Headhunter (41 page)

PART THREE

DEATH RATTLE

As I was going up the stair

I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again to-day!. I wish, I
wish
he'd stay away!

                                                                               —
Hughes Mearns

Ambush

6:15 p.m.

"They're gone! My God, they're gone!"

"Easy, Sparky. Easy."

"Somebody knows! Can't you see I'm fucked?"

"And I said take it easy. Panic never helps."

"Ah God, Mommy. This is it. I'm finished!"

"Cut the bullshit, Sparky. Let's think this through."

"Daddy, where are you? Help me, Daddy! Please!"

Back and forth, back and forth, Sparky paced the room. Leaning against one concrete wall was an antique full-length mirror. Candlelit, the mirror reflected Sparky pacing in distortion. The figure that appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared on the glass surface was wearing the tattered Scarlet Tunic of an RCMP Corporal.

Crunchh!
There was the sound of plastic cracking underfoot.

"What was that?"

"I've no idea."

'"Well, go on. Take a look."

Sparky picked up the candlestick and bent down toward the floor. Broken plastic shards winked back at the flame.

In ever wider arcs, Sparky swept the candlestick back and forth across the concrete.

Then something blinked. Another reflection, over against the wall.

Extending the light in that direction Sparky saw the broken flashlight lying in the comer. Sparky set down the candlestick and picked up the electric torch.

"Well, what is it?"

"A flashlight. I guess I stepped on it and broke it."

"But we don't use a flashlight. You stroke my hair by candlelight. That's what we've always done."

"I know."

"Whoever took my heads away also dropped that thing".

"I know."

"Cut the bullshit babble, Sparky. Think, Sparky. Who?"

"I don't have to think, Mother. I already
know!"

It had been a sudden thought, an off-the-wall connection, but now the tension screwed up another notch. Sparky looked at the words stamped into the plastic handle:
VANCOUVER POLICE DEPARTMENT.

"Oh, God," Sparky whimpered, slumping down to the floor. "Now I'm really fucked. Everyone will know."

"So that's our thief? That city bull? The one asking all the questions?''

"Yes," Sparky nodded. "It's all gone down the drain."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Just do what must be done."

'Mother, don't you see, there's nothing we can do. They're gone!"

"Oh shut up, child. What the hell do you mean, nothing we can do? My heads are out there somewhere in some stranger's filthy hands. My hair, my beautiful long black hair is under some alien touch. I want my heads back. And I want them back tonight!"

"But how. Mother? How?"

"Our cop will have a list of all the bulls on the Headhunter Squad. Names, addresses, telephone numbers: our cop will still have that. The city bull was part of the Squad—VPD liaison. Now take that bloody rag off and put on your own red serge. We've got work to do. I don't know why you insist on wearing your father's uniform. It makes me seething mad. He's dead, Sparky. He's gone."

"No, you're wrong. He's not dead. He's hiding here inside."

"He's dead, fool. We killed him. You saw him die out in the Arctic snow."

"I didn't kill him! You did. God, I was only two years old!"

"You were there, Sparky. You're a witness and a party. You saw him puke his guts out when the poison got him. You saw me chop a hole in the ice and push his body through. You saw it all and you didn't stop it. That makes you guilty too.''

"But I was only two!"

""SHUT UP,  you sniveling piece of shit! You sound more like your father every frigging day. Is that what you want? To be just like him?"

Sparky began to cry, great body-racking sobs and tears that fell like West Coast rain. "You can't talk like that! My Daddy's still alive!"

"Look at you. You're just like him. Quivering mush inside. He was hung up on his old man, just the way that you are. Wanted to he just like him and carry on tradition. Thin red line and 'get your man' and all that Mountie crap. Do you think his father, if alive, would have given a fuck? The old man cared so much for him he refused to pass on his name. Is your last name Blake? So don't make me laugh. Your father was a bastard in every sense of the word.''

"Mommy, why do you hate me? I was only two."

"Look at yourself in the mirror, Sparky. Can't you see the reason? How much you look like him? I never wanted you, you were his idea. All you mean to me is a link to get back at him!

