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

gangway from the street or the gangway, hiked himself up to the window an entered the apartment. The unmark squad car startled her, it pulled up beside her before she realized it was there. Two young plainclothes officer approached, but when she flashed her badge they moved on. Evetta knew that the department needed help in catching the X-Man, a concerned citizen that saw something or maybe even Bull’s boys. Evetta returned to her car, climbed inside, and turned on the interior light. She read the reports of the police officers and detectives who had interviewed the neighbors. None of the neighbors really knew her, although she had lived in the neighborhood all of her life, but Evetta knew that this neighborhood was very mobile, people were always moving in and out and they minded their own business. None of the neighbors saw or heard anything suspicious that Saturday night according to the other detective’s interview reports, there was nothing to draw attention to anything the night of the murder or any other night. Evetta opened the envelope containing the first known victim of the X-Man. Evetta briefly glanced at the photographs of the other four victims and the photo of Peggy as a tear ran down her cheek. Evetta placed the envelope on the car seat got out her car and walked to the porch at 4525 South Prairie Avenue. She knocked on the door and in a few minutes the old woman they had saw at the garbage can peeked through a window facing the porch, Evetta showed her badge.

EVETTA (SHOUTING)
Chicago Police can I talk with you a few minutes?

OLD WOMAN (THE OLD WOMAN OPENED THE DOOR THE LENGTH OF THE BURGLAR CHAIN)

EVETTA (SHOWING THE WOMAN HER BADGE)
Hi, I’m detective Lunden and I am investigating the murder of your neighbor Peggy Smith, may I come in?

OLD WOMAN (STRAINING TO LOOK AT THE BADGE)
Be right with you

A few minutes later the woman opened the door
OLD WOMAN
Sorry I had to pee

Evetta entered the apartment and the old woman motioned for her to sit down. Evetta sat on a comfortable chair and the woman sat on a sheet-covered couch and introduced herself as Mrs. Watson.

EVETTA
Mrs. Watson did you know Peggy Smith?

WATSON
Yes, I’ve known her since she was a little girl; she has lived all of her life in the apartment next door. Terrible, terrible what happened to her, caught anybody yet?

EVETTA
No, not yet, but we’re working hard to catch them or him. We’re trying to get some background on Peggy, what kind of young woman was she?

WATSON
She was a quiet young girl and always respectful towards me and the other older people in the neighborhood. She was married for a while and had two beautiful children, but her and her husband couldn’t get alone, cause I could hear them arguing. After awhile I didn’t see him or the children, I figured they had broken up

EVETTA
Did ever see any men going to her apartment, like a boyfriend or something?


WATSON (SCRATCHING HER HEAD)
Yeah, there was a young man who would come by, generally on the weekends and I guess he must have spent the night ‘cause his car would be in front all night
EVETTA
Did you hear or see anything last Saturday night

WATSON (AGAIN THE OLD WOMAN SCRATCHED HER AND THOUGHT A MOMENT).
Now that you mentioned it I got up about two in the morning to pee and I looked out my bathroom window and I saw her and a man, he didn’t look like the guy who often spent the night, he was a short little man

EVETTA (EXCITED)
Could you see his face?

WATSON
No, he was real short and my bathroom window is setup high

EVETTA
See anything else?

WATSON (BLUSHING)
Yep, she was naked as a bedbug, no clothes on at all

EVETTA
We hear she walked the apartment naked a lot.

WATSON
Who knows what goin’ on with these young people, all they seem to think about is drugs and sex. She walked around in the nude a lot, I guessed she was just a hot momma and sometimes, mainly when the boyfriend was over I smelled pot comin’ from her apartment.


EVETTA
What did you do after you finished peeing?

WATSON
I looked over at her apartment, but didn’t see anything so I figured they were gettin’ it on, I went back to bed. The next morning I saw all the police cars and found out that she was killed

EVETTA
Thank you, Mrs. Watson, you’ve been a great help, here’s one of my business cards, if you think of anything else give me a call

The old woman took the card and walked Evetta to the door.
Once in the car she called Ringo and told him of the conversation.

HYDE PARK BALL HEALTH CLUB -10 April 2008
Esau worked out regularly at the Hyde Park Ball Health Club concentrating mainly on lifting weights and had developed strong arms and hands. Esau watched the short, but well-built woman as she worked out with a personal trainer. The woman was on her back lifting weights while the trainer stood over her, after ten repetitions with the weights the woman and the trainer moved to the treadmill. The trainer set the machine to a fast walking pace and walked away. Esau wore a tight body suit that revealed his well-toned physic and he stepped on the machine next to hers. She was fast walking at a frantic pace and the sweat rolled down her face and into her low-cut gym top. After fifteen minutes she got off the treadmill, took a long drink from a designer water bottle, and placed it in a pink gym bag, smiled at Esau and started to walk away. Esau got off the machine smiled and walked towards the woman.

