Monster Media 1994 #2/Monster Media No. 2 (Monster Media)(1994).ISO/magazine/rubyv33.zip/RUBY33-3

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Copyright 1994(c)

             DEATH FROM AMBER: MIRCHANDANI'S BEASTS

                     PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

     Dissed by pigeons. Dissed by the Department. Dissed by
the world. First, I'll tell you about the pigeons.
     I became a cop because I saw the opportunity for a job
that I could do and do well. I am from the D.C. area but
I was in Florida when I saw the recruitment poster for D.C.
cops. The recruitment poster didn't tell me that D.C. is
plagued by pigeons. A whole mess of them. If I knew how bad
the pigeons had become, I would have stayed in Florida.
     Six weeks ago, a pigeon dumped its do on to my car. Put me
in a bad mood. The car was mine, not the Department's. The
junker they assigned me conked out on the Avenue. I couldn't
get it going. The car radio and the mobile one, both, had
died. They needed a battery. I had to bum a call in a corner
store to call for a tow truck and a ride. I wound up driving
my own car for the day. The Department didn't have any backups.
     The sergeant said that everything was coming to pieces because
of the budgetary cutbacks. I wanted to take my nine and smoke
that crapping pigeon until it was in a hundred pieces. I
understand that pigeon-do leave stains and cause rust. God,
was I mad and concerned. I owed ten thousand dollars on that
car. I stopped at a convenience store, told the clerk what
happened and begged for tissue and spray cleanser. He was a
good citizen. He gave me a roll and a bottle of disinfectant.
I scrubbed the do away, then used the store's rest room to
scrub my hands. I was disgusted with pigeons, and weary;
thought that the droppings was a bad sign, a forewarning that
nothing but crap was on its way.
     My name is Bonner. I am a detective first class. I work
out of the first district.  I had gone over to the Seventh
District and on the Avenue because that it's where the nut
house is. My assignment was missing persons. Sure, with all
the troubles the city was under, with dudes doing homicides
as quick as they were doing their chicks, I wondered why a
gold shield was assigned to a chicken-do job like missing
persons, something any uniform, plain shield can handle.
     I was so assigned because the lieutenant is a panty-ass-desk-
cop who hates my balls. He has enough book smarts to pass the
lieutenant's examination, but he has no street experience.
He hates me because I've pointed this out in his face. If he
had any real smarts, I wouldn't put it pass him to have put a
trained bird up to crapping on my car.
                               I.
     When I walked into the nut house, the hospital, I knew
that the bird crap was a sign that trouble was around the
corner. Sure enough, the witness I had come to interview
smelled like he had crapped on himself. I think he broke
wind just before he was ushered into the room.
     I addressed him as "Sir," which is the way I begin
every interview with a citizen. The orderly asked if I
wanted him to stay, I nodded. The citizen sat, the orderly
stood on guard.
     "Will you tell me what you know about Mrs. Constance
Jordan who has been missing for a month from her home?" I
spoke to him in my quiet authoritative tone, the way they
taught us to ask questions at the police academy.
     His eyes got rather larger. They looked like he had
been drugged. I thought, the hospital was probably
shooting him with everything they had to keep him under
control. "Mr. Detective," he started to speak. His diction
was quite good for a low-life. He told me, he was pleased
that I had come, and he would tell me all that he knew.
Then, he moved closer to me. I wanted to move away because
of his smell, but I acted professionally. I pretended that
I didn't smell him. I thought, he was a cooperative citizen
with valuable information, until he told me - "The beasts
got her."
     "Say what, Sir?"
     "They came out of her wall and got her. The beasts took
her away."
     "Sir? Sir ..."
     "They want to take people away."
     "All right, sir," I said, and he told me, he wanted me to
stop the beasts. I asked him to describe these beasts. For a
minute, I thought he might be talking about a new crew,
another street gang that was into drugs and the kidnapping of
people. Then, he told me about green bug-eyed monsters that
feed on human flesh and he told me about something that
happened when he was a runt, a running-nose kid. Next, he
mentioned garlic pills. Told me, he wanted garlic pills. After
a good ten minutes of listening to him ramble, I couldn't
figure out the point of what he was saying, but I figured it
wouldn't have been professional for me to take out my black
jack and knock some sense into his head, and teach him to
speak plainly when questioned by a police officer. So, I made
a final attempt to follow the book.
     "Sir, when was the last time you saw Mrs. Jordan?"
     "The day she disappeared, I saw them take her?"
     "What?"
     "The day before I came here -"
     "A month ago? And now you're making your statement?"
     "Officer -"
     "Beasts took her, you've said? Or a gang? And you saw
them? And you kept silent? So, you got scared? And you acted
crazy? Thought you would hide in the nut house? Got you! What
are you? An accessory to a felony? After the fact? Maybe
before? During? Not so much of a good citizen, are you? You
might do a stretch in Lorton Prison. Lorton is a bad camp
for those who have been there, for those who haven't been
there, it is no fun."
     He didn't like it, not a bit of what I said to him. He
went crazy. He was a little runt, still, but he came at me in
a rage. Before he could, the orderly who was built like an
18-wheeler, a diesel, grabbed him. He shook that orderly off,
shouting, "The beasts, the beasts."  The orderly tried to
grab him again. He picked the orderly's feet off the floor and
threw him against the closed door which burst opened like it
had been hit by a tree, then he turned toward me. I went into
my basic attack mode. I took the black jack that I had secured
in my back pocket and I wore him out with it. I whopped him
up against his crazy head. He stumbled, because I tripped him.
As he tumbled, I kicked him with my shoes. I wear shoes with
steel toes. And, I whopped him until he stopped shouting and
fell on his ass, that was when hospital security and a squad
of orderlies came in and rescued him. He was taken to the
hospital's infirmary.
