J King - Angel of Death

Azra stared at the TV. It showed a black screen with small lines sparking atop it, the DVD paused just before the opening credits of a Great Performances production of Tennessee Williams’s Orpheus Descending.

“He wasn’t alone.”

“What?” Donna called from the kitchen.

“You can’t stop a suicide.”

She emerged from the kitchen and tore open the popped bag of corn. “What do you mean?”

“Even if you could roll back time, could reassemble the kid’s head and plead with him not to do it, he would do it anyway. Even if you appeared before him, an angel of God, and ordered him to live, he would die anyway. A suicide wants death more than anything else in the world. You can’t dissuade that kind of desire.”

“They have no idea,” Donna said, her voice growing bitter, “no idea what they’re doing to the people they love.”

“Who?”

“Suicides.” She paused. Her eyes grew gray with memory. “God, I would have done anything to save him.”

“You didn’t even know him.”

“I’m not talking about him,” Donna snapped. Then her tone softened. “I’m sorry. Just remembering my brother.”

“Oh, yeah,” Azra said quietly. “Right. Kerry.”

“Yeah. His name was Kerry.”

“I’m sorry.” He drew a deep breath. “We don’t have to watch. If you need to talk-”

“No.” She sniffed. “I just need some napkins. You can start the disc.”

Azra pressed the Play button. The title appeared, glowing in the midst of the stark darkness. Orpheus De- scending. In parentheses beneath these words appeared Williams’s original title, (Battle of Angels). Donna returned from the kitchen, settled into the love seat next to Azra, and set the warm bag between them. She looked up in time to see the fading title sequence.

“Do you believe in angels, Donna?” Azra asked.

“Me?”

“Do you believe in angels?”

“Yes.” She considered between bites of popcorn. “Yes. I suppose I always have.”

“Do you believe they can appear to humans – to us?”

“Yes.”

“And intervene on our behalf?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t they? Why don’t they intervene more often? Why don’t they save us? Why don’t they?”

Munching on popcorn, she stared at Azra’s intensely angry eyes and said, “We have to live. They can’t step in whenever someone’s tire goes flat. We have to live.”

“Yes. We have to live.”

Light came up in a country mercantile store. Opening lines gave way to a surreal monologue. The speaker was a middle-aged gossip named Beulah, who told about a

“poor old Wop” named Papa Romano who “sold liquor to the niggers.” A group of vigilantes paid him back by pouring coal oil over his vineyard and orchard, burning everything. Not a fire truck came that night, and old Papa Romano tried to put out the fire himself but burned alive doing it.

Donna shook her head. “People can be so cruel.”

“God can be so cruel.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I just say it.”

She leaned against him, her arm touching his from shoulder to wrist. “Let’s forget about that horrible night. Let’s just try to enjoy the movie. I wasn’t a Tennessee Williams fan before that night.”

“Me neither.”

“My brother liked the Road pictures and the Fred and Ginger movies. Light stuff. I don’t think he’d’ve much liked these plays.”

A new figure had entered the mercantile, a lean drifter with a guitar. He was speaking to the owner of the place, the woman whose father had been burned up in the orchard years before. He spoke about a tiny bird with no legs that spent its whole life in the sky. He claimed to have seen one that had died and fallen to the ground, with a sky-colored body that was feather light and the size of a pinky. It even slept on the wind, simply spreading its wings and sleeping. It never touched ground until it died. “So’d I like to be one of those birds,” he said, “they’s lots of people would like to be one of those birds and never be… corrupted!”

Donna turned to Azra. “I’d like to be one of those birds.”

He seemed to deflate. “I used to be one of those birds.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. It’ll all be put right in a few weeks. It’ll all be right then.”

She watched him, his small movements, and said, “Let’s just try to get back to the way things were, before the truck accident and all this. Let’s just try to get back to being happy.”

He smiled sadly. “Yes. Let’s just try.”

Detective Leland was filling out a time-study form when the phone rang. She started at first, but then smiled tightly. Maybe it was Azra. The phone sounded again. It didn’t matter who or what it was. She was happy for anything to end the tedium.

“This is Detective Leland.”

“Samael will kill again tonight.” The man’s voice was utterly neutral in tone.

Happy for almost anything to end the tedium. “What?”

“Tonight in the old warehouse west of town, between Route 11 and the tracks beside the White River, 10:30 p.m.”

“Who is this?”

The click was almost soundless.

“Hello? Hello?”

The dial tone buzzed in her ear. She let the receiver slump away, her hand loose and clammy around the plastic. Her other hand lifted and quietly pressed the switch hook.

Tonight. It hadn’t been the killer on the other end. The man had been too cogent, too precise. Besides, the killer had never wanted to gain attention. He was not the sort who was seeking publicity. Maybe it was a prank – except that the name Samael was known only to a handful of cops, the Feds, and the killer…

And his accomplice.

What if the call had come from the organized half of the crimes?

Leland hit*69.

The phone rang. It hadn’t sounded like a cell phone, and the station had caller ID set up for all the pay phones in Burlington. The phone rang. It had to be a landline, probably from somewhere nearby. The phone rang. The phone rang. The phone rang.

Leland hung up. “Think! Think!”

Serial killing teams were rare. Occasionally brothers or cousins would band together, gather up handcuffs, rope, and duct tape, and kill a handful of hitchhikers and prostitutes before they would get caught. Gacy said that some of his construction employees had aided with his crimes. It was likely, too, that his wives knew what he was doing. Then, there were the D.C. shooters, the ex-sniper Malvo and his young companion, like an evil Batman and Robin. But a disorganized killer working with an organized partner?

She dialed again.

“Hello, boss? Leland here. I’ve got an anonymous tip on our killer. Another slaying tonight at the old Badger Cigar warehouse by the river. Ten thirty. Yeah, I think it’s legit. That’s what my gut says. Yeah. How many squads can I have within three blocks? Yeah, that’s what I thought. A sharpshooter or ten would be nice, too. It’s a pretty big site to cover. I’ll call up to Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, see who they can spare. No, I’d like to brief everybody at seven tonight. I’ll give the details then. Yeah. I hope so, too. It’s time to get this guy. Thanks. Bye.”

Again, her hand descended on the switch hook and held it a moment. It shook slightly as she lifted it. She dialed out, and punched in another number.

“Hi, Blake Gaines, please.” Her heart pounded audibly in her chest. “Yes, hi, Blake. Detective Leland here. Yes, it’s full detective now, thanks. Remember when you took those crowd shots for me? No, they’ve not turned up anything yet, but a favor’s a favor. It’s payoff time. Yeah – not just big, but huge. No, only you. Come to the station tonight by six forty-five. Tell nobody else. I don’t give a damn about the desk editor. Yeah. It’s because you’re the best. Bring high-speed film and a tripod, no flash. If all this goes well, you’ll have a frontpage photo, and we’ll have evidence of a crime in the offing.