The Red Mohawk Read online

  ‘It’s Marianne.’

  ‘I fucking knew it.’ Munson rubbed his forehead. His headache was getting worse. ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘I never gave up looking for her. That’s how it’s possible.’

  ‘But she’s dead.’

  ‘They never found her body Jack. I’ve been telling you that for years.’

  Munson filled the mug on the counter to the top with coffee. ‘This is fucking insane. What happened? Did she get away? Why didn’t they kill her when they killed Sarah and Annalise?’ Pincent didn’t answer. Munson stuck the coffee jug back on the hotplate. ‘They did kill Sarah and Annalise, didn’t they?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Of course they did. We all saw the remains didn’t we? But there was never any proof that Marianne was dead. I never gave up hope.’

  ‘But it’s been fourteen years. How did you know?’

  ‘Jack, if you’d ever had kids you’d understand. You find out your wife and two daughters have been murdered and it rips your insides out. But then someone tells you that they can’t find any trace of your youngest daughter. There’s no body parts, no remains, no DNA. You don’t just give up like that. You keep looking for her.’

  Munson picked up his mug of coffee and took a sip. It was good stuff. As he savoured the taste and wondered where he might find some sugar, he thought about the emotion he could hear in his friend’s voice. He remembered exactly how terrible it had been fourteen years earlier when Pincent lost his family. His wife and two daughters were snatched from a safe house. The virtually unrecognisable remains of his wife and eldest daughter were found in a burned down house a week later. His youngest daughter Marianne, aged only five had never been found. Munson had naively assumed that Pincent had accepted the fact he would never see her again. He’d assumed wrong.

  ‘So you found out she was in B Movie Hell. How?’ Munson asked.

  ‘Believe it or not, it wasn’t me that found out. For the last few years I’ve been convinced that she was in Detroit. I damn near lost my job sending agents to investigate and harass the Palluca family. I was sure they were responsible for what happened to Sarah and Annalise. We were investigating the Pallucas at the time all those years ago. We were getting close. I always thought they kidnapped my family to scare us off. Instead it turns out it was this small time fucking porno producer we were trying to shut down.’

  ‘But how did you find this out?’

  ‘I didn’t. Joey Conrad did.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Another patient at Grimwald’s escaped a while back. He came back with a photo of this girl he’d met at a place called The Beaver Palace in B Movie Hell. Conrad recognised her from the birthmark and wrote me a fucking letter. Can you believe that? I always knew he was a good kid.’

  Munson took another sip of the coffee and looked out the front window of the diner. His car was still the only one parked outside.

  ‘So, you went to Grimwald’s and you let Joey Conrad out? And you sent him to B Movie Hell to get Marianne back?’

  ‘That’s right Jack. I gave him the mask, the clothes, the meat cleaver and all the fucking guns and ammunition he wanted.’

  Munson nearly spat out his latest mouthful of coffee. ‘Oh Jesus. What the fuck were you thinking?’

  ‘What the fuck was I thinking? I was thinking I want my baby girl back. Fourteen years they’ve been hiding her in that shithole town. Everybody in that town knows everybody else, Jack. They all knew she was there. And not one of them said anything. Mellencamp funds everyone’s business in that place. Those residents that aren’t scared of him, are paid by him. I sent Joey Conrad in there and let him loose on those bastards.’

  Munson couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘He’s killed half the goddamn town, Devon! There’s a lot of innocent people that have died here. This could have been done through official channels. You’ll fucking fry for this.’

  ‘Only me, you and Milena Fonseca know about it. If you clean this up for me, no one needs to ever know what happened.’

  ‘What about the asylum staff? They must know.’

  ‘They turned a blind eye. Ask them how he escaped.’

  ‘I did. They said the security was crap.’

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘I should have known right there and then. Fuck, Devon you’ll never get away with this!’

  ‘I don’t care. I want my Marianne back. And I want everyone in B Movie Hell to suffer for what they’ve done.’

  ‘There’s better ways to do this. Official ways.’

