The X-Man by Brian R. Lundin (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📕

on the urban streets as impatient drivers hurried to get nowhere. I threw my bag into the back seat, climbed into the unmarked Crown Victoria and slammed the door. Evetta switched on the wipers put the car into gear and the tires whined on the wet pavement as she pulled into the maddening O’Hara traffic. The black unmarked Ford sped down the slick expressway, the wipers going full blast fighting the backwash from the semis and the rain. The heavy rain had replaced the snow and was punctuated by flashes of thunder and lightning adding to the traffic congestion, even at this time of the day. We sat in silence as I laid my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes.

JOHN RINGO
Is it him?

EVETTA LUNDEN
We think so, same MO.

JOHN RINGO
Vic?

EVETTA
Peggy Smith twenty-five, 5’3”, 110 pounds, short black hair and dark skin, no known boyfriends, worked as a clerk in Black Pride bookstore on 51st Street and was a source of joy and help to her mother, Katherine and her Alzheimer afflicted father, Robert. Peggy was found yesterday after the maintenance man went to investigate foul odors coming from the apartment, saw her door opened and went in to investigate, he found her in the bathtub at her Ist floor apartment, where she lived alone, at 5225 South Prairie Avenue estimated time of death between 2-3 am rainy and snow and she was a member of Melony Fitness Center in Dolton, Illinois.

RINGO
Let’s go to the scene, ok and what’s the lieu saying?


EVETTA (SMILING)
The little general is in his usual tissy, with his no-nothing ass, getting in the way, fucking things up. He’s got the best detectives in the department and he won’t leave them alone, and giving the standard line of bullshit to the media and waiting for you to hurry back,

RINGO (LAYNG HIS HEAD ON THE BACKREST AND SIGHING)
You know all of the murders seem to be random and senseless, Wake me when we get there.

EXT. 5225 SOUTH PRAIRIE AVENUE
Evetta nudged me as she parked the car next to a three flat depressing looking building two doors down from 5225 South Prairie Avenue I awoke and looked around.

EVETTA (HOLDING A WHITE STYROFORM CUP)
Here, I thought you might need this,

RINGO (REMOVING THE CAP)
If you weren’t married to my best friend and I wasn’t the godfather to your three boys, I would hit on you.

EVETTA (LAUGHING)
And I wasn’t damn near old enough to be your mama.

RINGO (TOSSING THE CAP OUT THE WINDOW)
Who else is assigned?

EVETTA
Numnuts assigned Marcus Burke as the lead detective until you came back and Charley Turner, lead I.D. Tech. Turner was as grouchy as ever, but as usual very careful. He shot color and black and white photos and videotapes of the Vic and the apartment, sketched a floor plan that showed all angles of the apartment and the bathroom and filled out a VICAP report and a death scene checklist. The Medical Examiner Office sent Doc Dixon, their chief pathologist, Doc Dixon examined the body. The cause of death was strangulations but lacerations were found on her scalp, results of a blow with a blunt instrument and she was raped before and after death. Everything else in the apartment was in order but like the others, all of her underwear was missing.

RINGO
This guy is getting quite a collection of women panties and underwear, maybe he planning on opening up a ladies underwear boutique.

EVETTA
Must be the only thing taken is the victims underwear. Charley found some open and unopened mail in her bedroom and a three day old Sun-Time Newspaper, O'Shea ordered everyone not to touch anything we didn’t have to and you can go from there.

RINGO
Fibers, hair any kind of trace evidence.

EVETTA
Charley vacuumed the entire apartment, we’ve got six bags, and it’s at the crime lab.

RINGO
Ok, let’s do a walk-around before we go in.

EXT. ALLEYWAY BEHIND 5225 SOUTH PRIARIE AVENUE
Evetta gathered up the folder and the clipboard. The snow and rain had stopped and we walked north on Prairie, turned right at the corner and walked the half bock to the Chicago Transit Authority Elevator station and entered the alley. The smell of rotten garbage, dog shit and decaying rodents were accentuated by the cold wind. A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train came to labored and noisy stop at the 51st Street elevator station and showered the alley with dust and sparks; we waited until the train moved on. This area of the city three miles from downtown and two miles from the expensive high-rise apartment buildings overlooking Lake Michigan consisted of ancient derelict tenement buildings, boarded up businesses, Arab liquor stores and storefront churches. Stray alley cats could be heard scrambling towards the overflowing garbage cans as the rats some as large as cats, hurried away. The alley creatures ran towards building openings and the cats hissed as they took flight after their prey,

EVETTA (WHSPERING)
I don’t think they like cops in this neighborhood.

RINGO (WATCHING THE HOSTILE EYES IN THE ALLEY)
I agree.

They passed a fenced- in yard and a large pit-bull secured to a heavy chain came from somewhere growled and attacked the fence with a fury. An old woman with different colored rollers in her thin gray hair and wearing an oversized pink and yellow house dress with a pair of mismatched house slippers that covered her ashy bare feet and carrying a garbage bag, smacked the large beast with the back of her hand. The animal whimpered and lay on the ground. The woman eyed me and Evetta suspiciously and removed the lid on the garbage can. Large black flies flew out the can and she casually waived them away. Evetta nodded and smiled at the woman but she looked away. As we continued down the alley I could feel her eyes watching us.

