The Red Mohawk Read online

  ‘It’s just down here,’ said Reg pointing down a corridor. Up ahead he saw Mack the Slasher standing guard outside Baby’s room.

  ‘Hi Mack,’ he called out.

  Mack raised a hand and saluted him with a wry smile.

  ‘Is she ready?’ Reg called out. ‘The doctor’s here.’

  Mack nodded. ‘Oh yeah, she’s ready. She struggled a little bit at first, but she’s calmed down now.’ He opened the door and held it for Reg and the doctor as they approached.

  Through the opening Reg could see the lower half of Baby. She was completely naked and tied to a large bed in the middle of the room.

  Reg stopped and stepped aside. He gestured for Dr Chandler to go ahead of him. The doctor looked up at Mack and smiled politely as he sidled past him and into Baby’s room. Reg hung back and spoke to Mack. ‘Did she give you any shit?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle. She’s hurt her arm so I had to help her get undressed, but tying her to the bed was easy enough. She won’t be able to put up a struggle. I’ve done all the hard work for you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Reg. ‘Silvio said I should sit in on this. He said you can take a ten minute break, but then he wants you to head up to his office. He’s got some kind of job for you.’

  ‘Good. I can’t say I was particularly looking forward to sitting in on an abortion. Not my kind of entertainment.’

  ‘Me neither, but I’ll try anything once. Look, just keep the other girls away from here. Some of them are giving the doctor filthy looks.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll keep them in line.’

  ‘Cool. I’ll let you know when we’re done.’

  Mack wandered off to the reception area of The Booty Parlour. Reg took one last look around and then followed the doctor into Baby’s room. Baby was writhing around on the large king size bed. Her wrists and ankles were bound with rope and tied to the four corners of the bed. There was a thick strip of brown masking tape wrapped across her mouth. The pink duvet underneath her was ruffled where she had been trying to wriggle free. And standing at the end of her bed was Dr Chandler. He had set his brown leather briefcase down on the duvet between her legs. Baby was staring wide-eyed at the doctor and his bag of tricks.

  Reg closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock to prevent any unwanted visitors interrupting proceedings. When he turned back around he saw Baby struggling to free herself from the binding on her wrists and ankles. She was tied up so tight she had no chance of breaking free, just like Mack had promised. She twisted her head to the side and looked at Reg with pleading eyes. He watched her try to scream out to him for help. The brown masking tape over her mouth stifled any chance of that. She continued to struggle, the muscles in her arms and legs straining hard as she attempted to loosen the binding, but it was all to no avail. Reg smiled at her and spent a few seconds admiring her naked body, making sure she could see him eyeing her up, in the hope it might make her feel even more uncomfortable. He leant down to brush some hair out of her eyes and whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t worry Baby. I’ll be here if anything goes wrong.’

  He turned and nodded at Dr Chandler. ‘Okay doc. She’s all yours.’

  The doctor took a deep breath and flicked open the handle on his briefcase. He looked nervous. He smiled apologetically at Baby. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said. ‘So please don’t struggle.’

  Thirty Nine

  By the time Officer Benny Stansfield left The Beaver Palace, the night sky had drawn in. It had been a long and very stressful day and all he wanted to do was get home and see his wife. He called her to let her know he would be home within half an hour and then switched off the police frequency on the car radio. He’d had enough of listening to the repetitive reports of the day’s murders.

  He flicked through the CD’s in his glove box, while keeping one eye on the road. He picked out the soundtrack to the movie Drive and slipped it into the CD player. He flicked forward to the song A Real Hero, and began singing along to the parts he knew. He weighed up the day’s events as he sped down the road. He really had been a real hero. He’d rescued Baby from Litgo’s place just before the Red Mohawk showed up, and then he’d returned her safely to The Beaver Palace. And now he wanted nothing more than to put his feet up at home and crack open a bottle of red wine to share with the wife.