  ‘Search warrants and stuff like that? Don’t make me laugh, Jack. You know how that would pan out. In a town like B Movie Hell, my baby would vanish the minute a search warrant showed up. I couldn’t risk losing her again, not when I’m this close. You and me, when we worked together on that goddamn operation that we’re not supposed to speak about, we worked fucking hard at training Joey Conrad to be the perfect killing machine. I finally got to put him into action. Operation Blackwash is a success after all.’

  Munson felt the caffeine kicking into his system, re-energising him. He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Are you trying to say that by training Conrad, I’m somehow equally responsible for this mess?’

  ‘No. You don’t need to be linked to any of this. Your name isn’t anywhere in the Blackwash files. I erased it. No one knows you were involved and no one knows you’re in B Movie Hell right now.’

  ‘So why the hell am I here then?’

  ‘Because Milena Fonseca found out about Conrad’s escape. She wanted to go public with it. I convinced her to let you clean it up, but then she insisted on going with you. I couldn’t tell you what was going on. Not while I was in the office, or using the office phones. This is totally off the record.’

  ‘You should have just sent me instead of Joey Conrad. I could have dealt with this.’

  ‘No offence Jack, but you’re not exactly Liam Neeson these days. You’re a washed up drunk, so you weren’t my first choice to rescue my daughter. I wanted the killer from the Halloween movies.’

  Munson finished off the last dregs of his coffee. He was feeling much better after his earlier vomiting incident. ‘So what do you want me to do now?’

  ‘Now that Fonseca is dead, you don’t need to be there. Let Joey Conrad do his thing. You can come on home. I’ll make sure you get paid somehow. All you have to do is keep quiet about this, just like I kept quiet when you shot that girl.’

  ‘Thanks for nothing Devon.’ Munson hung up the phone. The image of a kidnapper holding a gun to a girl’s head flickered in his mind for the millionth time. He shuddered and blanked the image out. He had to concentrate on the matter at hand. He remembered Marianne Pincent well. As a five-year-old, she had been a beautiful, fun little girl with the world at her feet. But what could he possibly do to help get her back? Joey Conrad was supposedly going to rescue her, in what was basically the most immoral and ridiculously vengeful rescue mission of all time.

  As he pondered what to do, the phone in his hand started vibrating. The Backstreet Boys song began playing. He answered the call expecting it to be Pincent calling back.

  ‘What?’ he snapped.

  A boy’s voice spoke on the other end. ‘Hi, is my mom there?’

  Munson ended the call. He threw the phone across the room. It smashed against a wall underneath one of the windows. Milena Fonseca had a kid. Maybe two kids, who knew? One thing Munson knew for sure was that those kids would soon find out their mother was dead.

  He thought about Marianne Pincent. She had lost her mother and sister when she was just five years old. She’d lost her father too, but she could still be reunited with him.

  He took a deep breath and reached into his pocket for his bottle of rum. He pulled it out and unscrewed the lid. He stared at it and deliberated whether or not to take a swig. Immediately the image of a man holding a gun to a girl’s head flashed into his mind again. The girl was only eighteen years old. She was terrified. Her kidnapper, a vile greasy thug i
n his forties was threatening to shoot her. And it looked like he was going to do it too. So Munson did what he had been trained to do. He fired a shot.

  It hit the girl in the side of the head.

  A second shot hit the kidnapper between the eyes, killing him instantly. Munson would never forget rushing to the girl’s side and cradling her in his arms as she took her last breath. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he would have hit the kidnapper with his first shot.

  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

  But that day was the one time in a hundred when for no explicable reason his aim was off. He’d had to live with that mistake ever since. Drinking hadn’t helped.

  His mind flashed forward to the present and he the imagined throwing up again like he had done at Litgo’s earlier after drinking the evil rum. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He placed the bottle of rum down on the diner’s counter and whispered a promise to himself.

  “Get Marianne Pincent back to her father. Make amends.”

