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

“X-MAN STRIKES AGAIN,” both Detectives distractedly waived back. A young black man sitting hands handcuffed behind his back sneered at another detective who looked up from his desk and pointed to the second floor.


EVETTA (WALKING TO THE COFFEE MAKER SITTING ON A TABLE)
Maybe you should leave your gun here

INT-SECOND FLOOR
On the second floor were six offices; one for the lieutenant, one for each sergeant and one for the departmental clinical psychologist and two civilian secretaries shared a large workstation, Ringo enters Lieutenant David O'Shea office.

RINGO (SITTING DOWN ON ARM OF THE COUCH)
You wanted to see me?

FADE IN:
The lieutenant sitting behind his desk was dressed in his trademark dark blue suit, white shirt and dark tie and with barely a word, pulled the door shut. The dull clattering of typewriters spitting out reports from detectives and the two civilian secretaries from on the other side of his office filled the room.


LIEUTENANT O'SHEA
Don’t sit on the arm sergeant

RINGO (STILL SITTING ON THE ARM)
Long night?
LIEUTENANT
Shit yeah, the chief and the mayor is under a lot of pressure about this X-Man bullshit and you ain’t done shit to catch him.

RINGO (Overlooking the slight)
Got a little insight into the mind of our guy from the FBI, but not much else.

LIEUTENANT
Fuck insight, I need results!

RINGO (GETTING OFF THE ARM AND CASUALLY WALKING TOWARDS THE DOOR
Me too.

LIEUTENANT
What the fuck are you doing to catch this asshole?

RINGO (FEELING THE BLOOD RUSHING TO HIS BRAIN AND HIS ANGER RISING)
(CALMLY)
Everything we can, sir

LIEUTENANT
Whatever you need let me know and by the way, the head of the FBI Behavior Science Unit called and volunteered to help in any way possible, but until there is some federal violation they have to remain strictly as advisors and if this is a serial killer, VICAP, their Violent Criminal Apprehension Program found two other Victims in Gary that match his MO. The Mayor’s office is putting all kind of heat on the Chief, he even suggested hiring a psychic from California, and can you believe that bullshit.

RINGO
They grow California psychics like a cash crop. Talk about a circus if the media get hold to that. We’re trying to keep a lid on this thing, but eventually we are going to have to let the public know that maybe there’s a serial killer out there and the last thing we need is the press getting hold of it an scaring the shit out of the good citizens, the word serial killer scares the shit out of most people and we certainly don’t need good people walking around with guns, we’ve got enough of that already but you know, that if these killings were on the north side, in Lincoln Park, Wrigleyville or Bridgeport, the people would be enraged, It would be on the front page of the Sun-Times and the Tribune, shit the mayor might even demand the governor sent out the National Guard, but who gives a fuck about some poor-ass black women.

LIEUTENANT
Let’s not make this a race thing

RINGO (HEADING FOR THE DOOR)
Everything in Chicago is a race thing

INT-JOHN RINGO’S OFFICE

FADE IN:
Ringo calls Evetta, Detectives Willie Burke and Charley Turner the lead I.D. Tech, and Medical Examiner Doctor Anthony Dixon, Chief pathologist to his office. While waiting he post colored 11x 14 crime scene photos of the victim on the wall board. Willie Burke is the first to arrive, he is wearing red and black Michael Jordan gym shoes, red and black Michael Jordan sweat suit, a large gold chain hang around his neck and a red and black dew rag is tied around his bald head, Evetta s next to enter.

EVETTA (SMILING AND LOOKING AT WILLIE)
I thought the lieu told you to dress like a detective, not a pimp or bang-banger.

WILLIE
Well he did, but I explained to him to get information you got to fit in and if he wanted me to get Intel on X-man, leave me alone. He just shook his head.

FADE IN:
Charley Turner and Doctor Dixon enter and take a seat. Charley had a stocky frame and a loud gravelly voice and he always looked like he was angry at somebody or something, but he could find trace evidence that others missed. Doctor Anthony Dixon was in his early sixties, maybe five feet tall and weighed maybe 140 pounds and was considered an expert in the field of forensic science. He was fastidious and seemingly had a hand fetish because he was always washing his hands and cleaning his spotless fingernails. The doctor took out a nail file and started cleaning his nails. He wore black pants and a white, heavily starched shirt and a pressed white laboratory coat with a plastic, pictured ID badge clipped to the top pocket.

RINGO
What we got doc?

