“An’ good mouth-lovin’.”
“So’s instead’a killin’ ya like we done them other fellas, we’se gonna keep ya here.”
“But don’t’s ya worry none. Kari Ann’ll bring ya up viddles’n water ever day.”
Hull chortled. “An’ me’n Jor, we’ll’se bring ya up our peters ever nat.”
“That’s right, City,” Hull said, caressing the top of Gray’s head. It was almost affectionate. “You’se gonna suck my dick. Ever nat.”
Then Jory: “And you’se gonna take mine up yer cornhole.”
“You hear that, City? Ever nat.”
“That’s right, City. Ever nat.”
“Ever nat.”
“Sheeee-it! Ever nat fer the rest’a yer life!”
Gray got the message. He didn’t even bother listening any more. He just pinched his sphincter again, and sucked.
— | — | —
HANDS
When the EMTs brought the guy in, it looked like he must’ve sat down in a bathtub full of blood. “Damn it!” Parker shouted, thinking
Dr. Parker was completely bald; he was also in charge of Emergency Room Cove 4 tonight, and had been for the last twelve hours—or make that eleven hours and fifty-five minutes. He was pulling noon-to-mids for eight days straight, but he had tomorrow off. It would sure be nice to just go home and get some sleep, but this bleeder looked like a two- or three-hour string-job at least.
“Don’t forget your Hippocratic Oath,” Moler, his intern, remarked with a mordant grin. Moler had a short beard and a wise ass. “Looks like you miss Leno tonight, daddy-o.”
“Just get the meat on the table,” Parker ordered. He smirked as Moler and the gurney-jockey hoisted the unmoving patient up onto the crash table. “What’s the guy’s stats, Ben Casey?” he asked the EMT.
The EMT gave him the finger. “Looks like a single GS high and inside of the right thigh. We slapped a tourniquet on and brought him in.”
“Don’t EMTs have to go to school anymore?” Parker said. “How come you didn’t ligate the wound in the ambulance?”
“Because we picked him up on Jackson Street, about two minutes away, Dr. Dickhead,” the EMT replied.
“All that blood?” Moler observed. “The bullet might’ve hit the femoral artery.”
“Duh,” Parker said. “At least the Two Stooges out there know how to strap a tourniquet.”
“The guy’s type is A-pos, Shemp,” the EMT added. “Have fun. I’m out of here.”
“Thanks for staying to help out,” Parker shot back.
“Hey, that shit’s your job, I just drive. You’re the guy getting a hundred and fifty k a year. Have fun.”
The EMT left.
“We need three pints of A-pos in C4, stat,” Moler said into the phone and hung up. Then he leaned over the victim, squinting at the blood-drenched groin. “Looks small, looks like someone popped him with a .25, maybe a .32. Aimed for his cock but missed by an inch.”
“Probably right—”
A draft wafted. The cove door swung open, and it was the EMT again. “Oh, and I forgot to tell ya. We checked the guy’s wallet when we picked him up—he’s a homicide captain with city PD.”
“Move it!” Parker yelled. “Fuck!”
But Moler was shaking his head. “Come on—the guy’s dying.”
“I don’t want a damn
Shiny instruments clinked; Moler rushed the tray over, then raised the pair of Sistrunk-brand German fabric shears.
Parker put on his monocular, a plastic headset sort of thing with a single lens fitting over the eye; he’d need it to see the broken arterial walls. The completely baldhead, along with the monocular, made Parker look like a Nazi mad scientist.
Once the wound was exposed, he would cut laterally along the femoral artery and with a nearly microscopic needle and thread, perform a pre-op ligature in order to affect a cessation of the arterial blood flow. “Go!” he shouted. “Cut his pants off!”
“Roger that,” Moler said. The shears cut right through the waist of the slacks and the leather belt like onionskin paper.
Parker turned momentarily, snapped up an Arista scalpel. Its stainless-steel flash winked at him in the overheads. But before he could turn back around to the patient, he heard Moler’s dismal mutter.
“Oh, shit—”
“What!” Parker barked. “Don’t tell me he 64’d!”
“Naw, but… You better take a look at this. I think we got the guy they’ve been writing about in the papers…”
Dr. Parker finished turning. He closed the eye over which the monocular rested and looked down with his other eye. Moler had indeed expertly cut the patient’s pants off with the shears, and the boxer shorts as well. And when Parker saw what lay there, he knew immediately what his intern meant.
The “patient” had been carrying a severed human hand in his undershorts.
— | — | —
I guess I knew Jameson was the one the moment after the police shrink explained the psychiatric profile. But what tagged it was when Jameson took me to his Belltown condo and showed me those pictures. He introduced me to his wife, then showed me the row of framed snapshots over the mantle. One was a picture of him as a child, his father’s arm around him.
But no mother.
My name’s Matt Hauge; I’m a crime reporter for the
This was a cop, one of the bigwigs—a captain up for deputy chief. Cops generally hated press people but here’s this tall, imposing guy flashing his shield in my face and asking
“This Handyman shit—that’s my case,” he said..
“It’s my case too,” I countered.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here.” He sat down, pulled out a cigarette, asked if I minded if he smoked, then lit up before I could answer. Now that I think back, I should’ve known even then. This guy
“I know it’s your case,” he said. “You think I’m here for shits and giggles?”