Dave Zeltserman - Blood Crimes Book One

“Is that so,” Raze said after a while.

“Yeah, that’s so. Four of your men are dead. For nine thousand dollars. You should be proud of yourself. All you had to do was give me Carol back and you would’ve had your money, and your men would still be alive.”

Another long pause, then, “You still have my money?”

Jim remembered that he had given the money to Pearce and hadn’t thought of taking it off the dying body. Wherever Pearce was that was where the money was.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“That’s too bad.”

“For you. Because you’re going to give me Carol back or I’m going to find you and make you suffer worse than you could ever imagine.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think I could find you?”

“Nah, I don’t think there’s much chance of that, at least not before your girl has hemorrhaged from taking a pool cue up the butthole. You want that to happen?”

Jim didn’t say anything. He stood trembling.

“If you weren’t such an asshole, you’d know I couldn’t make a deal with you.” Raze paused for a long moment before going on. “After you ripping me off? I’d be finished in my business if I did, especially after you killing one my men. You want your girl back in one piece you got to pay for her, and a hell of a lot more than what you took from me.”

“How much more?”

“You ain’t fucking with me about killing my other three men?”

“They’re all dead.”

Jim listened intently for a response, heard nothing, and after a while asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. You killed four of my men. That’s going to cost you. Let’s say a million dollars.”

It got very quiet, so quiet that Jim could hear the blood pounding in his skull. “How am I supposed to get that kind of money?” he asked.

“If you’re resourceful enough to kill four of my men, then you’re resourceful enough to come up with that money. I’m giving you twenty-four hours. After that your girl’s gone, but only after we have our fun with her.”

“I could’ve killed you and your two bodyguards in that bathroom last night,” Jim said. “But I didn’t.”

“Your mistake, asshole.”

“You really don’t think I’ll be coming after you?”

“I’ll take my chances. And don’t bother calling me on this phone again. Think of it as already tossed away. I’ll be watching the news the next twenty-four hours. As long as I hear about an armored car heist or a bank job, I’ll be calling you back on Ash’s phone so we can work out a trade. If I don’t hear anything like that, we’re done. Wait a minute. For some extra incentive.”

Raze disappeared. Jim stood frozen, pressing the cell phone hard against his ear trying to hear anything that could give him a clue where Raze was. He heard some voices off in the distance, then the creaking of footsteps on a hardwood floor, a door being opened, and Raze’s voice telling someone that her boyfriend was on the phone.

“Hon?” It was Carol. Her voice was weak. Jim had the sense that she’d been crying, but was trying hard not to let him know that.

“I’m here,” Jim said. A freezing coldness slid over him, numbing him. “Are you okay? Have they hurt you?”

“I wouldn’t tell them anything,” she said, her voice breaking. He knew she was trying hard to keep from sobbing, and knowing that made the tears well up in his own eyes, made him swallow hard to keep from sobbing also.

“Have they hurt you?”

Very softly he heard her say yes. The connection was cut off. He stood frozen as he listened to the dead silence. After a minute or so he was able to move. He tried redialing Raze’s number that showed in the Caller Id, but no one answered. Again, he stood frozen, his muscles tensing. He tried to think of how he was going to get Carol back, but his mind just wouldn’t work. All he knew was he had to get moving. A homeless man wandered into the alleyway pushing a shopping cart. The man spotted Jim sitting on the Harley, still holding a samurai sword in one hand and a. 45 in the other. The homeless man turned his shopping cart around. Jim’s mind started working. At least he had an idea of what he was going to do next. He gunned the Harley’s engine and drove away.

Hayes sat in his rented Dodge Neon and tried to think things through. What he now had went past purely hypothetical and circumstantial. This was hard evidence for a murder investigation, or more accurately, a double-murder. He could no longer kid himself about Jim’s involvement.

He looked up and counted six police cars and two ambulances parked outside the Cineplex’s front entrance. Two older model sedans had also been left out front, and he guessed that those were being driven by the detectives on the case. A middle-aged man had been taken by stretcher onto one of the ambulances, and Hayes found out from talking to a nineteen year-old girl who worked selling tickets at the Cineplex that the man had passed out after seeing the dead body, at least that’s what she heard. The rumor going around the other Cineplex workers was that a man had been hacked to pieces and his body left in the back row, and that there was blood everywhere. Hayes showed her the drawing he had of Jim, but she popped her gum and stared blankly at it, saying she didn’t think she saw him. When he showed her the drawing of Jim’s girlfriend, she nodded.

“Yeah, she bought tickets from me. I think it was for The Notebook, Part 3. She wasn’t a blonde, though. She had dark brown hair.”

“How many tickets did you sell her?”

The girl thought about it, popped her gum some more. “I’m pretty sure she bought two tickets. Maybe the guy in that other drawing you showed me was with her, but I didn’t see him.”

That was twenty minutes ago. Since then a corpse had been removed from the Cineplex via a body bag. Hayes was still trying to decide what to do when a pair of hard knuckles rapped on the outside of his window. Detective Joe Colvin was leaning against the car peering in at him. Hayes had the engine running for the air conditioner. He turned it off and manually rolled down the window.

“What are you doing here?” Colvin asked. “And don’t tell me you’re researching a book for some asshole novelist. I know bullshit when I smell it and I sure as fuck know verbal diarrhea when I hear it.”

Hayes nodded. “Why don’t I get out of the car and we’ll talk.”

Colvin backed away so Hayes could join him. The homicide detective’s cheap suit that earlier had looked wrinkled now gave the appearance of having been slept in. Colvin looked equally rumpled and worn out.

“What’s your interest in this?” Colvin said, his eyes hooded and tired as he stared at the PI. Hayes rubbed the back of neck. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it.

“I know you used to be a cop,” Colvin added. “New York’s PI licensing office put me in touch with your old precinct in Brooklyn. I talked to your old boss, Captain Hartlaub. He told me you used to be a damn good cop, and that you were a good guy and you’d do the right thing if asked. So I’m asking. Help me out if you know anything about these killings.”

Hayes nodded to himself as he came to a decision. His chest sunk a bit accepting what he was going to do. He knew Serena wasn’t going to be happy.

“I think these were done by the same guy,” he said. “The drug dealer killed in the alley last night and whoever it was in the movie theatre.”

“Yeah? What can you tell me I don’t know?”

“So you think so also?”

Colvin didn’t bother saying anything. His eyes held steady on Hayes. Hayes took out a handkerchief and wiped his neck. He could see the thought in Colvin’s eyes as the homicide detective suppressed a crack about how Hayes seemed to sweat a lot for a guy with a clear conscience.