  He’d travelled less than a mile from The Beaver Palace when he spotted something that sent a shiver down his spine. A yellow stock car with a red stripe through the middle of it was parked on the other side of the road by some bushes. There was no one sitting in either of the front seats. But this was definitely the Red Mohawk’s car.

  He eased off on the gas and pulled over a safe distance away. He stared across the road at the yellow car and weighed up his options. Potentially this could be worth another hundred grand, not to mention the fame and notoriety that would go with being the hero cop that caught the worst serial killer in B Movie Hell’s history. However, this stretch of road was also isolated, unlit and covered on either side by thick woodland. That complicated things. A lot.

  He kept the engine running on his black and white Plymouth Fury and turned the volume down on the car radio. His hand settled on the handle of his handgun. He pulled it out of its holster on his belt and flicked open the barrel to check if it was loaded. Every chamber had a bullet in it. That meant he had six shots. Six shots at becoming a real hero. He swallowed hard and nodded to himself. His mind made up, he quietly opened the car door and stepped out. The road outside was deadly silent. There were no chirping birds, no scurrying feet of rodents. Nothing. Not a sound. He edged across the road, with his gun pointed and ready to fire. There was definitely no one in the front seats of the stock car. He moved towards the rear of the car and peered in through the back window. He pressed his face up against it to get a good look inside. There was no one on the back seat either. He stepped back and crouched down to check underneath the car, his foot crunching on a small stone and finally punctuating the silence around him. There was no one under the car either. His heart was beating fast. And loud. His palms were sweating and his trigger finger twitched as he edged around to the back of the car and peered into the woodland. There was no sign of any movement. Remembering all the cheesy horror movies he’d seen in his time, he spun around, fearful that someone might be behind him, creeping up on him. There was no one, no sign of any movement at all.

  He turned back to the car but kept his gun pointed into the woodland. He reached out with his spare hand and checked to see if the trunk would open. The metal lock was ice cold against his thumb, but to his surprise it flicked open easily when he pressed it. It bounced up half an inch and then settled back down, slightly ajar. Benny stepped away from it and reached forward to flick it open with the barrel of his gun. He was well aware of how ridiculous it was to think that the killer might be hiding in the trunk of his own car. But in dangerous times like these Benny wasn’t willing to take any chances. A hundred thousand dollar reward was at stake for the execution of the Red Mohawk, but more importantly Benny’s life was at stake too.

  He flicked the trunk open and hopped back a step just in case. Nothing jumped out at him so he took a deep breath and squinted his eyes to get a good look inside. The lack of any light made it difficult to see anything at first. But after a few seconds he caught sight of something. Something big. He edged closer and peered inside, ready to jump back again if anything pounced. Before he even had a chance to focus on what was inside he heard a noise from the woodland. It was something scurrying around. Probably a rodent of some sort, but even so, it was enough to make him spin a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn with his pistol aimed. When he was confident there was no one in sight he calmed himself by concentrating on breathing slower, then he took a closer look inside the trunk of the car.

  The large object he had seen was exactly what he feared it would be. A corpse. Another dead body to add to the ever-growing list. This latest victim was a man. It was
hard to tell how old he was. He had thick hair that was covering much of his face. Benny leaned in and flicked some of the hair away to get a closer look. His hand touched on some dried blood that was matting several strands of hair together. The dead man wasn’t anyone he recognised. Benny knew all the local residents, so who the fuck was this guy?

  The corpse was wearing a stained blue T-shirt but no pants, just a pair of white boxer shorts. What Benny needed was a wallet with some form of identification for this latest victim.