  Forty Two

  Benny slammed the trunk of the yellow stock car shut. He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and called the number for The Beaver Palace. His fingers were trembling as he put the phone to his ear. The dialling tone kicked in straight away. It rang once. Benny expected it to be answered immediately.

  It rang a second time.

  And a third.

  Then a fourth time.

  And a fifth.

  It just kept on ringing.

  Normally the phone at The Beaver Palace was answered within two or three rings, unless it was engaged. This was a bad sign. What the hell was going on?

  He hung up the phone and rushed back to his squad car. He dived inside and yanked the CB radio off its handle. It wasn’t just his hands that were trembling now. His whole body was shaking. He flicked on the power switch on the radio and yelled into the mouthpiece. ‘This is Benny. Come in please!’

  He waited for a response. Surely the police station would respond quicker than The Beaver Palace? He thought about how he had planned to head home for a quiet bottle of wine with his wife. That idea was going to have to be put on hold. After an indeterminable length of time a female voice answered his call via the radio. ‘Hi Benny. How you doing?’

  ‘Put me through to Chief O’Grady right now. It’s urgent.’

  ‘Charming. You not even got time for a….’

  ‘Jenny, will you just put me through for Godssake? It’s urgent. I know where the Red Mohawk is.’

  ‘The chief’s not here right now Benny. He’s doing another press conference. Anyone else I can get for you?’

  Benny spent a few seconds cursing to himself. He had to make a decision. In fact, he decided it might be best to take charge of the situation anyway. ‘Jenny, get a hold of everyone and tell them all to head to Mellencamp’s right now.’

  ‘What do you mean everyone?’

  ‘Exactly that. EVERYONE!’

  ‘What should I tell them?’

  ‘Tell them the Red Mohawk is at The Beaver Palace. He’s gone there disguised as a doctor.’

  ‘How do you know? Have you seen him?’

  ‘I found the dead body of the doctor in the trunk of the Red Mohawk’s car. I think he’s taken the doctor’s car and gone to The Beaver Palace.’

  ‘Okay. Where are you? And what are the instructions for everyone?’

  ‘I’m a mile down the road from Mellencamp’s. You can’t miss me. My car is parked by the yellow piece of shit car the killer stole from Hank Jackson this morning.’

  ‘Should I tell everyone to meet you there?’

  ‘Yes. It won’t be hard to spot me. I’m in my car. I’m on one side of the road and that fucking yellow and red stock car is on the other. Get everyone here in ten minutes. That’s as long as I can wait. Then I’m heading into The Beaver Palace. Anyone arriving after I’ve left should just head straight there. But tell them all to come in riot gear if they can. And bring guns. Lots of guns. And lots of ammunition. And make sure you send everyone!’

  ‘You want the whole police force?’

  ‘I want everyone in town who owns a gun. And everyone who doesn’t. Send everyone. It’s time to take this fucking sonofabitch down.’

  ‘Sure thing Benny. I’ll call you back in a minute with an update.’

  Benny hung the CB radio back on the dashboard and used his phone to call The Beaver Palace again.

  And just like before, the phone rang and rang. And no one answered.

  Forty Three

  Baby turned away in horror a split second before she heard Reg the chef scream out loud. He screamed like a bitch too. The Red Mohawk’s meat cleaver was put to work in a big way. As Baby looked away, she tried to blot out the sounds of Reg’s body being sliced apart. She’d never been so grateful to hear Sam and Dave singing Hold On I’m Coming. Without them she might have heard a lot more of the gruesome violence.

  She knew she could well be the next person on the sharp end of that meat cleaver. She’d already wasted the best part of half an hour trying to wrestle free from the binding that Mack had used to tie her to the bed. She had practically given up trying five minutes earlier, but circumstances had changed since then. Right now she was revitalised and mustering every last ounce of strength she had to try and break free. She was also twisting her mouth one way then another in the hopes of loosening the tape across it. Every strain, every pull, all of it was in vain.

