Headhunter

Mama was out to kick her nephew out of a skid. Perhaps he'd been fucking up.

So Hardy hits town and takes a room down near skid road. With him he's also brought Helen Grabowski aka Patricia Ann Palitti. She's peddling her ass for money while he gets Ins trip together. 'No doubt,' Spann had theorized, 'he starts the girls on coke and then adulterates it with junk. Once he's got their noses hooked he jabs them in the mainline. The first thing he did on hitting the city was seek out a connection to get junk for his whore. In the end the man he finds is Joe Winalagilis, our Indian. Hardy connects with his cousin and soon he's on the way up. Rackstraw puts him to work as his cocaine go-between.'

Meanwhile, however, unknown to the cousins, Tipple out of Commercial Crime was into his investigation.

So the flying patrol gets on to Hardy and…

'Damn! We had to lose him!' Rick Scarlett exclaimed.

'You know,' Spann said, 'if we're right and Hardy is a skinner using this voodoo trip as a blind, or even if the murders are part of the ritual itself, we're going to look awfully silly if another body shows up. People are going to ask why.'

'Do you think he takes the heads in order to traffic in the skulls? Do you think that's his reason?'

'Who knows?' the woman said. 'Perhaps he just wants to fuck them and kill them and takes the skulls as a sideline. Maybe he's into some personal ritual of his own. Maybe the bones go Stateside and into the voodoo market. Or maybe the bones end up on the ground out on that bayou island. Anything's possible.'

'Okay, let's say Grabowski crosses him and becomes his second victim. Perhaps he has no need for her once he connects with Rackstraw. Perhaps he's pissed off cause she gets herself busted and raises his profile in town. She's an alien working the streets and that's bound to draw him heat. So assume all that, what about the bones in North Vancouver? What about Liese Greiner?'

'Maybe he was up here once before trying to find Rackstraw and didn't make a connection. Perhaps he killed her then. Or maybe Rackstraw did it and they're in this together. Like the allegation about a Hillside Strangler team.'

'And maybe killing is now in his blood and he's unable to stop it. Damn! What a colossal bummer. Why did we have to lose him?'

'Because we played this tail too loose, that's why. We should have bugged those masks. We should have followed Hardy instead of counting on him to call Rackstraw when he returned. We should have had the FBI stake out that air freight office in Spokane to see if someone picked up the masks. We should have done a lot of things which stupidly we didn't. We shouldn't have been so smug.'

'I wonder where those masks are now?'

'Maybe they're crossing the border hidden in among a museum consignment.'

'Maybe they're being trucked in through the wilds of the Rocky Mountains.'

'Wherever they are they were picked up and we lost them in Spokane.'

'So what are we going to do?'

'Let's have a talk with Tipple,' Katherine Spann suggested.

'I'd rather go find Rackstraw. He knows where Hardy is. They're his masks and the stuff is his cocaine.'

'What good would that do? It would only tip him off. He didn't talk last time. He won't talk now.'

Kick Scarlett smiled and looked her straight in the eye.

You don't know me, Kathy. I won't be played for a fool. The next time we see Rackstraw, believe me, I'll make him talk.'

'I do believe you're serious. Let's find Tipple.'

Ottawa, Ontario

5:.30 p.m.

At half past five on that dark afternoon Commissioner Francois Chartrand left his office at RCMP Headquarters. As usual he strolled slowly along the crowded streets of the capital, watching the civil servants queue up for buses as ambassadors in long black limousines swept by. It was the time of day that Chartrand savored, so when he reached the parliament buildings he found himself an empty bench on the conncourse out front and sat down to relax. Lighting another Gauloise, he inhaled the smoke in deep.

Before leaving his office that afternoon the Commissioner had received yet another call from Edward Fitzgerald. The Minister was phoning to tell him that the Opposition in the

Commons would not let the matter die; they wanted to know exactly what was being done to ensure that the Headhunter was caught before he struck again. The Solicitor General was jumpy. 'Francois,' he had said, 'I tell you we cannot afford another killing. Not one more.'

This particular call had not disturbed Chartrand greatly: it was all a part of the job. There were those who thought the Commissioner no more than a figurehead, a man put out to semi-retirement as Commander of the Force. All one had to do, they said, was sit behind a large desk with so many levels strung out below that every problem was resolved before it reached the door. But Chartrand knew different.

To Francois Chartrand his job was one of awesome responsibility. For as he saw it he was one man assigned the duty of protecting an entire nation. In Canada if something went wrong it was his responsibility. And something was very wrong now.

Chartrand was bothered by his last call to Robert DeClercq.

There was nothing to put his finger on, other than perhaps a certain tone that came through in the Superintendent's voice, but the Commissioner was far too shrewd a leader not to know that every man at war has a breaking point. It was fair to say that the Force was now facing a challenge far out on its western flank that was quite unlike any war that it had ever fought before. The difference was that public hysteria was mounting at a mathematical rate. Chartrand was receiving reports. He knew that incidents of violence involving women in Vancouver were exploding in number, mostly over-reaction to minor situations. People were frightened. That fear was building every day the killer wasn't caught. And every day the pressure on DeClercq screwed up a notch.

Chartrand was worried that Robert DeClercq might be near that breaking point.

It had happened to the man who led the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. It could easily happen in Vancouver.

What am I doing in Ottawa? the Commissioner asked himself. The true place of a General is with his men in the field.

Then Chartrand reached for a cigarette and knew he had made up his mind.

Tomorrow he'd go to Vancouver; tomorrow he'd meet with DeClercq. It was time to troop the colors. And to bring out the uniform.

Vancouver, British Columbia

Thursday, November 11th, 3:45 a.m.

'Sparky.'

'Shut up! Go away! Fuckin' leave me alone!'

'Sparky, now really, is that the way you talk to your mother?'

'You're dead! Get lost! I know you can't be here!'

'Sparky, I'm waiting for you. Come down and stroke my hair.

'No!'

'Soft, soft, so soft — and how long and black it is. Black, black, black, child. Black as the time of night.

'Mother, why must you torment me? Why won't you leave me alone!'

'Because I love you, Sparky.'

'No you don't. You make me do awful things.'

'Sparky, how can we have pleasure — unless we also have pain?'

'Well, I won't do what you ask!'

'You'll do anything I say.'

'No I won't.'

'Yes you will.'