  He took another look around the road and surrounding woodland area to make sure no one was sneaking up on him then began feeling around in the trunk behind the dead body. There wasn’t anything back there. He reluctantly rolled the body onto its side to see if there was anything underneath it. The body was cold and hard. Prodding and poking a dead guy was never a fun experience, particularly when it was dark and there was a possibility of sticking his hand into an open wound. He found nothing, not even some loose change. No identification, no handkerchief, not a damn thing. He took one last look around and decided to radio the discovery in to the station. He was just about to walk away when a gust of wind blew a piece of evidence his way. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it, but a small slip of white notepaper blew up out of the trunk. He reached up and caught it before it disappeared down the road. He held it up in front of his face. There was a handwritten message on it. In the fading light it was hard to make out the words. But now that he was confident he was alone he replaced his pistol in its holster and pulled out a small torch pen he kept in his top pocket. He shone it over the piece of paper and squinted to get a closer look. The message was written in red ink. It read

  Silvio Mellencamp. The Beaver Palace, 100 Arlington Road, B Movie Hell.

  For a moment he wondered why a stranger would have Silvio Mellencamp’s address written down on a piece of paper. It offered no clue to his identity. At least, it didn’t until Benny read the words that were written beneath the address in bold lettering.

  GUNSHOT WOUND. FEMALE. UPPER ARM.

  Forty

  Reg walked around to the end of the bed and stood alongside Dr Chandler.

  ‘Mack’s done a great job tying her up, hasn’t he?’ he remarked, looking down at Baby’s naked body. The girl looked so vulnerable, so helpless and so utterly terrified.

  ‘He certainly has,’ the doctor replied.

  Reg couldn’t help but stare at Baby’s milky white skin. He had seen her naked body on a few previous visits to The Beaver Palace but he never tired of the sight of it. Everything was so firm, yet so supple. And now that she had her voice silenced by the tape over her mouth she was much less annoying than usual. He wished that he could have had five minutes alone with her before the doctor got to work. Unfortunately it was too late to even consider suggesting it. Now that the doctor was in the room with them and preparing to carry out a hatchet job of an abortion the opportunity had been missed. He was itching for an excuse to touch her though.

  ‘Would it help if I held her down as well, just to be on the safe side?’ he suggested.

  Dr Chandler took off his brown tweed jacket and set it down on the floor at the end of the bed. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘She’s not going anywhere.’

  Baby was still writhing around, frantically screaming through her nose, her face etched with the fear brought on by the sight of Dr Chandler standing at the end of her bed, rummaging through the contents of his leather briefcase.

  Reg wasn’t paying much attention to the doctor. He was too busy staring at Baby. Eventually Dr Chandler appeared to find what he was looking for. He tapped Reg on the arm.

  ‘There is one thing you could do for me,’ he said. ‘Would you mind putting on some music, please?’

  ‘Music?’ Reg was puzzled and took his eyes off Baby’s tits for a moment to see if the doctor was serious. ‘What do you want music for? Does it help calm the patient?’

  Chandler smiled. ‘No, but it will help to drown out the screaming. So if you could put something on, the louder the better, that would be great, thanks.’

  Reg shrugged. The idea made sense, kind of. He walked over to the stereo system in the corner of the room by the door. Each of the bedrooms had a stereo system and a selection of compact discs (mostly by Barry White) that were played to death, particularly when any of the local overweight sweaty old men paid the girls a visit.

  He picked up a CD called Classic Soul Favourites and slipped it into the CD player. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Baby still frantically trying to break free from the binding on her arms and legs. She knew what was coming.

  “It serves her right,” Reg thought to himself as the first track on the CD started playing. He listened to it for a few seconds before recognising it as the Sam and Dave track Hold On I’m Coming. A highly appropriate track for The Beaver Palace. He reached for the volume switch and turned it up a little. It was as loud as he would normally have it in his own house, but he noted that he could still hear Baby’s stifled screams, so in accordance with the doctor’s request he twisted the volume knob a little more until the song was blaring out at the kind of levels only a teenager could listen to.

  ‘That ought to do it,’ he said, swiftly realising that his own voice was being drowned out by the music. He turned to the doctor.