     It was late that evening when I finally made out all
the reports I had to make on the incident. I had to fill
out a 10 this, and a form 347 that, and a long type written
report to the panty-waist lieutenant. I type with two fingers.
When I left the station, I was sleepy, tired, and ten minutes
from exhaustion and unconsciousness.
     The next day, I woke to the sound of someone driving
nails into my head. There was this loud banging on my door.
Turner, Detective Sergeant Turner, was standing over me. I
had let him in, but I don't  remember getting up out of my
bed. I was that much out of it. I was so drowsy, I was
half seated, resting on the sofa.
     "Boner," he said. "Why don't you answer your phone?"
     "I'm off-duty," I said.
     "Where's your girl?" Detective Pascasio, asked.
     "Gone," I said.
     "What? Again?"
     Turner barked, "The Lieutenant sent us."
     I pretended to puke.
     "I want to make a covenant with you," Turner said.
     "What? You think you're God too?"
     "I want your word that you're not gonna screw me."
     "Well ..."
     "Boner."
     "Bonner," I said. "Detective Bonner."
     "Sure, Boner. Listen up."
     "The last guy to mispronounced my name ended up puked on."
     "Lighten up, partner," Pascasio said.
     "Ex-partner, when we were uniformed patrollees together."
     "Give it a break," Turner snapped. "We're here because
we want all your notes on the Jordan case and want you
off the case."
     "What Jordan case?"
     "Mrs. Constance Jordan."
     "What about her?"
     "Your notes?"
     "What's up? You didn't rouse me for a cheap-ass missing
person's case?"
     Turner said, "Do I look like I work missing persons?"
     "Homicide, Mrs. Jordan?"
     Pascasio said, "Buddy, she's turned up."
     "Where?"
     "In her house, in a few small pieces but mostly in little
chunks."
     "Gawd dammit -"
     "Her family discovered the remains."
     "I was sure that nut in the nut house knows more than he
was saying."
     "Sure."
     "When did her family -"
     "This morning."
     "This morning?"
     "Yeah? It's eleven o'clock."
     "I'm in on this. I am a player. I'm in."
     "Your notes?"
                              II.
     The dissing continued ... Turner took my notes,
wouldn't share anything. "Good afternoon, Boner," he
grinned and left. Pascasio looked synthetic. "Later,
Buddy," he said and showed me his tail. I slammed the door.
I showered, shaved, dressed, went in to work. Parked myself
on the lieutenant's desk, until he talked to me.
     "This is my case, Sir. I've put in the time. I've-"
     "Bonner."
     "Yes, lieutenant."
     "Why are you here? It's your day off?"
     "I'm showing initiative, sir."
     "Bonner, homicides are handled by Homicide. You are not
in Homicide."
     "May I speak frankly, sir?"
     "Don't you?"
     "You don't like me."
     "You are a perceptive detective, Bonner."
     "Yeah, I'm a detective. I took the test three years
before officers who are ranked above me. My score put me
in the top five. Yet, others were promoted ahead of me. I
did not receive my gold shield until I brought
discrimination and favoritism charges against the
promotions board."
     "What's the point?"
     "I'm a good cop and I deserve to stay on this case."
     "You're not in homicide. "
     "Lieutenant."
     "Bonner, go, enjoy your day off. Just go."
     "Thank you, sir, for this frank talk," I said, speaking
slowly through my drawn tight teeth.
     "You're welcome," he replied, smirking.
     My next stop was Callie. Officer Callie Witkin who
screened all the reports for the Captain, another prig. His
problem was not a lack of street smarts, he was a cop with
a doctoral degree. His degree was in education and not in
criminal justice and it showed. He wanted reports handled
as if cops were school boys and girls. Grammar, syntax,
spelling, everything had to be correct. He was always saying,
"Police officers represent the city's finest, and I am not
going to be embarrassed by an officer handing in a poor
paper." Before he assigned Callie to grade and correct the
report papers, he had officers tied-up for hours, some on
over-time, rewriting reports until they met his standards.
He sent a paper of mine back with a note scribbled in red
ink at the top. "THIS," he wrote,"IS A DISGRACE, REWRITE!"
     Callie was okay. She has a pretty face too, though short
legs. When I wanted something I had to play diplomatic. I
bribed her with flowers. Daises were her favorite.
     "George, what is it now?"
     "Nothing?"
     "Let me guess? You called the lieutenant's wife a bitch?"
     "No, I called the lieutenant a bitch."
     "What can I do for you?"
     "The Constance Jordan homicide file."
     "What do you want to know?"
     "The file."
     "What's in it for me, this time?"
     "Two tickets to see the NICKS crush the Bullets at the
Arena?"
     "Where did you get these? The game's sold-out. How would
you know I'm interested?"
     "Got them off a scumball I rousted. Caught him carrying a
half ounce, would have busted him, but it would have been a
two-minute beef and twenty hours of paper work. Besides, he was
two weeks shy of being freed from probation restrictions and I
didn't want to step him back. When he emptied his pockets the
tickets dropped out, and I gave him an offer he couldn't
refuse: the tickets or a trip down town."
     "George."
     "I'm a detective. The black dude you shack up with, the
gorilla from the Third District, I saw him wearing a Nicks
sweat shirt, knew you would want the tickets."
     "He loves the Nicks."
     "Gorilla, he should be loving you."
     "George, you're sweet. Let me get you that file."
     Mr. Jordan walked down the steps at six o'clock on his
way to the kitchen to fix breakfast. He found the downstairs carpet
blood soaked and littered with pieces of flesh and bone of various
sizes. The doors and the windows were locked. The alarms had not
been tripped. Neither he nor his children heard anything unusual
during the night.
     "How do we know the remains belong to Mrs. Jordan?"
