“Did he have any siblings? What happened to Bob?”
“Ah, hell. Bob was with another woman a few weeks after Ursa’s mom died. I think he married her. She had kids, he had a kid. They had some kids together. Two mutts tryin’ to be the Brady Bunch if you ask me. Bob’s dead now. Heart attack or a stroke. Somethin’. His wife’s dead, too. I never kept a bead on the kids. Hell, I don’t even think Bob called the boy Ursa. He called him somethin’ else entirely. The world knew the kid as Ursa, though. Look for Ursa Hanchett. As far as where he is now, I dunno. I quit carin’ ’bout Bob when he quit workin’ for me, if I’m bein’ honest.”
“Joe, thank you. I appreciate your help. Ursa has killed another man. The husband of the woman he raped.”
“This Mickey fella?”
“I think he killed Mickey, yes. But the guy Mickey met in prison and made the deal with, I know Ursa killed that guy.”
“Oh. I see it now. Well, go get ’em. Set fire to ’em.”
“I’m going to try,” I say.
The courtyard door opens and Chunk from behind the desk is standing there, hands on her hips. Looking like a penguin. “No smoking, Joe and Joe’s friend. Joe, you figure you know better with your ailment.”
“My cancer’s goin’ kill me whether I smoke or not,” Joe grumbles, flicks his butt out into the grass. “So suck it.”
Penguin huffs and turns around. I stand.
“Thank you for the help.” I drop the rest of my pack and the lighter on the bench next to him.
Joe looks up. “I just bought TVs, jewelry and guitars. Somebody had somethin’ to sell, and I bought it. That’s all.”
“I know.” He never looked for the blood, so it must not have ever been there to begin with.
We shake hands and I leave. Call 4-1-1, ask for the Yellow Pages. Ask for an address for a Mister Ursa Hanchett. Get it; he’s the only one in the book. Go there.
Help myself inside.
35
I have been inside the lairs of monsters before and they’re never quite what you’d expect.
In 1988 I worked on the Metro Squad to round up Dennis Mangeala, a serial killer with four corpses to his name. He lived in his mom’s basement, toys from the 1970s and onward still in their packages, dusted and neatly arranged on display. Interspersed between original Star Wars figures, GI Joes, Transformers and cereal box collectibles were bones from the elderly women he attacked and dismantled. Torture-erotica magazines were filed with his comic books. Superman and Wolverine adorning covers neatly cataloged alongside others featuring a man taking a blow torch to his crank, and other such scenes.
Jorge Ramirez-Sanchez, back in 1990, I think. Used a cordless drill on his wife and mother-in-law. Mailed pictures of them to family and his church. His place was a quaint bungalow, lots of sunlight filtering in through the blinds. Plush carpet. Empty refrigerator with the exception of a carton of strawberry yogurt.
Camille Dobey, her studio apartment divided in half. She painted the north side entirely black and filled the walls with heavy metal posters and all poser-Goth, vampires and werewolves shit. The south half was drenched in white with every imaginable religious symbol from around the world. Yin and yang, I guess. She would walk by people in the streets, slashing with razors she’d dip in Drano. We had her surrounded on 4th and 10th Avenue when she slit her own throat. Most women go for something cleaner, but not her. Blood everywhere.
Ursa Hanchett. The air in the place is oily and cool as it slithers along my skin. No sound. A faint bleach smell teases the air. Carpet, a living room that flows into a dining room and kitchen. I see two doors, no doubt one a bedroom and one a bath. The doors are opposite each other, both slightly ajar. I walk up and open the left door first. Bedroom. No Ursa. Bath. No Ursa.
He has an old black and white photo on his kitchen counter, turned to face the living room. It’s a woman. I’m guessing his mother. Her clothes smack of the late sixties or early seventies. Same with the hair. Good looking, but even in the picture I can see what Joe was talking about. Gorgeous when she wasn’t drunk and trying to cut Bob with his shaving razor. Crazy bitch. She just has an aura.
And what’s even more unsettling is how much she looks like Carla Gabler. If Mickey had gotten her involved in Petticoat’s burglary I bet there would have been two rape victims that night.
The sink in the bathroom has blood droplets on it. Used cotton balls stained a reddish brown. Peel-apart bandage wrappers scatter on the floor like errant snowflakes from a light dusting. Tweezers. Hair clippers still plugged into the wall and patches of shaved hair settled everywhere. A bloody thumbprint on the mirror.
Good. I fucked this guy up.
I open his linen closet, which apparently doubles as a medicine cabinet. He’s got prescription bottles lined up along one shelf. All opiates. They all have names on them, but none of them are his. Stolen, then, or bought off the street. Junkie. I count eight bags of cotton balls, plus the one in the bathroom he used on his wounds.
For such a small space, Ursa has lots of very expensive electronics. Top notch everything. HDTV, bluetooth-connected surround sound system. An awe-inspiring computer system. Wireless everything. Little gadgets galore. Video cameras, tablets, remotes to things I don’t even know where they are.
If I had all the time in the world I’d have Clevenger run the serial numbers through NCIC. I imagine most of this stuff is hot. But I don’t have the time.
Bedroom closet, then. He has so little space to hide things here; this is the obvious choice. And, bingo.
Immediately I start to flash to my closet where I keep my wife’s things.