Ladykiller Read Free

tore through her brain and
burst out the back of her skull in a spray of bone and blood and tissue.
Her soul, startled, fled. Her body, already cooling, slowly slipped,
dropped away, and fell back into the welcoming trash.
The killer remained holding the .45 in a two-handed combat
grip, held it where its fire had reached out and kissed the whore’s eye.
The killer’s leather-gloved hands relaxed finally; the silver pistol lowered and pointed toward the ground.
    The bag lady continued her slow, painful progress up Tenth, pawing
through each trash heap, adding the occasional bottle or can to her
burgeoning shopping cart. Each one brought a nickel at the one deli
where they put up with her. Not much around, though, this time of
night on this well-picked-over block. Go through the motions, she
told herself. You’ll be okay. Spring was almost here and she could
sleep outside tonight, which was much better than in those hellish
shelters where they stole everything.
    Wait. What was that over there? She pushed the creaky old cart
wearily across the dark parking lot to a promising heap beside the deserted guard shack. Stinky ignored the customary twinge in her back
as she bent to rummage through the trash pile, avoiding the brittle
spikes of a discarded Christmas tree.
    “Lord God must’ve made garbage about the same as He made
men,” she muttered to herself. “It dirty, it smell bad, it stubborn.” She
tugged at an auspicious piece of cloth. Despite the darkness, her instinct told her the fabric was good quality. Probably the hem of a coat.
“It like to break your heart, the things people throw away.”
    She tugged and met unusual resistance. She set her jaw and hunkered down to pull harder while trying not to tear the fabric. A
stiletto stab pierced her back. She grunted with the effort and gave
one more desperate, angry tug.
    The entire heap shifted suddenly. The old lady, caught off balance, fell awkwardly beneath the weight of something far heavier than
a coat. She blinked and pushed up her stocking cap, which had
descended over her eyes, and with her other hand pushed at the
weight that held her down.
    Swearing, spitting lint and God knows what, her nose running
like a gutter in the rain, Stinky took a full fifteen seconds to grasp
what lay in front of her. She found herself gazing into the cold, timeless face of the dead whore, inches from her own, with its parade of
slow, sad, red tears leaking from the terrible crater that had been its
right eye.
She let out a demon screech of terror.

TWO
    Detective Dave Dillon listened to the informant talk. You listened
first, then you asked questions. And tonight, amid the crackling,
otherworldly neon light of Times Square, Dave was listening very
closely.
    “I know this is the dude, man,” Finesse said. “Scary motherfucker.
Cold.” Finesse pumped his head up and down, in agreement with himself, and the three rings in his nose tinkled against each other.
    Dave said nothing. He watched Finesse with a blank Irish cop’s
stare and let him talk.
“I seen him before. He smacked some brothers around once. Stay
clear of that motherfucker, no shit. He big. Big white guy. Like you.
Bigger. He said he done them women. I was in the bar and I heard it
myself. Motherfucker’s drunk off his ass. Say he shot them bitches in
the head.”
Dave’s eyes narrowed a millimeter. He needed more detail.
“He had a .45. Stuck in his pants. Stuck in like, it went off, it’d
blow off the family jewels.”
Dave watched impassively. Anyone who read the papers knew
the victims were shot in the head with a .45.
“Said he shot them in the eye.”
Dave’s reaction didn’t show on his face. “In the eye?”
“Said he didn’t like the way they looked at him. Said they could
give him the fish-eye in hell. I mean, this is one scary motherfucker. I
ain’t lying.”
“This was last night?”
“Yeah, last night. Like I told you,” Finesse said nervously, checking up and down the sidewalk to make