     "There were large enough pieces of her face and jaw to
see a resemblance on the spot. The blood type was hers. We've
got dental confirmation. We're having a DNA check run."
     "To recap: Mr. Jordan found the remains. The doors were
locked, the house firmly secured, and nobody heard a
thing."
     "Sounds like a mystery."
     "Sounds like the dude done it for the insurance money,
drugged the kids."
     "George."
     "Only a theory, one possibility."
     "George, you be careful."
     "I am."
     I went back to the nut house to see that puked little
nut. He had vanished, and everyone in the nut house were
keeping quiet. I insisted a little bit too strongly on talking
to someone who would answer my questions and was escorted out
by the hospital's security force. The pretend cops ignored my
plea for cop solidarity. "I'm working on a case. We're cops
for God's sakes." They said that they had their orders and
I had to go. As we got to my car, Turner and Pascasio drove
through the front gate as if they were heros entering an
enchanted city.  The pretend cops greeted them warmly.
Turner grimaced at me, mumbled that I was an embarrassment.
I stared at him, thought for a moment that I would hit him.
Then, I glanced away. Pascasio stayed by the car. He looked
strangely distant.
     Turner raised his voice. "You're screwing up, screwing
up." He told me, I had no business for being in that part
of town. "Your district is across the bridge," he said.
     "This is personal," I said.
     "What?"
     "Your attitude."
     "Get off it."
     "This nut house is the epicenter of this entire case.
The star witness has vanished from here."
     Pascasio mumbled, "The feds."
     "What?"
     Turner barked, "It is not unheard of for the feds to grab
a witness. If your wagon wasn't three bricks short of a load,
you would know that."
     "Of course," I said, "Mr. Jordan works for the government."
     Turner barked again, "Everybody does."
     "He has an office at the pentagon?" I asked.
     Turner gave me the look that said, shit if I'm here to
talk to you. He decided that he was through talking. He had
come to fetch me. Pascasio answered my question.
     "No, the National Security Agency."
     I turned my back to Turner and spoke to Pascasio.
     "Terrorists chopped up Mrs. Jordan?"
     "Buddy, we're out of it. Orders from the chief."
     "Why are you here?"
     "To save your ass. Boner," Turner started to bark again.
"They were going to arrest you."
     "The Captain sent us," Pascasio said.
     "It is not unheard of for witnesses to be put under
protective custody," I said. "But this is all very odd."
     "I don't understand," Pascasio said.
     Turner cracked on me, "Keep thinking of a duck."
     "A duck?"
     "Yes, Boner's a duck. He likes the rain, and it's
pouring down raining on his head now, but he doesn't know
it."
     I got into my car and left Turner talking as Pascasio
acknowledged my leaving with a nod. Turner kept talking among
"him selves": his ego, his weenie and his ass. When he
noticed I was leaving he yelled, "Where in the hell are you
going? I'm talking to you."
     "It's my day off, Sarge. I'm going to the beach."
     "Boner!"
     I gave him the finger.
     As I drove off, I didn't know what the feds had to do with
this case, but I had a hunch that it involved huge problems
with national security. I didn't know who the beasts were
that the star witness had screamed about, but, I said to
myself, "Beasts, feds, national security ... Oh well, I'll
see."
                              III.
     "You won't like this ..." Callie leaned over the table
and whispered. She looked more like a conspirator than a
cop. We were seated in the back, near the kitchen of a food
joint up in Adams Morgan, in the Third District territory,
away from my prig supervisors in the First. The African who
owns the place owed me. He has a rascal for a kid. Three
months previously, I found his kid downtown, lying in the
street. I thought, the boy had been mugged. I got out of my
car to help. The snot nose kid was drunk and he had taken a
few lubes. I thought of busting him, but he didn't show his
ass. He was kinda quiet. Though he couldn't stand up and
his eyes looked like they were staring from a blind space,
he didn't look sick enough to take to D.C. General. I asked
him where he lived. I had a half hour left on my shift, so
instead of taking him in or taking him somewhere that meant
I would have to write a lot of paper, I took him home. His
old man was grateful, offered me a lifetime of free eats.
I brought Callie to the restaurant to drink a cup of
coffee, to relax and to chat at the end of her shift. I fed
her baked salmon, which she said was delicious, and her
favorite lite beer, and she fed me information.
     "The feds have pulled all the files, the missing persons
files for the last six months, city-wide."
     "All the files?"
     "Of everyone reported missing, including people with no
known connections to government security."
     "Why? What are they looking for?"
     "Nobody's talking, but I don't think the Captain knows."
     "I'm still on missing persons - ?"
     "Yes. I have a hunch."
     "Go with it."
     "Some kind of federal mind control experiment gone haywire
causing these people to go missing."
     "Why was Mrs. Jordan chopped up? Who did it and why? And
who are these feds? FBI? DEA? NSA?. I need names. A name. I
have a contact at the FBI who owes me. I caught him doing the
nasties in the back of a porno shop on 9th Street. Callie, I
have a hunch that if we let the feds handle this justice won't
be served. The truth about Mrs. Jordan will get snuffed."
     "Mirchandani, he was the fed who talked to the Captain."
     From the way his stomach moved, and his eyes filled with
apprehension, I knew, my contact at the FBI didn't want to
talk about Mirchandani. He was waiting for me when I got to
Malcolm X / Meridian Hill Park up on Sixteenth Street. I
called him from the restaurant, just as a waiter was
serving Callie dessert. Told him what I needed, told him to
be sure to have his butt there. I thanked him for coming on
such short notice. It was dark, and for a brief minute, it
looked a little like his squirreled eyes were having trouble
seeing. Soon, it was clear that he saw too well. His eyes kept
avoiding mine for the two squirrels - maybe one male and one
female - who kept racing up and down a tree, a few steps from
where we sat.
