Assistant District Attorney Patricia Chaplin sat behind the closed door of her spacious office her stocking feet propped atop the large Mahogany desk. She had kicked her heels off, shuttered the large antique framed window with the dusty Venetian blinds and flicked on the table lamp that cast its glow onto the report's pages. She read with interest how the small town Police Officer had been found guilty of first degree kidnapping and sexual assault; how the crime was alleged to have taken place without witnesses and without anyone being aware of it's happening, despite statements made in court to the contrary. Court appointed doctors and psychologists, so-called experts on the subject had testified that given the severity of Soyoung's injuries and thorough defilement, the little girl would have been screaming at the top of her lungs the whole time. Electric was said to have held her hostage over the course of days, since she had been missing from her family's mansion for two weeks prior to being found bloody and bound in the musty hotel room. Electric was also said to have been found in the room, inebriated beyond comprehension and therefore must have performed the majority of the officious acts in a state of total blackout.
It had taken the jury less than a full lunch hour to decide the verdict. Electric was found guilty in absentia, sentenced and convicted, because he was already serving time. There were loopholes upon loopholes of technicalities as well as discrepancies upon discrepancies, but the judge never considered the possibility of declaring a mistrial. It was simply an open and shut case; none too open and sealed like a tomb.
Detective's Richards and Kosova however had rekindled her interest in the bizarre case and reintroduced the shadow of doubt in her mind.
"Looks like we got somethin'."
"Yeh? What's that?"
"The slugs that chewed up those losers over on the West Side match the ones over in Jersey. It's Electric, alright."
"So he is in town."
"At least his guns are."
Kosova placed the ballistics report onto his desk, set his pants seat against the edge of the hard wood and lit a small cigar. He glanced at his partner almost coyly and Richards pretended not to notice. "But there's a kink," Kosova added presently.
"What's that?" Richards had his chair pivoted so that he could stare out the squad room's single dirty window. The city seemed to be floating somewhere that was neither day nor night, a thick gray fog clinging to the dull gray municipal buildings, light rain washing over the dark gray streets.
"The slugs that parted that blonde's hair were fired from a .38. Same type of bullet, different gun."
Richards swiveled, planted his feet firmly on the floor and faced his partner. "How many guns has this guy got!?"
"Too many."
"This Electric's a nasty son of a bitch."
"Yeh, he kills 'em on the Group Plan."
"Come on," commanded Richards, jumping to his feet, his face livid. "We've got to get this maniac off the streets!"
She was hungry and limping. I carried the heavy pistols and stank of death. She smelled like blood washed over with heady sex and perspiration. We came to the edge of the alley, the beat up metal trashcans rolling in the errant back draft coming off the wind beaten brick walls. Cars and trucks sped past the deserted side streets along the ten lanes of riverside highway as we walked to her car. I held a pistol in my hand; the other tucked snugly under my shoulder. She let go of my arm that her nails had been digging into like razorblades and ran ahead as I watched her move swiftly all of a sudden, her long legs practically leaping into motion, the black purse clutched tightly in her fist.
She stopped at the battered stone stoop of the crummy hotel as I went to the car, opened the door and got behind the wheel. I peered at Luna through the passenger window as she stood, body stiff as a statue, her skinny arms raised slowly in tandem, purse clenched in her fingers, one hand inside the small bag.
I turned the key in the rice burner's ignition and the Civic purred like a kitten.
I gunned it to see what it could do and the six-cylinders growled, the car's rear end hissing black exhaust. The shots were muffled by the noise, snapping like a hammer on thumbtacks. The two cops fell. The first, a female PO, was young, about twenty-five, probably fresh out of the Academy. The second was her sergeant, coming out of the hotel behind her. Luna had known they would be stepping out of the dark vestibule into the smog-drenched daylight with the sun in their eyes.
The lady cop had taken only one step into the damp morning air when the bullet caught her in the cap and rocketed through her skull, tearing off the back of her head. The lady cop's brain spattered into the guy's face followed by chunks of exploding lead. The second slug put his eyes out altogether as his fingers crawled lamely towards the Glock in his holster. The cops died never seeing the beautiful woman who shot them at point blank range, their bodies tumbling down the chipped stone steps onto the pavement. Luna then bent deeply at the waist as I watched her from behind. The thin coat hiking up gave me a full view of her dark haunches and I felt the blood race to my head, down to my heart and further to my foot on the accelerator, ready to speed out at any second. The olive-bodied gypsy patiently removed the uniforms' gun belts and sashayed lazily to the car carrying their weapons and ammo in her hands.
Dropping the equipment through the window onto the floor below the dashboard, she opened the door and slid in beside me, her long brown thighs scraped and streaked with scars, her bony knees scabby and glistening with blood. "You may need these," she said coldly.
"May?"
I hit the gas and burned highway tar.
"I cannot predict who you will kill next."
"Me? What about you, bright eyes? You're lookin' at the chair."
I caught her flashing purple eyes in the rearview mirror and turned to face her. I smiled rotten yellow teeth and reluctantly she raised a grin back at me on her thin gray face. Her teeth were fuzzy and greenish, but the grin was sincere. I imagined how she would look cleaned up; scrubbed and washed, thinking that might not be too bad an idea. As if she'd read my mind, the smile faded from her sharp cheeks and she was as glum and dour as ever.
"I have lived many lives," she pronounced. "But I can only die once."
"Make that two chairs."
Turning my eyes back to the highway, I drove fast and then faster, hit an exit and curled the car onto dark broken streets running past abandoned tenements and desolate housing projects. Places where cops never go unless they're looking to score themselves. They wouldn't be looking for the little rice burner.
As I made it into midtown, my driving became more cautious and innocuous to avoid attracting any attention. I sneered at the traffic and at her grave earnestness concerning her 'gift'. Steering with one hand, I pulled my guns from their holsters and dropped the weapons into her bruised lap. She winced when the heavy metal sank into her gritty thighs. "Load 'em," I said.
She picked up one of the gun belts, and carefully began plucking the shells from the leather loops, standing a neat row on the open panel of the glove box. She cracked the Magnum cylinder like an expert, inserting the fat slugs into the half dozen chambers, snapped the cylinder in place and handed it over. She did the same with the other and then loaded her pet Bulldog.
We were once again ready to meet any challenge, but I had to get her fed and put to bed. She was useless to me as a filthy bag lady and that meant we had to find a place where we could relax and not be disturbed. "Where to?" I asked, thinking she might have an idea.
"Chinatown."
"Funny, you don't look Chinese," I joked.
She didn't crack a smile, not even a slight smirk.
" I have relatives there. They are gypsies. Not everyone in Chinatown is—"
"I was kidding, fer Christ’s sake."
"Oh," she said in a small wilted breath. I guess she figured she owed me something too. After all, she was a woman under all that crust and I was a man, albeit a man with a dozen nooses around his neck.
Share "BARRY ELECTRIC: MAN IN A FRAME":
Download for all devices
(231 KB)