Tom Schreck - TKO

I borrowed Rocco’s cell phone and called my machine. There was a message from Marcia asking me why I haven’t called and just because we weren’t going out anymore we could still be friends, but that was it-nothing from Billy.

Then I called Jamal. He was never without his cell.

“Jamal.” It was the way he always answered.

“It’s Duff, J. Salami and bacon,” I said.

“ Salaam alaikum… Why you got to fuck with Allah?”

“Sorry. Hey, tonight Al did something really weird.”

“Duff, that all that hound ever do.”

“He sniffed all over this car, jumped up sniffed the handle, barked twice, and then sat at attention. He wouldn’t move.”

“Uh-huh. You remember what I told you Al was trained for?”

“He sniffed explosives.”

“Yeah, but he was trained as part of the Fruit of Islam’s security team.”

“So, what’s that mean-he guarded Al Sharpton’s pomade?”

“Nope-it means the crazy-ass hound knows how to sniff out illegal drugs.”

I went in and out of sleep that night, worried about Billy. Sure, he was a goofy and annoying kid, but I didn’t want anything to happen to him. I also didn’t know what to make of Howard, his life in prison, and what if any role this Blast shit had to do with anything. Then there were the karate guys, their drug dealing, and why a God-loving guy like Abadon would hang around with them. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that he trained with them; after all, I’ve boxed with some of society’s real pariahs and enjoyed my time in the gym with them. People are rarely one thing and I do my best to see them that way. Don’t forget, Hitler loved dogs.

Of course, I don’t know if he put up with them barking at five a.m. like I did. Al rousted me out of my restless slumber with his attention to the door. I was hoping it was Billy, but this was a bit on the early side, even for him. Then Allah-King spun around and sat, relieved to know it was the karate kid he was familiar with. I opened the front door and there he was, at attention and looking kind of pale.

“Sir, my apologies for not making practice, sir. No excuses sir, and I will do one hundred pushups as a suitable discipline,” Billy said.

I looked at him closer and what I thought was a pale pallor was really a mess of Clearasil on the whole left side of his face. I stepped off my stoop and walked toward him to get a closer inspection.

Billy dropped into his knuckle-pushup position and began to count out.

“One… two… three…”

“Kid,” I tried to interrupt him at four but he kept on going. “Attention-on your feet!” I tried to give it as much authority as I could.

Billy stood in front of me, hyperventilating from the pushups. I wiped at the Clearasil with my thumb and as a big goop of it came off Billy winced. The whole side of his face was black and blue.

“Who did this to you?” I said, almost to myself.

“It was an accident.”

“Who did this to you!” I returned to my karate command voice.

“Uh, sir…”

I could feel the vein in my neck twitch.

“Who?” I realized I was shouting.

“Jake, my mother’s boyfriend.” A silent tear ran down Billy’s face.

“This isn’t the first time, is it?”

Billy shook his head and more tears came down his face.

“To your mom too?”

Billy nodded and sniffled the accumulating tears back. His cheeks were streaked.

“What does Jake do for work?”

“He works out of town, construction. He’s only around some weekends.”

“Is he in Crawford this week?”

“No, he’ll be back on Friday.”

I took a second to think. Billy had stopped crying and was standing at attention.

“Meet me at the Y tonight at eight, you understand?”

“Sir, yes sir.”

I bowed and dismissed him, and he did his usual run down 9R.

The vein in my neck wouldn’t stop twitching. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to make sure that Jake never harmed Billy again.

I chose to look at my suspension as a semi-retirement. One of my heroes, the fictional Travis McGee from John D. MacDonald’s pulp novels, used to say he was taking his retirement on the installment plan. He also lived on a 110-foot houseboat and had endless chicks and a best friend who was an economist. I lived in a 27-foot Airstream, got dumped regularly by women in therapy, and my best friend was a short-legged, long-eared slobber machine. Me and Travis had a lot in common.

I poured some coffee and flipped to MSNBC. They were doing their daily update on the “Crawford Slayer,” which they did every day regardless of whether there was new information. The former FBI profiler was talking via satellite to the blonde, very attractive, but not very intelligent anchor.

“With the second and third victim’s toxicology reports indicating drug use, is the evidence now pointing to cult involvement?” the blonde asked.

“We’re talking about a repeat serial killer, and we often see feelings of grandeur and delusions of almost godlike qualities. I think it’s a very real possibility that these killings, especially with their gruesome characteristics, and now drug use, could be pointing to cult involvement,” the profiler said.

“Does the evidence point to Rheinhart as the cult leader, and what role do drugs play in a cult leadership?”

“Drugs become addicting or at least pleasurable, and cult leaders use them as a way to control followers. The ritualistic slayings further indicate that the murders mean something to the killer.”

“How so?”

“The decapitation, the writing with blood, and the draining of blood demonstrate anger and a complete dehumanization of the victim. The fact that the high-school students met such a dramatic end may suggest that they were involved in the cult but lost the approval of the leader. That, or he no longer had any use for them.”

The pretty head continued with more of the same nonsense banter that I just couldn’t buy. First of all, I don’t think I ever met anyone who was less of a leader than Howard. He was a painfully shy loner who freaked out for a few days thirty years ago-this Hannibal Lecter shit just seemed like bullshit to me. The fact that high-school kids had drugs in their system just didn’t seem at all like news to me. I would’ve been shocked if a cross section of high-school kids didn’t have drugs in their system.

The question I wanted answered was where was Howard and why was his blood spilled in the park. Who was he afraid of and why would they want to get him?

With a bit of forceful prying on Billy, I found out his mom’s BF was Jake Sofco. And with Kelley’s help, I found out he’s a two-time felon with a history of assault, DWI, and drug dealing. With even more pressure on Billy, I learned that Jake hangs out at a roadhouse called the Insideout just past the Crawford county line. He’d get primed there and show up at Billy’s mom’s apartment and start terrorizing them.

Not having enough to do is probably dangerous for me. My mind isn’t a place I should head into on my own, but that’s exactly where I found myself, thinking all week that this man had to be stopped and I was the one to do it. Billy let me know that Jake drove a red Chevy pickup with rusted fenders and a gun rack, so I figured if I just hung out at the Insideout on a Friday afternoon, eventually Jake would show up.

On Friday afternoon, I got to the parking lot around four o’clock, brought a box of eight-tracks, a six-pack of Schlitz, and Rudy’s cell phone. The Schlitz would make doing what I had to do easier, the eight-tracks would get me psyched, and the cell phone was just in case I needed to call Kelley.