     "I think what they're doing is definitely better than
chasing nuts," I said.
     He mumbled. I could see, he definitely was trying to
hide something. I pressed him. His voice stretched into a
whine like his vocal cords were becoming thinner. "After this,
we're finish," he said. I knew Mirchandani had to be a man
with a lot of power.
     "Some call him the Weatherman ..."
     "A '60's radical?"
     "Others call him Rainwater."
     "What does he do?"
     "Kick butt, if you get in his way."
     "So he's tough? Is he FBI?"
     "NSA, super secret, super bad. He will take away your
sunny skies, piss rain on you. Mess with him, bunko,
and you'll disappear."
     "Mess with me and I'll yank your balls off, because
I'm bad, badder than Mirchandani or anybody else, you
understand?"
     "Yeah, yeah ..." My FBI contact said, but he didn't
seem to be listening. Perhaps because his eyes kept darting
back and forth, scanning the grounds.
     "I want an address for this dude, a picture, the
background, the works, want everything you can find out
what he's doing intervening in local homicide and missing
persons cases."
     "Yeah, but, we'll be finished."
     I nodded. He nodded back and got up and quickly left.
     While waiting for the scoop on Mirchandani, I decided
to revisit some of the citizens who had filed missing
person's reports. I had a list of six who I wanted to
re-interview before I called it quits for the evening. Mrs.
Alberts was the first on the list. She had reported her
daughter as missing.
     Mrs. Alberts wasn't home. None of the Alberts were
there. According to the big burly ugly dude who was
watching their house, all of the Alberts had left town.
     "It's a family thing," he said. He blocked the doorway.
     I leaned forward. He didn't take a step back.
     "Sir, what's your name?"
     "Custer."
     "What's your relationship?"
     "Cousin."
     "Don't see the resemblance."
     "Distant Cousin."
     "Well, Cousin Custer, may I come in?"
     "No."
     "Why?"
     "The house is a mess."
     "I'm not the housing inspector."
     "My cousins aren't here and they don't want anybody in
their house when they aren't here."
     "Okay. Do you have a number for Mrs. Albert?"
     "Sure." He gave me a number with an upstate New York
area code. I thanked him and left.
     Horyn, Bryant. Mr. Horyn reported his mother missing.
He lived in a ranch house in Falls Church and she lived in
an Apartment near Seventh and Penn. Following a hunch, I
went to Mrs. Horyn's apartment. The desk clerk informed me
that the apartment had been leased to a new tenant.
     "Already?"
     "Yes, Sir. If you have any questions, I must refer you
to the manager."
     "Why? Have you been instructed to do that?"
     "Yes."
     I went to the manager. She informed me that Mrs.
Horyn's lease had expired and her things had been packed
and sent to her son. I asked to see the apartment. She
said that she didn't think the tenant was home. I asked
her when is the tenant expected home, and she said the
tenant would be out of town for a week.
     "You have a passkey?"
     "I can't just let you into somebody's apartment
unless you have a reason."
     "I'm investigating, " I said.
     "A missing person's case, but she's not here. She
doesn't live here anymore."
     Thank you very much, I said, and left. I hated having
doors slammed in my face. I planned to return later in
disguise to that apartment building. But first, Lloreda,
Judy, was the next name on the list. She reported her room
mate missing.
     She wasn't home either, and her cousin resembled the
Alberts's cousin. He was another big, burly, ugly dude. But,
he didn't have a phone number for Judy Lloreda.
     Yes, a pattern had definitely developed.
     As I was leaving Judy Lloreda's town house, this
foreign-looking dude came up to me. He had been watching
the house. "Policeman? Policeman?" he asked. He introduced
himself. "I'm Nikki Green's friend." Nikki Green was the name
of the missing room mate. The dude looked a little twisted,
like all his brain cells weren't going through the exercises,
but what it was, was that he had a romantic attachment for
Miss. Green. He was nervous and he spoke too fast. I told him,
not that I mind citizens talking fast, most don't have
anything to say and the speed saves time, but I have to
remember what he tells me to write it in a report and I
thought it best for him to slow down. This approach did not
develop the desired rapport. It made the dude look rather
... um, - more uncomfortable. So I altered my style. I have
much in my repertoire, and before he knew it, I had him
talking to me like he would to a brother. I didn't even
know that I could lift the dude's hopes that way. Things
were going fine until he said, "You will ask Judy Lloreda
about the breaks-ins?"
     "What break-ins?"
     "Nikki told me. People came in downstairs at night,
knocking things over."
     "This wasn't reported."
     "The police were called; they could never find any
signs of where people broke in."
     "And your girl didn't move out?"
     "How could she move out? The rent was cheap."
     "Couldn't she have moved in with you?"
     "No. I have a wife and four children."
     "Oh, you're a rascal," I said.
     "She wasn't sure of the break-ins."
     "Things were being knocked down and thrown around?"
     "A haunted house, " he said. "She thought -"
     "A haunted house?"
     "I set a camera up -"
     "Video tape?"
     "Yes, to see ..."
     "What did you see?"
     "Nothing. That afternoon I sat it up, the next day,
Nikki was gone."
     "The camera? The tape?"
     "Her room mate said, they were gone too."
     "None of this was reported."
     "Do you think this will help find -"
     "There's no proof of burglary."
     "The room mate's cousin is suspicious."
     "That's for sure, but not as you might think."
     "I'll make them tell me -"
     "What?"
     "Where's Nikki."
     "Maybe, she's gone. You are a married rascal."
     "No."
     "Face it. That's one possibility. Any how, we don't
need you interfering with my investigation. Stay clear.
When I have something, I'll let you know."
     "But -"
     "But, nothing. Go home and stay out of the way."
