Dave Zeltserman - Bad Thoughts

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned he felt something sharp ripping into his gut. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor. His hands felt a sticky wetness as they searched out the knife that had been buried in his stomach. Charlie Winters stood over him, grinning.

“The goddamn psycho hasn’t completely lost his touch, eh?” Winters asked.

Dornich didn’t answer him. His fingers lightly traced his wound. The knife had gone in below his belly and had been pushed up almost a foot, just about slicing him open.

“It’s almost as if I’ve been in your mind listening to your every thought, huh?” Winters asked, waiting patiently for an answer. When he didn’t get one he went on, “I wanted her alive when Billy Boy showed up. But, in any case, I don’t think she’ll be around much longer. Not the way I left her. Which was in a hell of a lot better shape than you’re in.”

Winters turned away from Dornich and started to collect the papers from his desk. “It’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Winters asked as he dumped the faxes and reports detailing his and Herbie’s murders into a trash can. “You should’ve gone straight to the police, but I guess you wanted to waddle in with your evidence. What was it, you needed to show them how damn smart you are?” He lit the corner of one of the papers and watched as the fire spread and flared out of the trash can. A thick, black smoke poured into the room. After a while Winters flipped the can over.

“Ashes to ashes,” Winters noted.

Dornich moaned softly as the knife shifted inside him. Winters turned towards him, showing a slight melancholy smile. “I almost hate to tell you this,” he said, “but you didn’t even get a quarter of them. Herbie and I left a hell of a lot more corpses behind than what you found.”

Dornich tried to push himself up to his elbows, but fell back to the floor. Winters made a soft tsking noise. “Jesus,” he said, “look at you lying like that. Bleeding like a goddamn stuck pig.”

He stepped forward and aimed a kick at Dornich’s midsection. Dornich, though, caught his foot and pulled it towards him, sending Winters off balance and falling backwards. As he hit the floor, Dornich rolled on top of him, his heavy mass crushing Winters’s chest, his clenched fists hammering at his face. And then his hands were searching out Winters’s throat, his thick fingers closing around it, squeezing it.

Dornich came close to squeezing the life out of Charlie Winters and Winters knew it. His eyes bulged as they reflected the horror of that possibility. His tongue thickened as it pushed out of his slit-like mouth. He tried to scream. A strangled, gasping noise came out. Like a cat hacking on a hairball. The sound brought a slight smile to Dornich’s mouth.

Ultimately, though, it was a race, one which Pig Dornich just didn’t have enough time to win. The little life he had left dripped out with his blood and he collapsed lifeless on top of his killer.

Winters had to struggle to pry Dornich’s dead fingers from his throat and then to push his corpse off of him. As he lay on the floor gasping for air a horrible fury raged in his eyes. When he could move he turned to the dead man. By the time he left, Pig Dornich’s office looked worse than any slaughterhouse.

Shannon felt someone nudging him. He opened an eye and saw DiGrazia sitting next to him, pushing him with an elbow.

“You were drifting off, buddy,” DiGrazia said.

“Thanks. How’d you know I’d be here?”

“A lucky guess. I wanted to let you know Susie’s okay. How’s your therapist doing?”

“She’s still alive. That’s all they’re telling me.”

DiGrazia lowered his voice. “How’d you know about it, Bill?”

“You’ve seen my statement?”

“Don’t give me that. How’d you know about it?”

“Just what was in my statement. I dreamed about him. He told me he was with her and he was going to kill her. When I called you I thought he was referring to Susie. Later, I realized it was Elaine. You’ve dreamt about him, too, haven’t you, Joe?”

DiGrazia stared at the wall across from him. Grudgingly, he nodded. “Once.”

“What did he look like?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I really didn’t see him, he was too close to me. He kind of stood off to the side of me whispering things.”

“But you smelled him?”

“Yeah, Jesus, I smelled him. When I woke up I just about crawled on my knees to the almighty porcelain goddess. And I gave one hell of a devout prayer.”

“He’s real, Joe. Elaine’s office had that same smell. A few days ago that smell was in her car. The sonofabitch was probably hiding in it waiting for her. When he saw me he must’ve jumped out. He must’ve been what we heard moving around in the Dumpster. Sonofabitch. What kinds of things did he whisper to you?”

“About how you were killing these women.”

Shannon nodded slowly, the muscles tightening along his jaw. “Yeah, what do you think?”

“I’ll tell you what our friends at the FBI think. That you set this up. An accomplice of yours attacked Elaine Horwitz to throw us off.”

“They really think that?”

“Your friend Swallow does.”

“And I just happen along and save her life?”

“We don’t know that yet. Anyway, it wouldn’t matter. If she lives and she doesn’t know the guy’s a friend of yours, how does it hurt you?”

A muscle along Shannon’s jaw began to twitch. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s what it looks like. Someone’s pulling a pretty masterful frame job on you.”

“You tell Susie this?”

“No. I want her afraid of you. This way she stays hidden and safe. I don’t want this psycho picking her next. I’m sure you don’t, either. And anyway,” DiGrazia paused and showed a thin smile, “I could be wrong.”

“I have to talk to her.”

“Sorry, pal. By the way, she’s staying out of work until I tell her it’s safe, so don’t waste your time bothering anyone at her office. If your therapist recovers we’ll get a description of the guy and that will be that. You got any ideas who’s doing this?”

Shannon shook his head. He knew DiGrazia was right. If Susie were home she’d be in danger. If he knew where she was the killer would probably end up knowing, too.

“No,” he said, “I keep thinking it’s Herbert Winters, that maybe I left him alive, but I checked with the California state police and he’s long dead. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever put away who’d be up to this. How about you?”

DiGrazia sat silently for a moment, a darkness clouding his face. “All this is beyond me, pal. Especially this dream shit.”

They sat silently for a few minutes. Finally, DiGrazia suggested that Shannon go home and get some rest, that he would call him when there was news about Elaine Horwitz.

“You might as well,” DiGrazia added, “you’re not going to be allowed to see her.”

There were a pair of messages on his machine from a Phil Dornich. Both messages had Dornich stating he was a private detective hired by Shannon’s wife and that he had important information for him. Shannon replayed them and then searched through the yellow pages. He found Dornich’s ad, the one Susan had circled. When he tried calling the number, he got an answering service. Dornich had been out the past few days but was expected back any minute. Shannon left his name and number and hung up.

It was almost one o’clock. Shannon didn’t feel like resting. He didn’t feel like facing Winters, at least not yet. He got in his car and headed towards the Dornich Detective Agency.

The door to Dornich’s office was unlocked. When Shannon opened it and looked in, a wave of nausea rolled through him. With over a decade on a city police force he had seen his share of killings and mutilations, but he had never seen anything close to this. Gore and blood were splattered everywhere and what was laying on the floor was a perverse mockery of a human body. Shannon turned away for a moment, steadied himself, and then reentered the office.