late, he has already shoved it inside her, what
ever
it is, hurting her, tearing her, no, please, and now the plastic bag is on her head again, and she hears over the ringing
in her ears black Richard from across the room mumbling, “Hey, man, whut’s …?” and she screams inside the bag,
tries
to scream inside the bag, and she hears black Richard yelling, “The fuck you
doin
?” and she thinks
Help!
and she screams “Help!” inside the bag, and this time she
knows
she is going to die, this time the pain below is so overwhelming, why is he
doing
this to her, twisting something jagged and sharp inside her, she is going to
die
, please, she
wants
to die, she can’t breathe, she can’t bear it a moment …
“
No
, cunt!” he shouts, and yanks the bag from her head.
The rush of oxygen is so sweet.
She feels something sticky and wet on her lips.
She thinks this will be the end of it. They will leave her alone now. She hurts too badly. She is too torn and ragged below,
she knows she is hemorrhaging below. Please, she thinks. Just leave me alone now. Please. Enough.
“You guys crazy?”
Richard.
Good, she thinks. This is the end of it.
But the bag is over her head again.
And they are holding her down again.
They were back in the car maybe two or three minutes when they caught a 10-29 to proceed to 841 St. Sebastian Avenue. The
dispatcher wouldn’t call this a homicide for sure because all she had was a dead body in the alleyway there and nobody yet
knew what the cause of death was. Could’ve been a heart attack there in the alley. So she told them the blues had a corpse
there, and mentioned that she had also notified Homicide just in case, which is how Monoghan and Monroe got into the act for
the second time that night.
The time was a quarter past seven, the sun was just coming up, sort of. This wasn’t going to be any rosy-fingered dawn, that
was for sure. This was just the end of another hard day’s night, the shift almost having run its course, except that now they
did
, as it turned out, have another homicide on their hands. The freezer bag over the girl’s head told them that.
The girl looked like a hooker, but nowadays it was difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. You got Hollywood starlets
showing up at the Academy Awards wearing dresses that made them look like streetwalkers, but you also got bona fide prosties
standing on the corner looking like apple-cheeked college girls from Minnesota, so who was to say for sure?
“A hooker,” Monoghan said.
“For sure,” Monroe said.
“Prolly her pimp done her,” Monoghan suggested.
“That’s why her handbag’s gone.”
Which was keen deduction. Carella figured if he hung around long enough, he might learn something. He was wondering why, if
this
had
been a pimp, the guy hadn’t simply stabbed her. Or shot her. Why get fancy? Why a freezer bag over her head? It was obvious
that someone, pimp or whoever, had dragged her into the alley. She was lying on her back in a sticky pool of coagulating blood,
but bloody smears led to the curb, where the track seemed to have begun. Had someone driven her here, and then dragged her
to where she now lay beside a bank of garbage cans and stacks of black-bagged garbage?
“She might have been pregnant,” Monroe speculated. “All that blood.”
“Nowadays, people kill you so they can tear the baby out of your belly,” Monoghan said.
“It’s ancient times all over again,” Monroe said.
“There’s no civilization anymore,” Monoghan said.
“Fucking
savages
nowadays,” Monroe said, with more feeling than Carella had ever thought he’d possessed.
In the dim light of a cold gray dawn, the girl’s face under the plastic freezer bag was as white as the ice on the alley floor.
They had wrapped her in the sheet before carrying her down to black Richard’s car, and then had driven a mile uptown on St.
Sab’s, where they’d dragged her into the alley still
ever
it is, hurting her, tearing her, no, please, and now the plastic bag is on her head again, and she hears over the ringing
in her ears black Richard from across the room mumbling, “Hey, man, whut’s …?” and she screams inside the bag,
tries
to scream inside the bag, and she hears black Richard yelling, “The fuck you
doin
?” and she thinks
Help!
and she screams “Help!” inside the bag, and this time she
knows
she is going to die, this time the pain below is so overwhelming, why is he
doing
this to her, twisting something jagged and sharp inside her, she is going to
die
, please, she
wants
to die, she can’t breathe, she can’t bear it a moment …
“
No
, cunt!” he shouts, and yanks the bag from her head.
The rush of oxygen is so sweet.
She feels something sticky and wet on her lips.
She thinks this will be the end of it. They will leave her alone now. She hurts too badly. She is too torn and ragged below,
she knows she is hemorrhaging below. Please, she thinks. Just leave me alone now. Please. Enough.
“You guys crazy?”
Richard.
Good, she thinks. This is the end of it.
But the bag is over her head again.
And they are holding her down again.
They were back in the car maybe two or three minutes when they caught a 10-29 to proceed to 841 St. Sebastian Avenue. The
dispatcher wouldn’t call this a homicide for sure because all she had was a dead body in the alleyway there and nobody yet
knew what the cause of death was. Could’ve been a heart attack there in the alley. So she told them the blues had a corpse
there, and mentioned that she had also notified Homicide just in case, which is how Monoghan and Monroe got into the act for
the second time that night.
The time was a quarter past seven, the sun was just coming up, sort of. This wasn’t going to be any rosy-fingered dawn, that
was for sure. This was just the end of another hard day’s night, the shift almost having run its course, except that now they
did
, as it turned out, have another homicide on their hands. The freezer bag over the girl’s head told them that.
The girl looked like a hooker, but nowadays it was difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. You got Hollywood starlets
showing up at the Academy Awards wearing dresses that made them look like streetwalkers, but you also got bona fide prosties
standing on the corner looking like apple-cheeked college girls from Minnesota, so who was to say for sure?
“A hooker,” Monoghan said.
“For sure,” Monroe said.
“Prolly her pimp done her,” Monoghan suggested.
“That’s why her handbag’s gone.”
Which was keen deduction. Carella figured if he hung around long enough, he might learn something. He was wondering why, if
this
had
been a pimp, the guy hadn’t simply stabbed her. Or shot her. Why get fancy? Why a freezer bag over her head? It was obvious
that someone, pimp or whoever, had dragged her into the alley. She was lying on her back in a sticky pool of coagulating blood,
but bloody smears led to the curb, where the track seemed to have begun. Had someone driven her here, and then dragged her
to where she now lay beside a bank of garbage cans and stacks of black-bagged garbage?
“She might have been pregnant,” Monroe speculated. “All that blood.”
“Nowadays, people kill you so they can tear the baby out of your belly,” Monoghan said.
“It’s ancient times all over again,” Monroe said.
“There’s no civilization anymore,” Monoghan said.
“Fucking
savages
nowadays,” Monroe said, with more feeling than Carella had ever thought he’d possessed.
In the dim light of a cold gray dawn, the girl’s face under the plastic freezer bag was as white as the ice on the alley floor.
They had wrapped her in the sheet before carrying her down to black Richard’s car, and then had driven a mile uptown on St.
Sab’s, where they’d dragged her into the alley still
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