  There was no way of getting away from what was happening to Reg though. She could turn her eyes away from it, and Sam and Dave could drown out some of the horrific noises, but nothing could prevent specks of Reg’s blood from spraying onto her legs and stomach.

  Unlike earlier in the day when she had poured some syrup of ipecac down her throat, Baby now had no need to take any drugs to make herself sick. The urge to vomit was undeniable. She prayed that someone would come to her rescue. Mack the Slasher was outside somewhere, as were half a dozen of the girls, but with the loud music blaring out of her stereo none of them would have heard Reg’s fading cries for mercy.

  She’d often heard people talk about how their life flashed before their eyes during the moments when they thought they were going to die. She felt herself become lightheaded. Everything was suddenly blurred around the edges. Nothing seemed quite as real as it had done moments earlier. She was slipping into a state of shock. Up above her on the ceiling she saw an imaginary cinema screen unfolding before her eyes. On it she saw images of her own life flashing away, strobe-like in a high-speed montage. Flickering visuals of her mother and father. An early Christmas with presents underneath a large green fir tree. Memories of her early days at The Beaver Palace. She saw the older women telling her bedtime stories from a book of fairy tales. Her favourites had been Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty. She had longed for a knight in shining armour or handsome prince of her own who would one day come to take her away from B Movie Hell. If a knight or prince was going to do any such thing, he would need to get a serious hurry on because time was running out fast.

  The cinema screen above her rolled up into a cylinder and faded away. Baby stopped struggling and resigned herself to her fate. An odd moment of calm came over her. She stared straight up at the ceiling just like she’d done on her infrequent visits from the local dentist. Endure what was to come and focus on the ceiling, it was something Clarisse had always told her to do. It worked with dentists and sometimes with repulsive clients. Right now anything was better than looking across at the remains of Reg or the man who was mutilating him. Where the imaginary cinema screen had once been she now saw the silhouette of a masked man with a meat cleaver, chopping up a dead carcass.

  The Sam and Dave song came to a climax and faded out. It signalled the end of Reg’s annihilation.

  His killer, The Red Mohawk loomed large into Baby’s peripheral vision. She froze when his mask came into view above her head. She saw his meat cleaver at his side, his hand gripping it tight. Both the mask and the cleaver were splattered with blood. The c
leaver dripped with the stuff, thick and clotted, like jam. Baby wondered if her blood would look the same.

  He stepped closer and stared down at her. Baby stayed totally still. For reasons she couldn’t explain she was desperate not to make any sudden movements. She just lay there, breathing through her nose and trying with all her strength to remain calm. The masked man just stared at her. She waited for him to say something. To attack her. To chop her into bits. But he said nothing. He did nothing.

  After an incredibly long and awkward pause she turned her head, careful to avoid any sudden movements. She looked into the eyes behind the mask.

  The silence was broken by the deep voice of Barry White warbling out of the stereo system. He drooled out the words “It feels so good”, the opening line of his song I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More.

  And in one swift movement the Red Mohawk swung his meat cleaver down towards the bed. Baby screamed behind the tape and screwed her eyes shut. This was it.

  But it wasn’t it. Instead of unbearable pain, she felt instead, the sudden release of tension on her left side. Her arm flapped across her body. It took her a moment to realise that the cleaver had sliced through the binding, rather than her flesh. She continued to lay there motionless, wondering if cutting her free was intentional or not.

  Another swift swipe from the meat cleaver freed her left leg. She instinctively pulled her knee up to her stomach, as far away as possible from the meat cleaver. She looked up at the horrible masked figure walking around the bed. Even though he had cut two of her limbs free, the sight of him raising the meat cleaver above his head ready to swing it down at the rope tying her right leg to the bed still made her flinch. He wasn’t paying much attention to her now. She picked at the corner of the tape on her mouth and peeled it away sharply. It stung, as she expected, but this wasn’t the time to be fretting about such things.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  The hideous masked figure cut the rope on her other leg and looked up. ‘Do you know who you are?’ he asked.