     Eleven o'clock at night and back at Mrs. Horyn's
apartment building. I was disguised in drag, had on the Barbara
Bush outfit, wig and make-up. I looked old and matronly, like
my own grandmother, and like I belonged in that building. I
had the tools I would need to get into the apartment: skeleton
keys, burglary tools. I had the cottage cheese smile that
would get me past the front desk. I had practiced that smile
until I was confident it would sweep me pass an old sow like
the apartment building manager.
     When I got to the building, for a very brief moment I was
in shock. I saw my FBI contact in drag too. He stood outside
the building. He looked quite pleased with himself. He was
talking to a man. I could smell the liquor. Both men were
slightly intoxicated. The man not in drag had his hand on my
contact's leg, and was squeezing, and making a sick sound with
his throat like a frog that is having trouble breathing.
Unprofessionalism began to encroach. Feelings, temper,
anger, cuss words. Everyday, I see perversion in the street.
Seeing a citizen going the way of the perverse makes me want
to throw up and lose my street objectivity, seeing a sworn
officer of the law choosing that path makes me want to kick
butt. My face flushed red, my breathing fluttered, thought
I would need a doctor, and they would need one too. The
sight of them was sickening. I almost flipped. But, I'm a cop.
I began to see pages of text on police procedure, the stuff I
read at the academy. An encyclopedia of facts dealing with
the conduct of a detective during a street investigation ran
through my head. The FBI man was an old louse. I had done my
home work on him. He built for himself a private life of no
good. The old dude he was with appeared to me to be one of
those morally dilapidated lawyers, or bankers, or an out of
town judge. I could have gone up to them and busted them,
boxed their ears, called them stinking scum, but my disguise
would have been history. I was undercover and like a submarine
submerged in the sea, I showed nothing on the surface. Then, I
decided to test my disguise. I approached those two bad boy
lovers.
     I said to the man who was dressed as a man, "Honey, so
your love is for her, huh?"
     I felt the shudder that went through my FBI contact. I
made a slight move toward him. He began to flee, pulling from
the other man's embrace.
     "What?" the other man protested, "I don't know her."
     But, his date kept going, picking up speed. If I had
taken a torch and warmed that rascal's behind, I don't
think he could have moved any faster. He broke his high heels
and kept going. The left side of him leaned down as he lifted
his feet, his soles clanked down on the sidewalk. I
considered breaking my disguise and citing him for making too
much noise. But, thankfully, he skittered around the corner
like a smarting missile.
     I got into the building and onto the sixth floor where
Mrs. Horyn's apartment was without any trouble, and I got
into the apartment - But, I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

                              IV.

     Nastiness. I was cool. I stayed cool. I remembered my
training. I had seen a few nasty scenes but nothing like this:
Bodies in blood. Several torn apart and lying in the dark.
My stomach churned for hours afterwards and my stomach isn't
weak.
     In the room where the front door opened into, there was a
human head with the skin removed as though it had been pulled
off like a mask. Later, I would see a dude from the coroner
carrying it like a bowling ball with his fingers in the eye
holes.
     I drew my gun, readied it and myself, and entered
cautiously. I flipped on the light, stiffened, ready to aim
and shoot the first perpetrator I saw. I went from room to
room. Three more dismembered bodies: Two male, one female,
their skin was turned inside out. Body parts were strewn
everywhere: on the walls, the furniture, the carpet was blood
soaked. I went through the apartment. In the back bedroom, I
found a couple of bodies that were nearly intact. I found no
one left standing. I saw no opened points of exit. I checked
the bodies. One was still warm. He was unconscious, propped
up against the bed. A strange-looking rifle lay across his
knees. The top of his blue suit was soaked. His shoulder
wound has saturated his jacket in blood. I cursed. I wondered
what low-life, sub-human scum has caused all of this.
     "Federal agents! Don't move, asshole!"
     A squad of federal agents, with weapons drawn, burst in
on me. They came in suddenly. I hadn't heard their approach.
Maybe, I had gotten a little unprofessional, had gotten
grossed out by the horror scene.
     They wore DEA jackets, gave me no respect, would have
popped me, if I hadn't dropped my weapon.
     "I'm a police officer!" I shouted. They slapped me
against a wall, slapped my head. I got hot. The heat in my
head still rages. I remember every word they said. They
talked about scumbags killers; that they were going to
settle with my boss, the big drug king.
     "Asshole, which gang are you with?"
     "The Metropolitan Police Department, asshole," I replied.
"Do you want to see my badge?"
     "No, we're gonna pop your ass!"
     They almost sounded convincing, but they didn't. They
sounded wrong, as though they were not dealing with their
emotions but were going through the motions.
     "This is no drug scene!" I shouted.
      I noticed the computer monitors, the scientific-looking
devices and machines, for which I still don't have names.
One agent hit me in the back with the butt of his
rifle. It hurt. Pain raced through my body and I became
alarmed. My situation was worse than I'd thought.
     "No self- respecting human being would deal in drugs, you
are drug scum," the agent said. I told him that he didn't
know what he was talking about.
      "Asshole," he sneered. "We're going to put you in a
hole."
      He struck me again. As he did, a fetid stench almost over
came me. I heard a loud thumping sound behind me and gasps.
I turned. The dude who struck me head rolled slowly toward
my feet. His head was neatly severed, with very little blood.
There was a sound I didn't recognize. Strange weapons were
firing. I saw the thing right away, but couldn't focus on it,
due to shock. Its protruding tongue came out of its green
mouth. The tongue looked sharp as a sword and it severed the
head of another agent.
     I didn't sleep at all that night. I didn't go home or
change. I was still wearing a dress, but no wig. Sunrise
found me in the custody of the Captain. He was called into
work early. Thinking back to those days before I had gone into
Mrs. Horyn's apartment, and I was a regular cop, like those
who waited outside the Captain's office, I didn't know how
lucky I had been. I couldn't help envying those cops who
had warm houses, full refrigerators and wives. Cops who only
have gone up against criminals that their firearms could
handle.
