JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps (9 page)

He stood up and picked up the heavy wet form and carried it to the dungeon.

Once there, he set the body on the rubber-covered rack. His breathing was slow and heavy now as he rummaged on the small table for the butcher knife. He gazed down lovingly at what remained of the woman that had come to call on him three months ago, ignoring the heavy rot of decay that wafted up to him. Then he set to work, brow furrowed in concentration as he separated her, everything he had been taught coming to him effortlessly.

For the first time in over a month, her name came to his mind. “Rosie,” he said, breath coming in heavy pants.

As euphoria set in he gathered her up, wrapped her up in the butcher paper that he kept in the room behind the dungeon, and put her in the refrigerator that he kept there. He arranged the pieces nicely, then paused to admire his handiwork. He smiled. She should last another few months. If he got more lime, she might even last another year.

He closed the door, feeling light-headed and sleepy, and went to the living room.

Chapter 6

Rachael Pearce sat in the front seat of Daryl Garcia's unmarked sedan as they cruised the area east of Downtown Los Angeles. In the backseat, a photographer from the
Los Angeles Times
, a bespectacled man in his mid-thirties named Lance Benatar, clutched his Nikon in his hands. She was glad Lance was with her. She had worked with him for the last five years, and he could get the best shots on spur-of-the-moment or threatening situations. He covered the 1992 riots with her, and the 1993 Malibu firestorms. He had an eye for detail, a great sense of timing, and he blended in well with the background of whatever scene they were at.

Rachael glanced in her sideview mirror. They were being tailed by a black and white patrol car. When Daryl called her last night—two days after she had cornered him at Parker Center and taken him out to lunch—to tell her the news, he told her that they would be escorted to the Eighty-first Street bridge by four patrol cars and two unmarked cars. He was only able to get this amount of backup between the times of 12:45 and 2:00

p.m. the following day. Knowing it was the only window of opportunity she had, she took it.

She had called Lance that night at his home, told him the plans, then agreed to meet him in front of Parker Center at 12:15. Lance showed up, and fifteen minutes later they were in Daryl's car on their way.

For the last ten minutes they had been driving through the crumbling streets of Los Angeles, past dilapidated apartment buildings, rows of shops and liquor stores, rows of industrial buildings and gas stations. The buildings were all sooty looking, muli-colored graffiti covering them. The sidewalks were filled with pedestrians of mostly Hispanic and Asian background. “Chinatown and East LA are pretty close together,”

Daryl Garcia explained as he drove. “You don't get many of the black gangs up in this area."

Daryl had been making idle chatter ever since they began their journey. She had cut their conversation short last night when, after he told her the good news and what the plans would be, he started nattering about how the rest of his day went. She could tell he was attracted to her, that her flirting earlier that day had worked in gaining his cooperation. She smiled to herself as he rattled on, recognizing that he was buttering her up, trying to ease her into something. He
was
kind of attractive, and she had entertained the thought last night of letting him sleep with her at some point. But she drew the line at letting anything progress beyond that. She had had enough of men worming their way into her life. At least for now.

After ten minutes of idle chatter she had finally cut the conversation short and told him she'd see him tomorrow. And she thanked him. He mumbled that it was his pleasure, and then they hung up.

Now they seemed to pick things up right where they had left them last night. With Lance in the car things weren't destined to go beyond idle chatter. Flirting was out of the question, although Rachael knew she could tease Daryl if she wanted to if something came up where she needed his help again. Lance knew she used her sexuality to get what she wanted, to manipulate men into doing things for her, getting her into places that she could later write about. They joked about it sometimes. “You know, if I had a pair of tits and an ass like yours I'd have it made,” he always quipped.

Until now she'd never had to use sex to get what she wanted. Using the right body language was always enough to gain access to an area that was normally off limits. She sometimes suggested that she would trade sexual favors for certain things, but she never delivered. After getting what she wanted she was on to the next story, the next sucker.