"Do you know what he made me do? Each night up in the Arctic? He made me dress up like a whore and traipse around before him. I'd stand there in the freezing cold while he looked me over like some piece of meat. I like to sec you cold,' he'd say. It makes your nipples hard. Now turn around Bend over. And roll your panties down That's the way Suzannah, get your husband hard. The bigger and harder Alfred gets, the more you're going to like it.'

"God, I hated him. He was like my father. 'Shhh, Suzannah Come in here,
cherie.
Don't let your mother know. That's my girl. Now take off your pants. Let Pappa see what you've got.' "

"Ah, go away. Mother! Leave me alone!"

"You'll never get rid of me, Sparky. I'm inside your head. You think that rag of a uniform gives you some protection. You think you want to be Alfred's child? You want to worship him? Go fuck yourself, Sparky. You know I always win. You were trained forever down in that dungeon in New Orleans. And you'll pay for what your father did anytime I want."

Suddenly Sparky's lips wrenched back in a grimace of teeth-clenching agony. Pain like splintering shards of shrapnel ripped through Sparky's head. Sparky's mind screamed but not an utterance came out.

Sparky leaped up off the floor and with stunning force heaved the candlestick at the image in the mirror. The glass shattered and a shower of fragments rained down. The room went dark as Sparky fell among the pieces.

Pain settled in. Then after a moment's silence Susnnah's
voice came again.
"Stand up, Sparky. You're going to do as I say?"

"Yes."

''I killed your father, but you have harbored his murderess for all these years in your mind?"

"Yes."

"So you are as guilty as I?"

"Yes."

"And you're going to follow orders?"

"Yes."

"Like all the other times?"

"Yes."

"I want our cop to find that prick and get back my heads."

"Yes."

' 'Find that city bull.''

"Yes."

"Kill, Sparky, kill."

7:19 p.m.

It had all been rather easy, really.

Sparky had gone upstairs to the Quonset hut, unlocking the door at the top of the steps that led up from the bomb shelter. Removing the tattered uniform with its streaks of dried blood, its tarnished buttons, its torn red fabric now more than fifty years old, the killer had quickly redressed in modem red serge. An odor of rotten fish and cooked meat from the upper room clung to the material, but once outside, the wind blowing in from the mouth of the river would soon dissipate any lingering smell. It was the second time within an hour that Sparky had put on the uniform. The uniform was The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Full Review Order of Dress. Now to go find Flood.

The cocaine was only an afterthought.

There were two plastic bags, a half pound each, still sitting up on the highest shelf in the boathouse. The bags were buried back behind several cans of CIL Paint where they had been hidden the night that John Lincoln Hardy had died. The coke had gone missing when Sparky had B & E'd that shack on the mountainside in order to make the plant. That was half an hour before the flying patrol had gone in.

Originally Sparky had taken the coke as a source of ready cash. In Vancouver, should things ever get too hot, the wheels of the underground railway out are best greased with drugs. In Vancouver, if you have contacts and coke, you can get to Timbuktu with no questions asked. The drugs had seemed like a good idea—insurance, so to speak. But depending how things turned out tonight, there might be another use.

Sparky had taken down one of the bags and then had left the Quonset hut, locking it up tight.

Outside the wind had been freezing and it felt like it would snow. Winter had come at last.

The patrol car had been parked several blocks away, secreted in an old abandoned rundown garage used for camouflage. It was dangerous to bring the car out here in the first place, dangerous to walk the roads dressed up for the Red Serge Ball, but Mother had wanted her hair stroked so there was nothing else to do. Besides, it would be two hours before the Ball was well under way.

Sparky had found the Headhunter Squad list in the glove compartment of the car. On that list were Al Flood's name, address and phone number. That's how easy it was.

Thirty minutes later, it had started to snow. The wind was roaring through the apartment canyons of the city's West End, freezing the marrow and freezing the heart of anyone out on the street. White spilled from the sky. The faces of the buildings glowed with wary wakeful eyes. Sparky checked the apartment block numbers against the address on the list.

