Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller (16 page)

“Please keep your lame metaphors to yourself.”

Morris sipped his coffee and calmly looked away, his way of saying: young lady, I will not talk to you if you’re going to behave like this.

Thing was, he was right. Of course
why
and
how
aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re best friends. I just felt like it was all taking too damn long.

But that’s okay, right, Maggie? After this guy, there’s the next, and the next after that—

Better to catch them sooner than later.

You were never this impatient before Christopher got sick. You worked all angles; you were patient, meticulous almost to a fault. Why is it different now? Why so impatient?

I don’t know.

Because you don’t have much time maybe? Each passing day on a full dose of the drug is like someone else’s hand on the dial, setting the timer ahead to rob you of your allotted time?

I don’t know. Like I said, better to catch them sooner than later.

Before what?

Before they kill again, of course.

Is that all?

YES.

Super Duper Martyr Day doesn’t have to be a regular holiday, you know. Dr. Cole is right; you do a damn good job without your friend in a bottle.

It’s too slow.

You can’t catch them all, Maggie.

Morris’ cell phone rang. He answered it. Listened and said: “You’re shitting me.” Listened and said: “You’re shitting me.” Listened and said: “We’re on our way.” He hung up and looked at me. “There was an incident at a strip club in your neck of the woods.”

I frowned. I certainly didn’t live near any strip clubs. My only guess was: “Philly?”

Morris nodded. “A bouncer was stabbed. Guy got away. But here’s the thing: apparently there’s a dancer there with one hell of an interesting story to tell.”

“One of the responding officers is friends with one of the officers who was on the scene in Newark,” he said on the drive. “Apparently they’ve discussed the case at length.”

“And this responding officer made the connection based on the stripper’s testimony?”

Morris gunned a yellow light. “Sharp kid, I guess.”

“It sounds pretty thin, Tim. It could be nothing.”

“Or it could be something.”

My phobia theory was hardly a secret anymore. Morris and I contemplated keeping a lid on it like the right palm, but we needed manpower, especially after what we discovered about Hal Redmond’s fear of fire and the West Chester student’s fear of dogs. Word travels fast—and when we’re no longer trying to keep a lid on things, it can be a blessing.

“So this drunken patron we hope is our guy just up and spilled his guts?” I asked.

“Enough for the officer on the scene to think it might be significant. Not to mention the description the stripper gave was damn close to the one the waitress at the coffee place gave us.”

“Jesus, maybe you were right,” I said. “Maybe he did screw up.”

“We can only hope.”

That’s the way it sometimes worked. Cool as it would be to track your man all the way to his front door, more often than not you just got lucky. One of Dahmer’s would-be victims escaped and led police straight back to Dahmer’s apartment. Joel Rifkin got picked up for driving without plates, with a body in the back of his truck.

“What exactly did the stripper say?” I asked.

Morris cut in front of a Buick and the driver laid on his horn. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

The club was like a cave after stepping in from the afternoon sun. It smelled like smoke, sweat, and body spray. I was grateful my senses from the drug were not particularly acute at the moment—an intense snoot full of all of the above would have been unbearable, or, God forbid, a snoot full of something else.

The only remaining people inside the club were employees and a few patrons being interviewed by local PD. One in a group of officers in back spotted Morris and me and waved us over.

“Agent Morris? I’m Detective Dandridge.” He then gestured to the other two. “Officers Howe and Carter.”

We did our hellos.

Detective Dandridge, tall and very thin with silver hair and serious bags under his eyes, waved over a dancer who stood in the corner with a female officer. The dancer was smoking a cigarette and looking both rattled and angry. The female officer brought her to us.

“This is Crystal,” Dandridge said. “She was the dancer that was with your guy.”

“Not sure he’s our guy yet,” Morris said. “We hope so.”

Dandridge nodded. “She gave us everything, but I figured you’d want to hear it for yourself. She scratched him pretty good. We found blood under one of her nails. Already sent it off with orders to step on it. Fingers crossed for a hit. You got everything you need?”

Morris smiled. “For now, yeah. Thanks, detective.”

Dandridge nodded again. “Bartender over there served him—” He gestured towards the bar where two officers stood talking to a woman. “Might wanna talk to her after as well.”

Morris smiled and thanked him again.

Dandridge left, the remaining officers following behind. Just me, Morris, and Crystal now.

“I knew he was drunk,” she said, “but, you know, a lot of them are.”

“Did he say anything before he started getting grabby?” I asked.

She exhaled hard, a short, fast stream. “Kept going on about being a real man, and that he was no pussy mama’s boy.” She snorted. “He even made me repeat it to him. Fucking psycho is what he was.”

Morris patted the air with one hand, telling her to relax.

“What else did he say?” I asked.

“Said he wasn’t afraid of anything. Then he tried to lick my tits.” Another hard and fast inhale and exhale.

Morris and I exchanged glances.

“What happened after that?” Morris asked. “After he tried to lick you?”

“I told him not to. I was polite though. It happens.”

“Did he get angry?”

She thought about it for a second. “Not at first. He seemed more frustrated than angry.”

“How so?”

“He kept trying to touch my tits. Kept telling me it was okay because he wasn’t afraid anymore. Then—and the detective said you’d think this was important—he said those
other guys
were afraid, but
he
wasn’t.”

If I didn’t know Morris so well, I’d say he remained stone. But I did know him well, and for a brief moment I saw hope tease the forever stress lines etched on his face.

“Did he elaborate in any way?” Morris asked.

She took a final drag of her cigarette and dropped it to the floor where she stubbed it out with the toe of her high heels. “It was hard to tell; he was hammered. Kept slurring his words and repeating himself. None of it made any sense to me, and I didn’t really give a shit—I was just trying to finish the dance while keeping his hands off me.”