She had heard through the grapevine that some city officials, detectives, and other men referred to her as a cock-teasing bitch, but then she had a career she loved and a couple of awards, too. She had gotten what she wanted, which was enough for her.

She played up to Daryl the same way. And he had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker. Only this time, as she sat in the front seat of his sedan, chatting with him about the weather and whether the Angels would make the playoffs next year, she thought that if she would ever fuck anybody as payback for opening certain doors in getting a good story, it would be Daryl. He was attractive: black hair and eyes, mustache, tall and lanky, but muscular. Plus, the way he carried himself suggested that he was a man who knew where he was going, a man who was confident in himself and his abilities. True, two days ago she had been able to chisel away at the stone of his veneer, but he managed to keep himself under control. By now most men would have been on their third or fourth try in asking her for a date.

Daryl motioned ahead. “That's the Eight-First Street bridge up ahead."

Lance rose up from the backseat, peering ahead. “Into the Lions Den we go."

Rachael checked her mini-cassette recorder, which she had slung over her shoulder like a portable camera. She clutched her note pad in her hand, her mind already going over what questions she was going to ask the gang members that were down there.

“Now remember,” Daryl was saying. “Danny Hernandez talked to the guys who claim that area as their territory, and he assured them that everything was cool. The guys that I have tailing us are on their lunch hour and they're doing this as a favor to me. We only have thirty minutes or so to talk to these guys, then we get the hell out of there."

“And the cops that are with us aren't supposed to do anything, right?” Lance asked from the backseat. “I mean, they aren't going to be assholes and try to bust somebody or something."

“No,” Daryl said. He gripped the wheel tightly. “I hand picked these guys myself.

I know them all very well, and ... well, some of them owe me favors. I'll owe some of
them
favors when this is over. I explained the situation to them, and they know that if Rachael gets this story it may be a way to bring whoever is responsible for these murders out in the open. They also know that we have an agreement not to talk to anybody else in the press. Rachael is the only one they talk to, and even then, after this is over and they go on their own ways, they are to forget this ever happened."

Rachael and Lance let this sink in as Daryl steered the car down a side street toward the Eight-First Street bridge. Rachael checked her gear. In the backseat, Lance checked his equipment. Rachael stared out ahead through the dirty windshield of the sedan as they approached the arches of the bridge. The area they were entering was almost barren, desolate. The dirt floor was dry, small tufts of weeds sticking out here and there, small buildings and factories standing like lonely sentries in the desert. Daryl steered the car down another side street, down an alley where crackerbox houses were piled one on top of the other, white faded picket fences kept in children and animals ranging from dogs to chickens. It was an area that fostered fear, bred despair, and harbored criminals. Rachael clutched the strap that held her tape recorder to her hip, her stomach rumbling with a nervous twinge. Today she was venturing where most normal folks would never dare enter.

Here there be Tygers
.

She glanced in the rearview mirror as they drew up to the bridge, noting two of the patrol cars following them. She turned to Daryl as he stopped the car and let it idle, noticing for the first time half a dozen men dressed in gang attire; baggy tan slacks, baggy white t-shirts and plaid shirts, shaved heads, attitude turned up to eleven. “Where are the other patrol cars?"

“They're approaching the scene from a different route,” Daryl said, his hands tapping the steering wheel, watching the gang members approach the car cautiously. “I've also got a couple of plainclothes cops nearby and a few more salted in the area keeping watch. Everything's cool."

“If you say so, man,” Lance said, his voice squeaking like a pre-pubescent boy.

Rachael had never heard him sound so nervous before in all the years they'd worked together.

The gang members were drawing up to the car and two of them broke away from the others and approached them. One of them, tall, good looking, wearing a white tank top that exposed his muscular tattooed arms nodded. “Officer Garcia,
que paso
?"

“How are you doing, Victor?” Daryl said. He held his hand out and Victor grasped it in a power shake.

“Okay, man.” He motioned toward Rachael. “That her?"

“Yep.” Daryl turned toward Rachael. “You ready?"

