . . . it wouldn’t be all bad.
“Anyway, Eleisha’s done. Maybe we all are, but I’m scared shitless. I heard what he did to her. And the bugs . . . makes me want to puke. The creep’s out there. Might be me next time or one of the other girls. We’re just trash to them . . . beautiful, willing trash. Ricky, please, I got the willies. I got ‘em bad . . . don’t let him get me.”
“I won’t,” he said and patted her hand. She looked at her Cuban savior, but she didn’t stop shaking.
I wish he’d been right. Lana got up and left, The Big Bun still on her plate.
Chapter Six
We’d gotten some information, but I wasn’t sure how useful it was. Still, you collect the pieces and hope that sooner or later they’ll begin to fit.
I didn’t get the locust thing. I remembered that it was the Eighth Plague that God had visited on the Pharaoh and the Egyptians when Moses begged him to release the Israelites from slavery. Years ago I had read Nathaniel West’s Plague of the Locusts. It was all pretty dreary stuff. I knew there were some references in Revelations in the Old Testament. They eat every green living thing. Famine. The end of time and all of that shit. Still it was just too bizarre. I tried to picture the sound and the room where Eleisha was found. I shook my head and shuddered. And where the hell do you get hundreds of locusts?
I googled the long-legged insects and picked up some info. There are three different incarnations, from Cicadas to what is more like a grasshopper. They lay their eggs underground and wait for the right conditions to hatch. I didn’t know they would bite. Apparently in self-defense. Did that mean they were there when Eleisha entered the room? Did she try to fight them off in her terror? And how did Abaddon transport hundreds of brown insects? Did her stab her while she fought? It seemed unlikely due to the precise locations of her wounds. Maybe he decapitated her first, then stabbed her so he could create the perfect cross on her dead body. Then the sex? It went too far beyond anything I could conjure, even in a nightmare.
I just couldn’t construct any kind of reasonable scenario. But the whole thing was like something out of a bad horror movie. Years ago I had seen “Them,” on Count Shockula’s Midnight Horror Fest. Nuclear energy. The insects had mutated to the size of small tanks. I think they ate Chicago, or maybe it was New York City. Hell, it could have been Boise, Idaho. Monsters weren’t that particular about their diets in those days. Their signature was a hellish clicking. Then the human feast began. It was too late.
Anyway, it must have been the worst reality for the dead girl. Maybe she was lucky she didn’t know what was coming next. There are a lot of weird cats out there, but having sex with a corpse has to be at the top of the heap when it comes to sickening perversion.
So where do we go from here? I sure as hell didn’t know. I was still trying to figure it out when the phone rang.
“Dee, any progress?”
“Hate to tell you, Rod. Nothing. We’ve been jumping through all the hoops, tried to reconstruct Eleisha’s murder, interviewed a woman named Lana, a friend of the deceased. Got a little info, but no real leads.”
“Okay. I sent you another love note from my secret admirer. You should have it tomorrow. Enjoy the reading. I’ll be incommunicado for a couple of days. Death in the family, actually Estrella’s sister. Really just a kid. She met with an unfortunate accident. We’ll be traveling to her home to bury the remains. In an emergency, you can contact my office. They will forward any messages, but be careful what you leave. That stuff all ends up on tape.”
I get a little crazy sometimes with my theories and my hunches, but something was bothering me. It was a sound in Rod’s voice coupled with an image that lay in the shadows of my mind. It was blurry and it had no color, but it was there. I struggled to bring it into focus, to make some kind of connection, but it danced on the edge of my consciousness only to dart away when I snatched at it.
I thought about Lana -- replayed her comments -- the terrified look on her face, the clear affection she had for Eleisha. I saw the gorgeous blond victim sitting on the bed with Rod. What had Lana said? Somewhere in South America, Ecuador or Peru? Student at Columbia? Apparently serious about her education. I grabbed a handful of old newspapers and bolted to the office. I pulled the file on Rod’s case. The photo was on top. I shuffled through the old papers until I got the one I wanted. My smiling ex Hot Rod with his lovely Brazilian fiancé, Estrella Martella. The Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass was in the top drawer.
I scanned both faces slowly. The photos weren’t great and Eleisha had that professional dye job, but the features were too similar to deny. The height, even the shapes of the bodies. I wanted Ricky to look at them, but I’d take at least even money that Estrella and Eleisha were sisters.
I’d see him in the morning and get his take on the developments.
I got up early and had coffee. There was nothing much in the newspaper that hadn’t been hashed to death over the past few weeks. I heard the mailman in the parking lot. Rod’s prediction was right on time. I split the envelope and unfolded the photo copy.
“Only Satan and his spawn insist on tempting the wrath of God. Justice is swift and r
etribution sure when he lifts his sword. He will not be satisfied until the last painted Jezebel has been struck down. I am Abaddon and my winged army is mighty. See the blood of the infidels mingle in the gutters with the slime of the street.”
Abaddon
Chapter 7
Ricky called as I was on my way out the door. Captain Sullivan had called.
Her blood was mingling in the street. They found her in an alley behind a flop house in northwest Lauderdale. Apparently she had put up quite a fight. There were over fifty cuts and stab wounds. Her right arm was nearly hacked off and she was missing three fingers. Her body was covered in tiny red bites. She had been raped, but the Medical Examiner couldn’t tell whether it before or after she was dead. There were three places where the weapon had completely penetrated her body, both breasts and just above the abdomen. They were linked by a cross that had been carved with a large blade, possibly a sword. The remains of several dozen locusts were found near the body. Her head was several feet from the body sitting in a pool of blood on the dusty bricks, staring into the hellish mass of trash and filth in the alley.
Same M.O., no major differences, but hopefully a breakthrough. There was videotape from a security camera that was mounted on the corner of the building. It caught a fleeting image of Lana and a tall man in a beige trench coat entering the alley. The camera angle had missed his face, but his full, black hair disappeared beneath a turned up collar. He appeared to be clutching something to his side beneath the coat. They seemed to be having a conversation, or maybe a negotiation. The camera didn’t have the range to cover the scene of the crime, but now at least we had his image. No witnesses. The body had been found by the driver of a garbage truck.
Captain Sullivan had come through. I guess he didn’t want to talk to me, but he had provided Ricky with all of the details. The stuff we didn’t want to know. The cops were scouring the neighborhood, doing a house to house, but so far no luck.