“Don’t suppose he gave you his name?” I asked.

She pursed her lips and gave me a look. “Don’t you think I’d have told you that?”

I swallowed the urge to smack her in the head. It came out as a low grumble.

Morris spotted my annoyance and quickly said: “So, you were trying to finish up the dance…”

“Yeah, but now he was starting to get angry. He grabbed hold of my ass and pulled me in real close. He started thrusting up into me and saying: ‘Not anymore, not anymore…’”

Morris frowned. “What did he mean by that?”

She shrugged. “No idea.”

I got back in the game. “Is that when you started to fight him off?”

“Yup. I tried pushing myself off, but he only held on tighter. And now he was getting really worked up, saying: ‘
Don’t need you anymore, bitch. Don’t need you anymore, bitch
.’”

Morris’ frown furrowed deeper. “And you have no idea what he was referring to? You didn’t say anything to him earlier that he might have been alluding to?”

She looked away in thought for a moment, then slowly started shaking her head. “No…no, sorry.”

“All right, then what?” I asked.

“I started hitting him. Scratching, clawing, going for his eyes…”

“Did he fight back?” Morris asked.

“Only when I called him a freak.”

Morris asked her to elaborate.

“I called him a freak and told him to let go. That’s when he grabbed me by the throat and started choking me. He was on top of me screaming that
they
were the freaks, not him. Then he started screaming ‘not anymore’ again and again. I swear I was about to blackout, but Anthony came in and pulled him off.”

“The bouncer,” Morris said.

She nodded. “Yeah. He uh…” She looked away as though upset. “He uh…he had hold of the guy by the neck, and I guess I was so angry that I got up and started to attack him while Anthony had a hold of him.”

“That’s understandable,” Morris said.

“Yeah, but he had to toss the freak aside to control me.” She was clearly upset now. “I didn’t mean for it to—I mean if I had known…they usually frisk you at the door.”

“Are you saying while Anthony was restraining you, the guy pulled a knife and stabbed Anthony?”

She looked away, frowning away tears. She lit another cigarette and dragged hard on it. “Asshole freak,” she muttered.

“Reports we got are that Anthony’s going to be okay,” Morris said. “He’s going to be okay.”

Still looking away, Crystal began nodding nervously. “Thank God.”

“So he took off after?” Morris said, reaching into his breast pocket.

“Like a bolt,” she said.

Morris unfolded a square of paper he’d pulled from his pocket. It was the composite sketch of our guy. He showed it to her.

“That’s him,” she said.

Morris thanked her, yet kept the sketch in her face. “Would you change anything on the sketch?” he asked. “If we had an artist here willing to touch the sketch up, would you change anything? Nothing is too small.”

She studied the sketch again, and then slowly began to shake her head, eyes staying on the paper as she spoke. “No…no, that’s pretty good. I wouldn’t change anything.”

Morris thanked her again and put the sketch away, hope still flirting with his cynicism.

“Who is this guy anyway?” she asked.

“Just someone we’re looking for,” Morris said.

“Well, I hope you catch the asshole.”

“You scratched him good?” Morris said.

“Damn right.”

Morris smiled. “Well then that’ll help. Not many places a guy with a mark like that on his face can hide, never mind his DNA.”

Crystal actually smiled back. A flirty smile, no less. Then, I kid you not, she made Morris blush (just a teensy bit, but no
way
was it hiding from me) when she said: “It was my pleasure, officer. You come back and you’ve got a private dance on me.”

I was about to tell her “agent” not “officer” but Morris looked as if he didn’t give two poops, so I let his ego bask.

Still, ever the professional, Morris held up a hand and offered a polite smile. “Thank you.”

Crystal suddenly gestured to the hand Morris had raised to decline her offer. “I just remembered something. He kept saying ‘not anymore’ over and over, but he only started saying it
after
he showed me his palm.”

Morris’ eyebrows bounced. “What?”

“Yeah—he showed me his palm and said, ‘See this? Not anymore.’” She reenacted the scene with her own palm as she spoke. “It had this thick scar on it. Yeah, I remember exactly now—he showed me a scar on his palm and said: ‘You see this? Not anymore, not anymore.’”

“Was it his right palm?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think it was.”

Unfortunately, too much time had passed between the incident and our arrival to set up any decent roadblocks. The guy was probably two states over by now, but by all accounts, he was also drunk. This meant, if he had a brain in his head, public transportation, but then our brains are typically on hiatus when we’re drunk, so it’s possible he could have jumped into a car and drove himself. Still, transit police got their APBs, cabbies got word to keep an eye out for drunken fares matching our guy’s description, hotels and motels got private bulletins in case he decided to crash and lay low, and just in case our guy’s drunken brain
was
on hiatus and he did decide to get behind the wheel, Morris organized patrol on all state borders. Our guy had already screwed up big time, and with any luck,
his
luck would continue to plummet. Morris was amped, and he had a right to be. We were close.

The bartender didn’t give me anything too useful. She’d identified him from the sketch and said he’d started drinking heavily shortly after his arrival. She’d said he seemed upset about something, pounding the bar with his fist at one point. Soon after was when he’d started drinking heavily, switching from gin and tonics to straight gin. She said he loosened up not long after and began to get friendly.

What had gotten him so upset? I wondered. His new moniker? High Striker was indeed lame, but I’d heard lamer. No, I doubted that was it. Our guy didn’t seem the type to bathe in the limelight. He was no BTK or Happy Face Killer; he wanted anonymity to keep doing his thing. My gut told me he’d had a setback of some kind. If my burgeoning profile on this guy was correct, my guess was that he’d been emasculated somehow. His growing need to eradicate his own insecurities had taken a hit. How though? And by whom?