DOCTOR
Not much, not a lot to tell you about Peggy, she was raped before and after death, she died of manual strangulation: suffocation, same as the others. The cuts were per mortem, but made with a slender bladed knife and if I remember correctly the other Vics were cut up with kitchen knives. We didn’t get the body for two days you know, so it was hard to get too much. There were small traces of marijuana in her blood and we sent her handbags over to the lab but we found nothing under the nails or on the fingers. We found sperm which is being examined for DNA and hopefully our unsub, is in some DNA database, if not when we get a suspect we can check to see if there is a match, we’re still trying to determine if Peggy was killed while in the bath tub or somewhere else.

FADE IN:
As the doctor sat down the door opened and Monique Brown, the Department Clinical Psychologist entered. Monique Brown was very dark with keen features and prominent cheekbones, a trait inherited along with her coloring from her maternal great-great grandmother that was a full-blooded Sioux Indian and her great-great grandfather who was a runaway slave. She was witty, charming and most of all smart. She looked like one of the old Regal Theater showgirls, trim and athletic looking with a small waist, shapely legs and the haughty air of an Indian Princess, out of time and place, but royalty nonetheless. Her voice was soft and soothing and still had a charming North Dakota accent. Monique had the disposition of a patron saint and an easy way with people, which accounted for her success as the Department’s first black female clinical psychologist. Her deep black eyes were hypnotic and was rumored that she had hypnotized police officers and suspects. Police headquarters far removed from the Special Crimes Bureau is a combination of veteran police officers, aggressive young male officers and few female officers. It is rumor headquarters. Interdepartmental jealousies were the cause of most of the rumors, when someone started to advance, a rumor would surface to shed doubt on the qualifications of the person and some of these doubts however unfounded could linger in the minds of the most well intentioned officers for years and the rumors that had some validity could linger in the halls of police stations long after the subject of the rumor had retired or died.
Everyone at one time or another in the department was the subject of rumors. Lieutenant O'Shea was rumored to get his promotions because of clout, not accomplishments; Lieutenant David O'Shea came from a family of Irish Chicago Police Officers. His grandfather Sean was a body guard for the late mayor and his father William retired as a Deputy Chief of Detectives. The O'Shea family had always lived in Bridgeport, the democratic bastion of Chicago and the neighborhood of most of Chicago mayors. David lived next door to his widowed father with two daughters and wife. O'Shea was thirty-two years old, overweight and had a ruddy complexion that turned beak red when upset, angry or drunk. He was a little man under five feet eight the height requirement for police officers and it was rumored that he stood on his grandfather and father’s shoulders to meet the requirement. His sparse, thinning red hair was the same color as his scalp and there were deep wringles around his eyes. After graduating from the academy he was assigned to the Crime Analysis Bureau where he worked days, a straight forty hour week and off on weekends, whereas most rookie police officers were assigned to a district on the Ist Watch or midnight shift and never had a weekend off. Department regulations required an officer must have two years on the job to take the sergeant examination, so after exactly two years David took the exam and was promoted to sergeant. Unlike most newly promoted sergeants who are assigned to a patrol district usually on midnights, David was assigned to the Communication Center another soft job, two years later he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned as an administrative aide to the Chief of Detective, Donald Nash. Nash had been an aide to David’s father and was David’s godfather. When the Special Crimes Bureau, under the Chief of Detectives was organized, Nash assigned David as the commanding officer and he hand-picked five Irish detectives as his personal assistants Ringo got assigned to the Special Crimes Bureau because his aunt was a politically connected with a powerful black alderman. Rumors about Monique were varied, as rumors often are; rejected suitors who felt that if a woman didn’t fall for their tired lines she had to be gay, probably started some of the rumors, Other rumors alleged that she had gotten her well paying, soft position by sleeping with some high political or police department official, also never proven. Monique was the only member of the force who could act autonomously and as such was the target of rumors by a few envious women.

MONIQUE (WALKING IN FRONT OF THE GROUP)
I just received a fax from the FBI’s Criminal Profile Unit and it might interest you, they wired me a telex with all kind of qualifying statements, but what is interesting is that they interviewed fifteen sexual psychopathic serial killers deemed criminally insane and lust murders, and the most striking thing about most of their cases were the explosion of sadistic violence that went far beyond just raping their victims; carving symbols into their bodies, removing parts of the body and mutilations. They concluded that our Mr. X-Man is probably a sexual psychopath which, they defined as an individual that receive uninhibited gratification in criminal, sexual or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes, he is also a quiet, isolated individual with a schizoid personality and is charming, intimidating and use sex and violence to control others to satisfy his selfish needs. He is lacking in conscience and feels no empathy for his victims. He is probably black and can blend in with the neighborhood, in his early twenties and a bookworm. Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion; some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including the corporate or business environments. There is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopaths; there are no medications or other techniques which can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. The consensus among researchers is that psychopath stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth; this