Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

His partner did not explain until they were in the car, weaving through traffic. “Last night a homeless guy found a hooker in a garbage can with a knife stuck in her chest. He called an ambulance, and they took her to Hollywood Community and hooked her up to life support. Cop at the hospital searched the hooker’s clothes for ID, and realized the homeless guy had cleaned her out. He tracked the homeless guy down on Sunset Strip this morning, and busted him.”

“I’m sure there is a moral to all of this,” Wondero said.

“There is. The homeless guy admitted he rolled the victim, and produced a note he found in her pocket. It’s from Death.”

A dilapidated pick-up sliced through two lanes of traffic, cutting them off. When Rittenbaugh punched the horn, the pony-tailed driver gave them the finger, and they simultaneously flashed their badges.

“Get a haircut,” Rittenbaugh yelled as they passed.

“Is the hooker still alive?”

“Yeah. He finally missed.”

“What’s her name?”

“Tawny Starr.”

“Has it hit any of the papers?”

“She’s a hooker, Harry,” Rittenbaugh said, turning into the hospital parking lot. “It won’t get noticed unless we release the note. The bad news is she’s in rough shape.”

“Can she talk?”

“I don’t think so.”

The black plastic mask that covered Tawny Starr’s nose and mouth reminded Wondero of a piece of outdated scuba equipment. A metal lung hung beside the bed, pumping oxygen into her chest. Her eyes looked tired and old, as if in the past few hours her internal clock had sped up, and her whole life had slipped by.

Beside the bed sat an Asian police artist doing a pencil sketch on a white pad. He paused to display his work. Her glassy eyes studied the sketch, and blinked heavily.

Wondero got behind the artist and had a look. The drawing showed a homely man in his mid-thirties with flared nostrils and a low forehead. A Dodgers cap covered most of his head, and a pair of glasses disguised his face. What set him apart were his eyes. They were a maniac’s eyes, and bulged out of his head. He also did not appear to have eyebrows, and Wondero wondered if this was intentional, or if the artist was planning to charcoal them in.

He went into the hall. Rittenbaugh was grilling the uniform who’d brought the victim in.

“This is Detective Harry Wondero,” Rittenbaugh said. “Harry, meet Ben Jackson. Ben, would you mind repeating what you just said?”

“Sure.” Jackson tilted his styrofoam cup, tapping out the last drop of coffee with his finger. “Like I told your partner, EMS thought she was dead, her pulse was so low. As she was being put in the ambulance, her eyes popped open, and she started talking. I asked her if she saw the guy who stabbed her, and she gives me this awful stare and whispers “He looked like you.” I said, “Like me?” and she says, “With a baseball cap.” So I said, “Do you remember anything else?” and she says, “He had schoolbooks.” Then I heard her say, “Red Warrior.” Then she passed out.”

Listening to him speak, Wondero knew Jackson was a rookie. That was why he had hung around the hospital, instead of filling out a report and going home to sleep, or to his other job.

“What do you think she meant?” Rittenbaugh asked.

“I wish I knew,” Jackson said.

Wondero said, “Were there any witnesses?”

“She was dumped behind the Las Palmas hotel. Plenty of people were around, only no one saw a thing.”

Wondero stared down the empty hospital corridor. How many times had it happened? How many times had the woman living next door sworn she’d seen nothing? Or the man walking his dog hadn’t heard a sound. Or the party of teenagers on the beach thought the screams were gulls fighting over garbage brought in by the tide.

Without another word, Wondero walked back into the victim’s room. Rittenbaugh slapped Jackson’s shoulder.

“Thanks a lot. I appreciate your hanging around.”

“I hope it helps,” the uniform said.

“Everything helps,” Rittenbaugh told him.

The police artist was finishing up as Wondero entered the room. Tawny Starr had shut her eyes and her breathing had grown shallow. Wondero picked up the clipboard hanging from her bed. Her real name was Tawny Starkowski, hometown unknown. He glanced at her birth date. Seventeen. The same age as his daughter.

Wondero said, “Did you show her the sketch?”

“Afraid not. She went under right after you left the room,” the artist said.

He hung the clipboard back on the railing. If Tawny didn’t point at the sketch, utter the words “That’s him!” or say something similar in front of a reliable witness, than what she’d told Jackson was worthless.

A female doctor entered the room along with a nurse. The doctor took Tawny’s pulse and lifted one of her eyelids.

“Is there any chance she’ll come back around?” Wondero asked.

“You must be the police,” the doctor said.

Wondero felt like he’d been slapped in the face. “I need to speak with her. She may be able to help us catch a killer.”

“Not today.” She scribbled away on the clipboard hanging from Tawny’s bed.

“Please answer my question,” Wondero said.

“It’s not in my hands anymore.”

She spoke to the nurse, who quickly left the room.

“Yes, or no,” Wondero said.

“You don’t let up, do you?”

Wondero waited her out.

“All right. No, I don’t think she’ll recover. It’s a miracle she’s lasted this long.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your professional opinion.”

“Oh, go to hell,” the doctor said.

Wondero and his partner went to a a doughnut shop two blocks from the hospital where, two hours before, there had been an armed robbery. The store manager still wore the shocked expression of someone who had seen his life flash before his eyes, and been angered by the futility of it. He banged the register shut and slapped their change onto the counter. They hid in the rear of the store, eating grape jelly doughnuts and drinking coffee.

“We need to release the sketch to the media,” Wondero said.

“Can’t,” his partner said. “The victim never confirmed it.”

“We can say she did.”

“Who will back us up? Not Jackson, and not the police artist. It’s a bad idea, Harry.”

“But we know what he looks like. If we put the sketch out there, and someone sees it, they might identify him.”

“We’ve got to play by the rules, Harry.”

Wondero sucked down the rest of his coffee. “I’ve got another idea.”

“Oh, boy.”

“Just listen. We know a more about Death than we did before. We have a vague idea what he looks like, and we know that last night he was driving around the strip impersonating a college student. What makes this significant is this. Death doesn’t know that we know. He thinks he killed Tawny Starr.”

“I don’t see how that helps us, Harry.”

“We give the sketch to Hardare.”

“I’m not reading you.”

“We take him to the scene of the crime. Bring reporters. Let him do the psychic number. He draws the sketch, and says this is what the killer looks like. The newspapers won’t have any problem printing it then.”

Rittenbaugh buried his head in his hands. “You’re sounding like something straight out of the nut house.”

“Hardare scared him once,” Wondero insisted. “He can do it again. We have to use the sketch.”

“It’s one thing to bend the rules, it’s another when you break them.”

“Bad deeds, good intentions.”

“I suppose you think one balances the other.”

“I wouldn’t stay on the force if I did. But in this situation, I think it’s warranted.”