Al Flood's apartment was only a block away.

7:23 p.m.

"How do they do it?" Genevieve asked. "Shrink down a head like this?" She was holding one of the
tzantzas
in her hand.

"You mean, 'What do I know about death?' " Flood said, putting down his drink.

"Sort of," the woman replied, and she looked once more at the
tzantza.

"The technique of shrinking heads was developed in Ecuador by the Jivaro Indians. Though it's now against the law, the practice still continues."

Genevieve DeClercq said: "There's a shrunken head in the Vancouver City Museum. I remember seeing it once."

Flood replied: "As a psychologist, don't you deal with 'headshrinkers' every day at work?" He cast her a watered-down smile.

"
You mean: When you've got a problem with your head it's best to see a shrink! That's just gallows humor. I'm not always this macabre."

"Lucky you," Flood said. "I am. All the time. Anyway, once a Jivaro cuts off a head he puts it in a wicker basket and allows the blood to drain. The Indian then spreads banana leaves out in a small clearing and builds a fire over which a large clay pot is suspended. The pot is filled with water. Once the head is white from loss of blood it is removed from the basket and, held by the hair, immersed in the bubbling liquid for from fifteen to thirty minutes. When it's finally taken out, the skin is white as paper and it smells like cooked human flesh. The pot is then filled with sand and cooked up once more.

"Next a machete is used to make an incision from the top of the head vertically down to the base of the skull, ending at the neck. The skin and hair are carefully peeled back to expose the skull, which is skillfully removed.

"First the opening in the back of the head and both eyelids are sewn shut. Using an instrument shaped like a trowel, the shrinker begins to fill the hollow skin with hot sand from the pot. feeding it in through the open neck. After three or four minutes the skin is emptied and the process is repeated. Eventually the head is reduced to the size of an orange— except for the hair which doesn't shrink. The process therefore seems to accentuate its length."

Genevieve DeClercq slowly turned the miniature head around in her hand. "It's horrible, isn't it," she said, "to imagine who this woman was, and who she might have been? She could have been
any
woman in this city setting out on a normal day, going about her business just as she always had before. Then she gets picked at random—to end up like this!"

Al Flood walked over to stand at her side. "If you want to free her spirit, you unlace the mouth." He placed his left index finger on the
tzantza's
lips.

"By Jivaro tradition that's the last act they perform. Sewing the mouth shut brings the shrinking process to a close. The Indian takes a needle made from bone and stitches the lips together with a leather thong. He leaves several strips of fine cord dangling from the mouth. The Jivaro say this last act traps the victim's spirit. If the mouth were to remain open, the soul could slip away. It would then be free and would have a choice to make. Either haunt the shrinker. Or dissolve and rest in peace."

Genevieve looked once more at the head held in her palm. The Headhunter had pierced the lips with several small gold rings, and used a leather thong to connect the rings together. "I wonder why the killer went to all the extra trouble to do that with the mouth?" she asked. "That head I saw in the City Museum was finished just like you say, with the lips stitched together."

"Good question," Flood said. "I have no idea."

7:24 p.m.

Shrouded by the falling snow and keeping close to the building so as not to be seen. Sparky reached the front door of Al Flood's apartment. The patrol car was parked half a block away at the end of Lagoon Drive. It couldn't be seen from Flood's apartment. The front door was locked. An A. Flood was listed in Suite 404 on the face of the intercom.

Furtively,' Sparky ran around to the alley behind.

Al Flood's apartment block was divided into eight suites, two on each of four floors, each apartment fronting on Lagoon Drive with a view of Lost Lagoon and Stanley Park beyond. On a clear day, beyond that you could see the North Shore Mountains. Right now, with the snow, you couldn't see the park.

The building was much older than most of the high-rises that now cramp the West End of Vancouver. A zigzag iron lire escape snaked up the rear of Flood's apartment block connecting all four floors. Off the alley beneath the building was an underground parking lot. A concrete ramp sloped down to several parking stalls, each one lettered in white. A blue 1971 Volvo sedan with a dent in its right front fender stood in space number 404.