     "You are in a mess," the Captain said.
     "I did nothing wrong," I said.
     "Interfered in a federal operation," he said.
     "Captain, do you know what happened?"
     "No. Shut up. It is classified. An on-going operation.
The feds want to put you in protective custody. I told
them that we look after our own."
     "If I go down, I'm going to take some of them with me."
     "Turner and Pascasio are going to baby sit you at one of
the Department's safe houses in West Virginia."
     "No."
     "It's either Turner and Pascasio or the feds."
     Pascasio scraped a spatula into the pan of potatoes,
spam and green eggs. Last night, he made a strange dinner,
which I did not eat. I didn't feel up to eating. Now, he made
a strange breakfast. I wouldn't eat. I still wasn't up to
eating. But, I didn't know what made me want to puke more,
the stuff in the pan or the fact that I was sitting there,
locked away with him and Turner, and accepting the crap from
the feds and the Department, and doing nothing about it. The
splotch stains on Pascasio's apron didn't help my mood any
either. The stains reminded me again of last night's dinner and
of what I was putting up with ... Pascasio looked contented.
     The Department kept the cabin stuffed with food, and Pascasio
said he liked to cook. What I think he liked doing was to make
concoctions and mush mashes of gunk to keep his mind occupied
and not to think of the things I said to him about the feds
and the Department's cover-up.
     "With this, I'm liberated from police work," Pascasio
slapped a huge glob of that horrible looking crap onto a plate
and sat the plate on the kitchen table and pushed it toward
Turner.
     Turner said, "Well, what is this? Give me a clue."
     Pascasio said to me, shaking his head, something he always
did when someone annoyed him, "Tell the Sarge what your
Dad used to say to people who complained about the food."
     "Ah, I get it," Turner said. "This shit is what Boner's
bug-eyed monsters eat."
     He crowed, stood and crowed. Pascasio stood back to look
at him as he got up and got a box of corn flakes. I didn't
even bother to acknowledge the jab at me. Turner's mind has
always been crappy. I doubted he could understand that I
had no time to bicker with him.
     I was thinking of escape when I heard a slight wispy
sound that quickly grew into the sound of a whirling
whistle. I think if I had not spent four years in the
Marines, and years since trying to get rid of the memory of
Beruit, I would have not known to scream and duck and to
run for the back door. I called for Pascasio and Turner to
follow me, as I put distance between me and the back door.
A rocket hit the cabin.
     When the debris settled, I went back in. The roof was
down, the floor board was torn up, and Pascasio and Turner
were knocked down like little cardboard people. I was angry.
It could have only been the feds. I screamed, "Goddamn, feds,
slime buckets!" I kid you not, I took fright and flight.
     I was spaced out. Almost out of it. Everything was so
unreal. Cops aren't smart enough for the shit that was
going on. The cops I know are either straight or crooked,
or slightly crooked, but they are not cold-blooded killers.
     It has never been so dark. There have never been so many
shadows in the streets, and blurs on the street light, and
impressions of frightful things. I got myself a brewsky. I
needed it, had to have it to go on. I got myself two tall
twenty-four ounce cans of malt liquor. When I got back to
the city, it was late, and I knew time for me was running
pretty low. I stood outside of Callie's apartment. I saw her
little niece and another little girl sitting on the stoop
and looking at the sky. I walked over and asked what she was
watching. She smiled and then looked at the sky again, and
said, "For you. Aunt Callie says, it's hot up there and for
you to get far away." I said, "I can't." The other little
girl smiled. "Is this some kind of game?"
     I awoke in a car I stole, and parked outside Callie's
apartment. I had hardly slept for almost forty-eight hours
and I was as tired as hell. I wanted another brewsky, but
knew I shouldn't have it. I had to get my head straight. I
had to get another car.
                               V.
     I'd waited all day for Callie. Her dude drove her to work.
I couldn't approach her. She didn't leave the station. There
were too many cops around and no disguise could get me past
those cops. I phoned, but whenever she answered her desk
phone, I heard a second click. Finally, I got her alone. A
Catholic, she couldn't let the day pass without going into
a church: The church on M Street, just up from the Waterfront
Subway Station. I entered after scouting the place. It was a
Wednesday, she was alone, kneeling, praying. I headed
straight for her from behind her.
     "Callie."
     She gave me a huge hug, the kind people give when they
have been really tore up inside about somebody who they've
thought they have lost. I hugged back. I responded to her. The
scene of Pascasio and Turner's death was still fresh on my
mind. The whole time we hugged, she shuttered. Maybe, it was
me.
     "You're alive, George. You're alive."
     "Barely," I said.
     "You're all right too. Why? This? Why didn't you call
me?"
     "What do you know?"
     "About what?"
     "The explosion!"
     "That you were missing and Sergeant Turner and Detective
Pascasio were killed. But you're all right!"
     I said,  No thanks to the Captain. No thanks to the
Department that wasn't properly looking out for its people.
I told her that two good cops were dead, blown up in the
Department's safe house, and, I said the Department wasn't
doing a damn thing to catch their killers.
     "No," she said. "We are. We're doing everything -"
     "You're looking for drug dealers?"
     "Yes."
     "Look for feds. They know, I know about the beasts.
Because I am not a fed, they don't trust me to keep their
secret. Two cops died because the feds were trying to get
to me. But perhaps, Pascasio and Turner knew something too.
Maybe -"
     "George, have you been to a hospital?"
     "No."
     "After surviving an explosion, you need to go to a
hospital to be checked out: Tests, x-rays." As she spoke I
heard her head clicking away. "You need to go to a hospital
or you may make your injuries worse than they are."
     "I have no injuries. Look at me."
     She shook her head.