RINGO
Remind me to have someone interview her, people think that serial killers jump out the bushes and grab their victims, but most of the times it is someone they know; a co-worker, the mailman and an old lady like that that have nothing else to do but look out their windows might have seen something.

EVETTA (MAKING A NOTE OF THE ADDRESS)
I read that the Summerdale Sandal that happen nearly fifty years ago was the result of a old lady going to the bathroom to pee, around three in the morning, looked out her window and saw the police officers placing stolen goods into their squad car.

Ringo and Evetta continued walking and stopped at a battered sign on a post that read, 5225. Ringo searched the entire area, looking downward. The rain and snow had eliminated any footprints and the back yard was littered with foul smelling, rotting garbage and discarded furniture. It began to snow again and the sky became an overcast gray. Ringo searched the perimeter of the small yard first, walking beside a worn wooded fence eyes trained downward and found nothing. They walked up the stairs to the rear wooden porch that had gaping holes in the floor and Ringo shook the door that showed signs of being jimmied but was unlocked, when I gently pushed the door open there was a creaking sound. After entering, Evetta took the floor plan out the folder and made a note of the noisy hinges. Something wasn’t right; inside the apartment was an unnatural quietness, someone was in the apartment. Ringo pulled out his .44 Magnum and put a finger to his mouth as Evetta pulled out her weapon.

A MALE VOICE (YELLING)
Hello, is someone there?

RINGO
Police!

FADE IN:
An elderly man wearing overalls come into view.

EVETTA (GUN AT HER SIDE)
Who are you?

ELDERLY MAN (VISIBLY SHAKEN)
I’m the building maintenance man, the police told me I could come and clean the apartment

RINGO (Holstering the weapon)
We’re conducting an investigation, give my partner your name and address and we’ll notify you when you can come back.

Man gives the information to Evetta and hurry out the apartment.

RINGO (removed two pair of disposable surgical gloves from his front pants pocket and give one to Evetta.)

FADE IN:
It was a plain, stark apartment, smelling of disinfectant and death. Shadows deepen in corners as we entered the small, clean and tidy kitchen. There were a few pieces of unwashed silverware in the sink, a wood table surrounded by four chairs that held a bowl of artificial fruit and a grocery store receipt. Shaded masks of black fingerprinting powder covered most of the items in the room. Putting on latex gloves, Evetta carefully opened the refrigerator and made a note of its contents; orange juice, butter, mustard and mayonnaise, a six-pack of Miller’s Lite beer and a half filled bottle of white wine. The refrigerator freezer contained a bag of spoiled neck bones, ham hocks and salt pork; she wrote down the expiration date of the items and closed the door. In the cabinet over the sink was a two-pound bag of pinto beans, two cans of mild chili beans, box of cornflakes and nothing else. On a counter was a coffee maker a two-slice toaster and a small microwave oven. Evetta noticed that there were no curtains on the kitchen window; I peered out the window on the south wall at another drab looking apartment building.

RINGO
She must eat out a lot

EVETTA
Or can’t cook
FADE IN:
We walked through a small hallway and into a small living room that contained a brown cloth couch, two brown chairs and a 24-inch plasma wall television. Black dusting powder littered the curtain-less window frame and landing. The floor plan revealed that the window faced a narrow gangway between the buildings and was five feet from the ground. Looking out I wondered if the X-Man had stood on a box and pulled himself up.

RINGO
She must have been very private person, no photographs, and no personal items at all, where is the bathroom?

EVETTA (looked at the floor plan and pointed)
Down the hall on the other side of the apartment if our Vic was taking a shower or in the bathtub, she might not have heard anything

RINGO
Was the window broken?

EVETTA
Nope!

RINGO
The report states that the both doors were unlocked?
EVETTA
Yes sir
FADE IN:
Ringo lifts the window and it went up about a foot

RINGO
This is a pretty small opening for a man to crawl through

FADE IN:
We entered the victim’s equally bare bedroom that contained a queen size bed, a walk-in closet, a three drawer chest-a-draw, a nightstand and a small color television. There were no curtains on the windows that faced the gangway. Evetta carefully open the doors to the nightstand and found feminine napkins, cheap perfume, a half-filled cellophane bag of suspected marijuana and a dildo.

RINGO
The worst part of this job is the uncovering of people’s private lives. Murder has a way of bearing for the world to see and expose all of those private things we spend a lifetime trying to hide. The murder victim does not have time to bury or hide their little secrets; the victim is left unmasked and totally vulnerable

EVETTA
This reminds me of some cheap transit hotel room

RINGO
What do you know about cheap hotel rooms?

EVETTA (SMILING AND WINKED)
I wonder if she ever though someone would find her sex toy

FADE IN: