Spider - Michael Morley [114]
Jack’s mind swam with thoughts; images of the naked, dying girl, suspended in the blackness of some fearful room – a room surely not far from where he was?
He sat back in the car and made notes, then started to drive back the route he’d come. He was cruising past a whole street of people out manicuring their lawns and washing their cars, when his cell rang. It was Howie.
‘Got a possible for you.’
‘Go on,’ said Jack, pulling over again and grabbing his notepad.
‘Fernandez has been through the letting agencies.’ Nultkins, a very old agency in Brooklyn, has been letting the same place for almost twenty years. The landlord is a single man, and the tenants’ records show he has only ever let it out to other single men. It fits your profile to a T.’
Jack felt a shiver of excitement run through him. ‘I’ve got a pen, shoot me the address.’
78
San Quirico D’Orcia, Tuscany
The rope suddenly pulls tight around Zack’s neck, as though it has been thrown over something in the blackness and he is about to be hanged from it.
‘Do as I say or I’ll kill him,’ says the voice of a man she can’t see.
Nancy’s eyes stay locked on her son’s face.
She is starting to see better in the darkness, her vision adjusting to the lack of light. ‘I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t hurt my baby,’ she pleads.
Zack’s face is streaked with dirt because he’s been crying and Nancy can see he is in pain and frightened beyond belief. She desperately wants to run to him and hold him tightly to her.
‘Take two slow steps forward and then turn around so you’re facing towards the daylight,’ Spider tells her. ‘Then put your hands together behind your back.’
Nancy takes one last look at Zack before obeying. She thinks how brave he is, not to be screaming. As she steps forward she’s horrified to see that Zack’s mouth is plastered with thick parcel tape and he’s struggling to breathe.
‘Don’t hurt him, please. Please don’t hurt my baby,’ she begs again.
Spider doesn’t answer. Pleas for help or mercy are things he never hears. He wraps the sticky parcel tape quickly around her wrists and hands, then slips a Stanley knife from his pocket, thumbs out the razor-sharp triangular blade and slices the tape off.
Is this the kind of thing Jack talked about? Is this how rape and murder start? My God, what will happen to my child?
Spider loops his arms around her and stretches tape across her mouth. She instinctively jerks her head away, and the tape ends up stuck half across her nose and half across her mouth. Spider rips the tape away and Nancy screams.
‘Bad Sugar!’ he shouts at her and slaps her face.
Nancy cries out but the tape comes again, smothering her scream. She can barely breathe, and desperately sucks in air through her nose.
Spider uses his knife to slice away the tape. Then he holds her by her bound hands and reaches down in the darkness for something.
Suddenly Nancy feels a stabbing pain in the top of her leg as Spider jams a hypodermic needle deep into the vein and leaves it dangling there. He looks at it as a hunter would proudly savour the sight of the spear that felled his prey.
Penetrate. Deep, deep!
He squeezes the last of the Lidocaine from the chamber and wonders whether the dose will be as effective as he wants.
Or whether it will be too strong, and will kill her.
79
Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York
Jack tried to look as touristy as possible. He grabbed the map book he had been using, put on his shades and got out of Howie’s car. He walked down the side of the road opposite the target house that Fernandez had identified. It stood at a T-junction to a dead-end street. Jack walked straight past on the other side of the road, his face turned away, the shades and map helping him get to the cover of a house that he hoped would serve as an observation post for him. He turned up a narrow driveway to his right and knocked on the door. A small woman in her late sixties answered. She had curly white hair, gold glasses and looked as