     "Stop, Callie. Listen."
     "George, you may have a concussion. Consider that? It
may grow worse."
     "The feds are cop killers, you hear me? They're
covering up something so monstrous that it's unbelievable."
     "George -"
     "Monsters... They're covering up monsters!"
     "George."
     "Callie, you have a tendency to look the other way and
not see the situation. With the Captain, you think he's God,
and you even think the Lieutenant is okay. You are a little
girl. You don't know the real evil that exists." I barked at
her, and the more I barked, the more I got the look from her
that said she pitied me as a walking wounded. I stopped. I
told her that I now needed her to help me more than ever.
Needless to say, after I begged her she said she would. She
also said that she understood the reason for my outburst.
     I told her, " It is times like this that I appreciate you.
Sometimes I must make you sick."
     I asked her to get me all that the Department had on
everybody - the feds, the missing persons, the investigation
into the bombing of the Department's safe house, and on
Mirchandani. "Particularly on Mirchandani," I said. My hunch
was that Mirchandani was the fed who was the grand evil hand
behind all of this horror.
                               VI.
     I picked her up on a street corner. At the time and
place I had told her the afternoon before I would be. I
drove another car I had stolen. We drove through alleys,
around and around, skidding around corners, barely missing
trash cans. There are a lot of alleys behind those old houses
in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. One can drive behind
one street to another, the route the trash trucks take to
make their collections. Finally, we stopped, got out of the
car and got into another car I had stolen and had waiting.
We drove on, back down town, across the Ninth Street Bridge
and got on the highway, the 495 going North. Callie asked,
"What? Is this necessary?"
     "There is nothing lost from caution," I said.
     "George, I thought we were going to lunch?"
     "Lunch? We're brown-bagging it." I tossed her the
brown bag I'd placed on the dashboard. "Burgers, they're
good. A guy with a stand in the National Press Building of
all places, makes them. He cooked them with onions."
     "George, Love?"
     Love? She didn't sound like the same Callie. Was she
nervous?
     "Are you nervous?"
     "No." She smiled: A funny looking tight smiled. Odd -
Something was odder. It was the salt she wanted to put on her
burger. She asked me if I had salt. I said,  "No."  She never
used salt. Her breath smelled different: no mint gum. The way
she took in air was different. Her breathing was faster. I
whispered, "Are you wired?"
     "What?"
     "Nothing. What do you have for me?"
     "Nothing. I couldn't get anything. Everything is shut
up tight."
     "Callie, you think I'm crazy?"
     "No."
     "I haven't gone over the deep end."
     "George, you ought to, you have to -"
     "So, you did tell the Captain? He told the feds?"
     "George -"
     "Where are they?"
     "George, you need help."
     "No. Where are they? I've got to get off the highway. The
next exit."
     Boom. Boom. BOOM. We were being shot at from a
helicopter. Rocket fire at that! The shooter wasn't very
accurate because he was hitting other cars, in front of and
behind us. Callie began to scream, I, to drive crazy,
defensively, to try to avoid the rockets. There was panic
on the highway, and death. Drivers were running into fiery
wrecks and death. The helicopter was pursuing us as we
tried to get off the road.
     "Get out! Get out!" I stopped the car and screamed.
"Get rid of that wire, or what ever they gave you."
     Callie was dazed. "They're tracking us through you! Get
rid of it!" I ran from the car. Callie got out to follow.
The rocket fire had stopped. It was machine gunfire now. The
The helicopter was flying low. The copter's gunner was trying
to mow me down. I ducked. I ran, trying to hide behind a
big truck that was stopped. Callie pulled her gun and fired
at the gunner. She emptied her nine, fired all the rounds.
My gun was out and I started to fire. Maybe she hit the
gunner, maybe it was me. He was hit. I could see him shake
and I saw the blood. The copter was that close. But, the
gunner was not stopped. The copter swung around and Callie
was shot down. She fell. I fired and fired. Meantime, Maryland
State Troopers were responding, and U.S. Park Policemen were
coming. Sirens were screaming. Some citizen had used a car
phone to call the police. The copter took off.
     "DEA reports that South American Drug Gangs are responsible
for the massacre that took place today on 495. Seven persons
were killed including a D.C. Police officer who was assisting
another officer working undercover on a joint federal and
District of Columbia government drug investigation ..."
     So went the media reports. I stayed on the scene long
enough to identify myself to the Maryland State Police
patrolman who was the first cop on the scene. I placed my
coat over Callie. I couldn't afford to wait until the
coroner came. I wanted to stay to see that they handled
her body properly. I told the patrolman that I was
undercover and I had to go before the media got there and
started to take pictures. I gave him the Captain's name to
call. I thought for a minute that he would insist that I
stay. I think he almost did, and yielded only because, he was
barely more than a rookie, and I was a detective, first class,
undercover.
                              VII.
     Two hours later I was in another car, sitting across
the street of the town house in Alexandria where my FBI
contact lived. I waited for him. I sipped from another can
of brewsky. And God, yes, I reached for another napkin and
blew my nose.  "I don't know why this is ..." I had something
in my eye. So what? This is confession time, I might have
sniffed. "Callie was a good gal." I shook my fist, angrily,
and I tossed the beer can out the window. And, God, I might
have looked pathetic, but I was thinking that I was just the
guy to kick some federal butt and the cause of Callie's death
wouldn't be yet another of the government's many cover-ups.
     I saw him drive up. I got out of the car and went to
him. "Don't get out, " I said.
     "Detective Bonner."
     "Open the door, I'm getting in."
     He unlocked the passenger's door. I got in. "Start
driving," I said.
     "We're even," he said.
     "Where's the stuff on Mirchandani you were supposed to have
gotten me? His address? His picture? The name of his dog?"
     "Don't know what to tell you, Bonner ..." he said.
