Stone Shadow

degenerate might have to do. But why would a good-lookin’ chap like you have to lower himself to that level of behavior? I'd really like to know.'

“Bullshit. That is pure BULLSHIT. I know that's in my file and it is absolute garbage. I don't have to whip my dingus out to get a broad to look at me. Ask little innocent Miss Donna, doubtless waiting in the wings. Ask that cunt. I only wish I'd reached the pulverizing stage with that nubile ex-flight-attendant, ex-semi-pro, ex-cocktail- hostess, and I mean with the emphasis on COCK, dig, the emPHASis on the foist si-LAB-bull but ... Look, hey! Let me tell you about that dumb twat.

“I walked by her in a shopping center and the chick is undressing me with her eyes and I smile over at her and she wolf-whistles like some hard-hat hard-on and so I rub my stuff and I go, ‘Li'l girl, wanna go for a ride?’ And five minutes later she's in my car and I've got my hand in between those hot legs. Little innocent Miss Donna.

“I called her ‘hothead’ because of her ability to go down on Sly here, as I told Dr. Roberts when he interviewed me about it, she was really ORAL, Roberts, and I liked to read awful gothic romances peddled by fag agents to her aloud while she sucked me off, and then I'd twist Miss Donna's hothead hair into a handle like so, and force her hot wet mouth back and forth on me. And I indoctrinated her into the pleasure-pain of boiling water.

“Get Miss Innocence to tell you how she liked to suck me with her mouth on fire from boiling water and how she'd cry with pleasure when I shot my hot load of spermaroony between those cum-soaked whore lips of hers. That fucking round-heeled tramp. I don't give a fat rat's cootie what it says in that lying pile of palomino poop, if I want a broad I TAKE ‘EM. Period.'

“What about all the killings?” Eichord asked. “Why would a sharp guy like Ukie Hackabee bother with it? What's the point?'

“Ah, ah,” shaking his finger at Eichord.

“Huh?'

Ukie laughed as he tilted his head a little and said, “Now, now. Naughty boy. Mustn't ask about such things until you've read me my rights. Under the United States Supreme Court ruling in U.S. vs. Miranda, a U.S. citizen has the right to remain silent during any Carmen Miranda movie in which there is a bananarama scene. If you cannot afford a hat with fruit on it one will be purchased for you. Anything you say can and will be used in Joe E. Brown's comedy act.'

“The guy talking to me now, this smart gentleman named Hackabee. This guy's no killer. Come on, man. Tell all.'

“Very effective. That's a good number the way you lower your voice in that conspiratorial hush. Almost a whisper. I like that. Very nice. Oh, yes. Jack, I'm afraid you're destined to play the good cop forever.'

“You said it, old boy. You're afraid.'

“Do which?'

“What are you so scared of? It's not like you could pay the death penalty more than once, is it?'

“Exactly my sentiments. So what do I have to gain by helping you with your little puzzle. Look, Jack—if I may be informal? Intimate with you, so to speak. Try to think of this as a theoretical whodunit. These are the clues, Mr. Serial Murder Expert. Read my lips. CLUUUUUUUU ZZZZ. You should be able to really sink your teeth into this thing. Try and think of everything I say as a clue. Where do you keep your clues? I keep mine in the clues’ closet at home. But say we had two sets of clues. Parallel hieroglyphs: one demotic, one noncolloquial not unlike the Rosetta Stone or the menu at Uncle Nick Zorba's Grecian Spoon. Now picture the thing nonisoscelean: the hypotenuse of each triangular shape tangential in such a manner that the sum of each is equidistant within the peripheral closed curve of an ellipse that encloses them, bend the outer curve like so'—he tried to gesture earnestly—'and you have a figure-eight infinity symbol which, when studied with the other clues, will divulge a secret more diabolical than the rumored Satanic preachment in the Stones’ album covers—'

“Ukie—'

“—the alleged subliminal symbolism within Procter and Gamble's corporate logo, the double entendre of the Beatles’ music from the Helter Skelter period, and at the perigee of our bent orbs, when the theme song from that television milestone, touchstone, and kidney stone Mister Ed is played backward ‘someone sung the song for Satan’ and ‘the source is Satan’ can clearly be heard, much the same way ‘Paul is dead’ supposedly follows in the end grooves of Strawberry Fields, or ‘fuck your girl all kinds of ways’ was rumored to allegedly grace the lyrical beauty of Louie, Lou-eye, or—'

“Ukie, we sure are wasting valuable time here,” Jack said with a smile. “How come you didn't mess with those pretty girls you took down? Weren't they your type?'

“I'd have thought you'd been more interested in how I zapped that whole family of citrus-pickers. Three of them. That was a real challenge. Don't you want to know how I put ole Hay-zoos away?'

Eichord widened his eyes but said nothing. Not wanting to interrupt the first piece of information that had any reality attached to it.

“Don't you want to know about that one?'

“Sure I do.'

“No. You say you want to know but soon as I'd start explaining it, running it down for you, pulling your coat to it, you'd tune out on me. And that's a shame because I can see that raw intellect oozing out of every pore. No lie, you're the only cop I've met since this like, you know, came to a head who has even a prayer of understanding what they've got hold of.'

“I'd like to try to understand.'

“You sure?'

“As long as it doesn't have anything to do with TV laugh tracks I'll listen.” Ukie giggled. “Give it my best shot, anyway.'

“You know we're part of history now, right?'

Eichord raised his eyebrows and tried to smile.

“I mean, if you knew where all the bodies were buried, Jack, you wouldn't believe it. But before we talk about all the skeletons in my closet, you have to understand my—what do you guys say—modus operandi?'

“Right.'

“Let's talk about God and icons, okay? You believe in God, right?'

Eichord nodded.

“Okay. Are you familiar with the doctrine of pantheism? Sacerdotalism? The paradox of syncretism? Palingenetic phylogeny? A simple yes or no will do.'

“Yes or no.'

Which broke Ukie up. There was a lot more. Just as Hackabee said, he tuned it out, somewhere between “cranial suture” and “chthonic and telluric ritual” he glanced at his watch and tried to swallow. It hadn't been an entire waste. Also, back when Ukie had wished his relationship with Donna Scannapieco had been at “the pulverizing stage” something had lit up for a second. A thing that was icy and nameless and invisible had touched him just for that quick passing moment. Blown across him like a cold wind.

But even in the face of Ukie's babbled confession, nothing about this mess was right. Nothing.

Dallas Lockup

It comes in a nightmare, death masked as an artist, coming paint his mind's portrait in shadows and blood, and it will call him Still Life with Frame and hang it face to the wall and before he can beg it has taken him there and the stone corridors of the dark pathway are empty.

“CLETUS!” A blood-chilling scream from the deep blackness.

He feels the penetration like his mind was a veil splattered in scarlet PLEASE NO DON'T but its fury takes him and the fall is like diving down into burning liquid crystal and the silken whisper from inside this darkened mirror is the scream of madness, “C L E T U S!” An exploding, blazing mirror in black, angel on fire, the scream boiling out of his deepest fears.

PLEASE, OH GOD, he begs and the thing in deep shadow, tall and fierce, catches his mind praying and hurts him making him scream again, laughing, forcing him to quote the bible but twisting it, making him blaspheme, and he feels the words: “And again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between the mountains; and the mountains were mountains of bronze,” the words of ZECHARIAH 6:1, but what he hears himself say is, “And again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four corpses came out from between two graves; and the