Grimoire Diabolique

millions more in hospital fees when they OD. Sooner or later society’s gonna get fed up…but probably not in my fuckin’ lifetime.”

“That’s quite a social thesis, captain. Should I start my next article with that quote?”

“Sure,” he said. “But you’ll have to have it transcribed.”

“Transcribed?” I asked.

“They won’t let you have a computer or typewriter in prison. Between the FCC violations and the tax-evasion, they’ll probably give you five years, but don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll parole you after, say, a year and a half.”

Okay, so maybe I’ve cut a few corners on my taxes, and I almost never use that descrambler…but I didn’t know if he was kidding about this stuff or not. And Jameson didn’t look like the kind of guy to kid about anything.

“Now that we’ve got that settled—come on. I need a drink.”

««—»»

Jameson wasn’t kidding about that either, about needing a drink. He slammed back three beers—tall boys—in about ten minutes while I sipped a Coke. Of all places, he’d taken me to The Friendly Tavern at James Street and Yesler, what most people would call a “bum” bar. It was on the same block as the city’s most notorious subsidized housing complex, a couple of liquor stores and two bail bondsman’s. Right across the street was the county courthouse.

“You sure know how to pick the posh spots,” I said.

“Aw, fuck all those ritzy socialist asshole pinkie-in-the-air places up town,” Jameson replied. “I want to drink, I don’t want to listen to some bald lesbian read poetry. I don’t want to listen to a bunch of fruitcake men with fingernail polish and black lipstick talk about art. I’ll tell ya, one day Russia and the Red Chinese are gonna invade us, and this’ll probably be the first city they take. When they get a load of the art-fag freak show we’ve got going on here, they’ll just say fuck it and nuke us. All this fuckin’ tattoo homo Goth shit, women in combat boots, guys with Kool-Aid-colored Mohawks swapping tongues in public and girls sticking their hands down each other’s pants while they’re walking down fuckin’ Fifth Avenue. Everybody wearing black, of course—’cos it’s chic, it’s sophisticated. Everybody with all this ridiculous metal shit in their face, fuckin’ rings in their nose and lips, rivets in their tongues. Nobody gives a shit about global terrorism or the trade-deficit—all they care about is getting their dicks pierced and picking up the next Maryland Mansion album.”

“I think that’s Marilyn Manson,” I said, “and, boy, you’re packing a whole lot of hatred, Captain.”

“I wouldn’t call it hatred.”

“Oh? You consider the homeless, the drug-addicted, and destitute to be, and I quote ‘walking garbage’ and you’ve just railed against alternative lifestyles with more invective than a right-wing militia newsletter. If that’s not hatred, what is it?”

“Focused animosity.”

“Ah, thanks for the clarification,” I said, amazed at this guy.

“The world doesn’t ask much, you know? Work a job and obey the law—that’s all anyone needs to do to be okay in my book.” He slugged more beer, then glanced around in loathe. “The art-faggots, the dykes and the pinkos? I guess I can put up with them—most of ’em got jobs and they tend to stay out of the per-capita crime percentages. I’m just sick of seeing it, you know? Fuckin’ pinkos.”

“Didn’t that term die out in the ’70s?” I speculated. “Like when All In The Family went off the air?”

Jameson didn’t hear me. He took another slug of beer, another loathsome glance around at the bar’s patronage. “But this shit here? The rummies, the winos? They’re the ones that get my goat. Ever notice how shit- hole bars like this are always full the first week of the month?”

I squinted at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s ’cos on the first of the month, they all get their four-hundred-dollar SSI checks. Then they come here and sit around like a bunch of waste-products and drink till the money’s gone. Then the rest of the month they pan- handle or mug people for booze money.”

I had to protest. “Come on, Captain. I read the crime indexes. Incidences of the homeless mugging citizens are almost non-existent. They pan-handle because there’s nothing else they can do. And they drink because they’re genetically dependent on alcohol. They can’t help it.”

“Gimme a break,” he said. “I’m not surprised at something like that from lib journalist. Jesus Christ. Everything’s a disease today. If you’re a lazy piece of shit, you’ve got affect disorder. If you’re a fat fuck, it’s an inherited glandular imbalance. If your kid’s a wise-ass, smart-ass punk fucking up in school, it’s amotivational syndrome or attention-deficit disorder. What they all really need is a good old fashioned ass-kicking. Crack ’em in the head with a two by four enough times and they’ll get the message that they gotta pull their own weight in this world. And these fuckin’ rummies and crackheads? Oh, boo-hoo, poor them. It’s not their fault that they’re dope addicts and drunks, it’s this disease they have. It’s this thing in their genes that makes them be useless stinking fuck-ups on two legs. Put all that liberal shit in a box and mail it to someone who cares. I’ll bet you give money to the ACLU and ACORN. If they had it their way, we’d all be paying seventy-percent taxes so these fucking bums could drink all day long and piss and shit in the street whenever they want.”

This hypocrisy made me sick. If anyone in this bar were an alcoholic, it was Jameson. “You know something, Captain?” I said. “You’re the most hateful, insensitive asshole I’ve ever met in my life. You’re an ignorant bigot and a police-state fascist. You probably call African-Americans niggers.”

“Naw, we call ’em boot-lips and porch monkeys. You don’t see white people prancing down the street rubbing their fuckin’ crotches and playing cop-killer rap out of those ghetto blasters, do you? I’se Amf-nee, I’se Tyrome. Kill duh poe-leece.. Kill duh poe-leece.”

“I’m leaving,” I said. “This is incredulous. What the hell am I doing even sitting here with you? What the hell has this got to do with your psycho killer?”

“Everything,” he said, and ordered his fourth beer. “It doesn’t matter what my views are—you’re a journalist, you’re supposed to report the truth. Even if you hate me…you’re supposed to report the truth, right?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Well none of the other papers are doing that. None of them have even queried my office to ask anything about the status of our investigation. It’s easier just to write these horror-movie articles about the three poor victims who were brutally murdered by this killer, and about how the big bad police aren’t doing anything about it because they don’t care about street whores or the homeless. They want to make this look like Jack the fucking Ripper so they can sell more papers and have something to talk about at their pinko liberal bisexual cocktail parties.”

I finished my Coke, grabbed my jacket off the next stool. “I’m out of here, Captain. You’ve given me no reason to stay and listen to any more of this bullshit. You want me to write a news article about police diligence regarding this case? That’s a laugh. You haven’t shown me anything. In fact the only thing you’ve shown me is that the captain of the homicide unit is a drunk and a bigot. And go ahead and report me to IRS and FCC. I’ll take my chances.”

“See? You’re just like the others—you’re a phony.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you haven’t even asked me the most important question. Why? Because you don’t care. All you care about is putting the police on the hot-seat just like all these other non-writing chumps.”

It was very difficult for me to not walk out right then. But I have to admit, I was piqued by what he’d suggested. “All right. What’s the question I didn’t ask?”

“Come on, you went to college, didn’t you? You’re a smart guy.” Jameson drained half of the next beer in one chug, then lit another cigarette off the last stub. “When you’ve got a string of related murders, what’s the first thing you’ve got to do?”

I shrugged. “Establish suspects?”

“Well, yeah, but before you can do that, you have to verify the common-denominators of the modus. Once you’ve done that, you gotta pursue a workable analysis of the of the motive. Remember, this is a serial