Rachael took a deep breath, her heart pounding in her chest. She had thought Daryl and some of the backup officers would frisk the gang members for weapons, but they made no attempt to do that. Surely they knew the gang members were armed! She supposed with the eight cops that had come along as backup, and the plainclothes detectives watching the area they were pretty safe, but she didn't feel it. She felt both scared and excited; she could feel the adrenaline pouring through her veins. She took a deep breath. “Ready as I'll ever be."

Daryl turned to Victor. “Everything cool?"

“Everything's cool, homes,” Victor said. He stepped away from the car. His partner remained at sentry duty, chest thrown forward, head tilted back, macho tough.

Daryl opened the driver's side door and got out. Rachael got out on her side, barely aware of Lance scrambling out of the backseat behind her or the officers that had been assigned to follow them getting out of their squad cars. Her only aim now was to get her interview, do it quickly, and get the hell out of here. She sought eye contact with Victor, got it, and smiled. “Hi! You're Victor?” She stepped forward, holding out her hand.
Time to turn on the charm
.

Daryl made the introductions. Rachael and Lance greeted Victor amicably, and met his sidekick, Gomez Mendoza. As the introductions were being made, the remaining gang members that had been lounging against the graffiti stained concrete columns that supported the bridge moved forward. Victor introduced them all by their nicknames.

Rachael acknowledged them all and connecting their names with their physical appearances: Midget was the little guy with the shaved head; Gordo was the chunky man with the knee length baggy shorts; Joker was the medium built man with slightly slanted eyes that suggested Indian or Philippine background; and Rascal was the only guy with hair, a greasy explosion of it corkscrewing out of his head like the rap star Coolio.

Rachael turned the tape recorder on and reached for her notes. She didn't really need them-she had already memorized what she wanted to ask them-but she had them on hand to assure them that she was the real thing. She smiled at them, spoke to them softly, respectfully, drawing them out, inserting herself in as one of them. Despite the joking sexual innuendo of Joker as he lightly teased her-"Damn, you're beautiful, baby. You married?” Laughter broke out from the others after each attempt from Joker at cutting through to her defenses. She merely smiled and attempted to go on. For the most part she had them at ease right away.

“You guys hang out here all the time, right?” Rachael began after the light banter had run its course. By now they were all standing around in a rough semi-circle; gang members on one side, cops standing off about twenty feet away observing; her, Lance and Daryl about five feet from Victor, Joker and Midget. “I mean, this is your territory and you do business here all the time."

“Can't admit that, man,” Midget said, chuckling, motioning to Daryl. “Shit, if we admit that
he'll
bust us."

Joker laughed. “Bullshit. Hey, Daryl, you ain't gonna bust us if we talk about that shit, are you?"

Daryl said, “With God as my witness, you guys can talk to this lady about anything and you will not go to jail."

There was more laughter about this, about how they were “one up on the man,”

and that this sudden change of balance indicated that they really were in control of this area of the Eight-First Street bridge. Daryl merely smiled at them and joked along with them. Rachael smiled, waiting patiently. It appeared that Daryl was trying his hardest to be civil with them. The feeling she got from Daryl now was that if he had the chance he would shoot all five gang members on general principles if she and Lance weren't around.

Victor finally answered her question. “Yeah, we're here all the time. Somebody from Los Compadres always is. And none of us saw anything."

“You mean none of you saw when Rick Perez's body was dumped in this area?”

Rachael reiterated.

They all shook their heads. Gordo said, “None of us did. He was just there one morning when we came down here."

“Who do you think killed him?” She asked.

“Shit, man,” Midget said, throwing up his hands in the Los Compadres gang sign.

“We know Tortilla Flats did it. They fucked him up, they been into us forever."

The gang members murmured general agreement on this. Joker piped in a: “But they ain't gonna get
you, baby. Not with me here to look after you they won't!"

She flashed him a smile, all the while thinking
Jesus, I haven't seen so much
fucking macho bullshit since high school
. “But suppose it wasn't Tortilla Flats? What do you think about the FBI's idea that it might be a serial killer?"