ESAU
That was some workout, I tried to keep up but it was too fast for me.


WOMAN
Yep it is pretty fast, and you have to work up to it

ESAU
Can I buy you a drink at the juice bar?

WOMAN (LOOKING AT HER WATCH)
Sure, my name is Louise.

ESAU
Esau, when are you here?

No set dates or time whenever I have time, thanks for the drink. I’ve got to run, keep working on your speed

ESAU (BIG SMILE)
Will do

Esau watched as Deloris entered the woman locker room with the trainer, he hurriedly dress waits in his rental car. Ten minutes later Louise leaves and get into a black BMW. Esau follow her as she went west on 55th Street, enter Washington Park and exit at 47th Street. He followed as she past cheap Arab liquor stores, taverns and fast food restaurants. She pulled into a reserved parking space behind the Black Ladies Boutique at 200 East 47th Street. Esau park his vehicle down the street from the location got out and looked through the front window of the boutique. Louise was talking with customers and workers in the Boutique; he read the sign on the door that stated that the store hours were 9:30 am – 5:00 pm. He looked at his watch it was 4:15 pm, he returned to his car and waited. At 5:30 pm the woman and two other females left and an old black man secured the door and the gates. In a few minutes the woman passed him in her BMW, he followed her east on 47th Street and when she turned on Forrestville Avenue and pulled into the garage at 4916 he parked a few doors down. The woman entered her home and Esau watched as the lights came on in the house. For some unexplained reason he felt nervous and strangely alone but he felt the excitement rising, it wouldn’t be long now. Esau watched the quiet street fill with people coming home from work and children playing in the streets. He watched Louise as she watered the plotted plants on the front porch and talked with her neighbors. As dark fell concerned mothers called for their children to come inside. He watched Louise leave the house from the rear door and walk to the garage. “Now is the time,” he mumbled to himself. He was hard now and he found it difficult to walk. He quickly walked into the alley and quietly opened the gate on the rear fence, entered the yard and stood behind a large maple tree next to the garage and looked through the garage window, a dog howled a two or three houses down and others joined in. “I should cut their damn throats,” he said quietly to himself as he silently entered the garage, turned off the light and struck Louise knocking her unconscious to the floor. He pulled down her gym shorts, put on a condom and climbed atop her as Louise came to she begin to struggle. Esau placed a large knife at her throat pulled a rag from his pocket and stuffed it into her mouth.

ESAU
Shut the fuck up or I’ll cut your throat

Louise lay still as Esau tied a black nylon pair of panty hose around her neck and pulled it tighter as he entered her. He became more excited and started to ejaculate when suddenly he saw a man coming into the garage carrying a tire iron his hand. Esau jumped up, losing his erection and the condom slid off. Esau brandished the large knife at the man and when he backed up he ran out the garage jumped the fence and ran out the alley.
Esua was pissed he was just about to get his nut when that asshole came into the garage. He heard police sirens and quickly ducked into the alley and started walking north staying close to the buildings and hiding in the shadows. When he reached 47th Street he blended in with the crowd turned west and popped two more pills.


ESAU (LAUGHING)
Shit, that was close

No one on the street paid any attention to the little man who staggered every now and then, just another 47th Street drunk, they thought. Esau walked west on 47th Street until he reached Prairie Avenue he turned north, at 44th Street he turned into the alley and began looking in windows and at 4327 he saw the silhouette of a woman on the second floor. He stopped and watched. He couldn’t see her face but her body looked good. Esau studied the rickety rear porch and moved further back into the shadows and popped two more pills. He was flying and he had a hard erection. George “Bo” James a drug dealer who worked 43rd Street was also in the shadows and watched Esua as he climbed the rear porch stairs and enter the second floor apartment. It was an old depilated building in a drug and gang infested area. Evetta and I arrived at 10:00 am, police cars and an EMS vehicle were parked in front and a uniform police officer was posted on the front stairs to keep intruders out.

RINGO
What we got?

YOUNG POLICE OFFICER (VISIBLY SHAKEN)
Deceased black female, named Robin Honeywell, Thirty-two, divorced, single mom with two kids, boy three and a girl five, both kids have lived with their father in Detroit since June. Vics