  ‘I said that ought to…’

  Dr Chandler was still standing at the end of Baby’s bed. His briefcase was still open but he hadn’t pulled any surgical tools from it. He wasn’t holding any kind of instruments in his hands. The only thing he had pulled out of the briefcase was a rubber mask. While Reg had been busy fiddling with the stereo, the doctor had taken off his glasses and slipped the mask on over his head, and was now straightening it up so that he could see clearly through the eyeholes. It was a yellow skull mask with a red stripe of hair on top. The skull-face on the mask was grinning at him.

  It took about a second for Reg to process the information, analyse it and interpret exactly what it meant. But it felt like one hell of a long second. He looked over at Baby. She still had the same terrified look on her face as before, but only now did Reg fully understand why. She had known who the doctor was the moment he walked in. And while Reg had been busy dicking around with the stereo system she had been watching the doctor transform into The Red Mohawk.

  Reg found himself rooted to the spot, taken completely by surprise. Did he have time to run? Did he need to run? Fuck Yeah. He needed to run. His major problem was he’d locked the bloody door when he came in. His chances of unlocking it and getting the fuck out before the Mohawk got his hands on him were slim.

  While all these crazy questions and plans were running through his head The Red Mohawk reached into his briefcase and pulled out a large shiny silver meat cleaver. He was staring at Baby, almost as if he’d forgotten about Reg. And then he spoke, just loud enough to be heard over the music.

  ‘I want you to watch this,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be bloody.’

  Reg was suddenly sweating profusely. His mouth had gone dry and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer, or even know what his answer might be. Instinct took over and he spluttered out a response.

  ‘I... I don’t think I need to watch it,’ he stammered. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  The masked man took a step back from the bed and turned to his head slightly so he could stare at Reg. He tilted his head to one side then spoke in a chilling voice. ‘I was talking to the girl,’ he said.

  No further hesitation was required. Reg rushed to the door and grabbed the handle. He frantically turned the key in the lock. His mind had gone blank and he couldn’t remember which way to turn it. By the time he eventually got it right and yanked the door open, the masked killer was right behind him. Reg only managed to get the door open a few inches before one of The Red Mohawk’s hands slammed it shut again. The same hand then grabbed Reg by the throat and lifted him up off the floor. Reg was dragged away from the door and slammed against the wall.

  ‘Wait,’
Reg pleaded. ‘We can talk about this. I’m just a chef! I’m just a chef!’

  The masked killer did not respond verbally. Instead he held up the meat cleaver to make sure his prey got a good look at it. Reg could see the dried stains of blood from earlier victims still on the silver blade. The masked man’s fingers were whitening as he tightened his grip on the cleaver’s wooden handle. He moved the cleaver downwards slowly, ensuring Reg could keep track of its whereabouts. He stopped when he reached the gap between Reg’s legs, just below his balls. Then he twisted the meat cleaver over in his hand so that the blade was facing upwards.

  ‘Oh Jesus, there’s no need for this,’ Reg spluttered.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the Red Mohawk. ‘But it’s happening anyway.’

  Forty One

  ‘Joey Conrad didn’t escape from the asylum, did he?’

  ‘No he didn’t,’ Pincent admitted.

  Munson thought about how sloppy he had become during his time away from the agency. In years gone by he would have worked this out much sooner. He and Pincent had always had an almost telepathic understanding, brought on by working together so often in pressure situations. The clues had been there all along. If he hadn’t had so much to drink he might have figured out what was going on much earlier. He could have saved the life of Milena Fonseca, and more importantly he could have contacted Pincent and put a stop to everything. But now it was too late. Things had gone too far.

  ‘It’s time to come clean Devon. What the fuck is happening? Tell me the truth. Is this girl in the picture who I think it is?’

  While he waited for Pincent to answer he grabbed a white mug from one of the shelves and set it down on the counter. He picked up the freshly brewed jug of filter coffee and lifted it from the hotplate. Before he had a chance to pour any coffee into the mug, Pincent answered. His voice wobbling a little as he spoke.