     "Tell me where I can get to this creep."
     He started up his car and drove off. "Cute Ass," I
snarled, half growling. "Don't get cute with me either.
You're supposed to give me the dope on this creep."
     "Can it, Bonner," he snarled back and there was
nothing feminine about his tone."What? Are you about to
give me your 'federal agents are assholes' speech?  Can
that shit."
     "Cute Ass -"
     "What's you been doing, Bonner? Drinking? You're
buzzed? Are the doorbells ringing?"
     "You're talking kind of manly for a dude who wears a
skirt, and bra and panties."
     "I'm a deep cover operative. There's a thick envelope
that your ass sat down on when you got in the car. Reach
under your ass, take it out from under you and read it."
The label on the front of the envelope read: Counsel,
U.S. Senate SubCommittee on Special Investigations.
     "What is this crap?"
     "It's a report to my real boss. He wants to talk to
you."
     I tore open the envelope and began to read. "God!"
I said. "God!"
     "I want to take you to him without breaking my cover."
My FBI contact who said he was a Senate Subcommittee Deep
Cover Operative drove me out into the Virginia countryside, to
a farm house outside of Middleberg. A tall young woman
greeted us at the driveway. She thanked my contact and he
drove off. I had the envelope in my hand. She took me into
the house. She asked me for the envelope. She scanned its
pages and grinned. "This is something to laugh over, " she
said, waving the contents of the envelope, "Mr. Mirchandani's
ass."
     I glared at her. She winked. "Excuse me," she said. She
opened the door to a room adjoining the hallway, went into
the room and closed the door, leaving me alone in the
hallway. I mumbled several curses.
     I wasn't left waiting long, a few minutes, less than
ten, but it seemed longer. Another young woman led me to a
study where sat Mr. Camden, the Subcommittee Consul. He was
a toad, but these are the days when toads seem to rule.
     "Slurp!" His tongue seemed to roll out of his mouth as
I entered. The kind of greeting a toad would give, welcoming
a fly. He had toad eyes too. I think he thought of me as a
passing fly he could splat and crunch down.
     "Detective Bonner." His voice sounded dry. His manner
now was as if I was a speck of dust that had drifted in as
he sat on his high place amidst the lily leaves. "We shall
give you protection," he said as a lily lord hovering over
a muddy bog. I hated him, but I was desperate.
     "You know about the beast?"
     "Yes."
     "You Know About The Beast!"
     "Yes," he answered imperviously. I became convinced
that he was a companion of Mirchandani, though he claimed
to be the man's foe.
     "Misspent research funds, " he said.
     "What in the hell does research funds?"
     "The cold war," he said. "In those days of ..."
     My hatred grew. I checked to see if I still had my gun.
I did. But what could I do? I couldn't even be an effective
mosquito. These toads were snacking on my friends. But what
did he want with me? Did he really hate Mirchandani? Was I
bait? A gnat to catch a toad king?
     Then she came back, the first young woman, the one with
the laugh. She came in almost dancing, her high heel shoes
did the squish flop. Her skirt flew high on her legs, and a
modest mud grin splattered across the toad, Mr. Camden. He
stared at the woman's long smooth legs and talked about secret
experiments on the blood of insects caught in amber. He asked
if I watched the NOVA series on PBS. I don't. So what? He said
nutty scientists are cloning the DNA of ancient animals. Again
I said, so what?  The woman laughed. "Detective Bonner would
appreciate an abbreviated explanation."
     "The beasts were cloned from the DNA of an alien beast.
Some alien beast, visited here, or was brought here, and was
bitten by an insect a hundred thousand years ago. From the
beast's blood inside the insect the beasts you saw were cloned.
We call them Mr. Mirchandani beasts since he protects them."
I looked at Camden and then at the woman, then moved
several steps back. I ran my hands to my face. I checked my
hands. No warts. "Why does he protect them?" I shouted.
     The girl said, "He wants to protect his little laboratory
in Greenbelt and a couple billion bucks in secret funding."
     "What do you want to do?" I asked.
     The girl smiled.
     Camden began a lecture, emphasizing the beasts' "natural
extra-natural abilities", as if they were some kind of
useful life form. Their "invisibility", their "power to create
energy fields that makes it possible for them to pass through
solid objects" and on and on. "They're monsters!" I shouted
again. The girl said, "Yes." She sucked on her tongue as
she spoke. I wondered why I kept standing there and listening.
Maybe, I was waiting for a sane explanation. But, from this
smart mouth Capitol Hill Princess with her smooth white well-
scrubbed skin and now proper posture, came so much muck that
she could have been the sister of the knobby back toad seated
behind the desk creaking: ribbit.  She said, "Monsters for what
they do, fair?" She smiled again. "Beasts, they are; they follow
no rules. They come and they take when they are hungry, when
they want food, they take and no walls, no normal defenses can
stop -"
     God!" I interrupted her drivel. "You sound like you don't
want to kill them; they've killed people. I've seen them,
seen what they do! They come and they go at will - "
     "We know, " the prim princess replied.
     "They've killed innocent people - And,  Mirchandani has
killed innocent people."
     "Yes, sure," she said. "Mirchandani tells the committee
staff that he has his beasts under control."
     "What? You believe him?"
     "He has as of yesterday." She smiled. "And you shall help
us put Mirchandani under control. His beasts are just beasts,
but now he's the monster."
     "I want to kill him and his monsters."
     Camden said drily, "You're never get close enough, and
if you did, you would be executed."
     "No problem. No problem, right? You just want to tap
Mirchandani on the knuckles. You want to treat his beasts
as hapless zoo animals that wandered out of their cage. The
problem is, I have seen half eaten people, wiggling in
pain. I've seen my friends blown up, shot down ..."
     I pulled my gun and readied it to fire.
                               END