Once again, Russell read the surprise in Garcia’s eyes.
‘Don’t blame yourself, Detective,’ he said, his tone proud.‘Over the years, I’ve become somewhat of an expert when it comes to disguises.’ A pause, followed by a sideways look. ‘That night, I spotted you. I noticed the peculiar way in which you were looking at others. You looked to be paying particular attention to their arms… or hands – as if you were searching for something. That got me thinking. You could’ve been there for different reasons – maybe you had started dating someone who had been beaten up by her ex-husband, or father, or stepfather, or whatever… and you had decided to find him and teach him a lesson. Or maybe you could’ve been a watered-down version of me… of what I was doing – just looking to punish some of those freaks. I couldn’t really be sure, but I knew that you weren’t there seeking help. What it really looked like was that you were there searching for someone in particular… someone with some identifiable physical characteristic, like a tattoo… a birthmark…’ Russell swapped the scalpel from his left hand to his right one, so that he could wave the fingers of his left hand at Garcia. ‘…or oddly shaped fingers.’
Garcia did his best to show no reaction.
‘Then, once the meeting was over,’ Russell continued, ‘I saw you hanging out outside. There was definitely something a little weird about you, but then again, most people who attend those meetings are weird. It was when I saw you at the meeting in Watts that bells really started ringing. I kept my eyes on you the whole time. Very similar behavior to our first encounter, but you seemed to have taken quite an interest in the guy who came in late – George, that was what he said his name was, right?’
Anger began quickly gathering momentum inside Garcia. Anger at himself because he hadn’t noticed any of that.
‘But things really took a turn when I saw you outside,’ Russell confessed. ‘Checking out my truck, and I knew that you were there looking for me, but I gathered that you still didn’t quite know who I was. All you probably had were a few minor details – male,possibly attending domestic violence, or anger management support groups, a dark pickup truck, and crooked fingers. And then it dawned on me.’ He shook the scalpel at Garcia. ‘Of course crooked fingers. It matched your bullshit story about breaking your son’s fingers, didn’t it? You were probably looking for some sort of telltale reflex from someone in the group, right?’
Garcia was impressed. Russell wasn’t only an intelligent person with an analytical mind. He was also very perceptive.
Garcia stayed quiet.
Russell paused directly in front of him. ‘There’s no one coming for you, Detective.’ His voice was chilling. The scalpel returned to his left hand. ‘Just like no one came for any of them… ever… because no one knows who I am. Just like you didn’t. You were just lucky to spot my truck. That was all. You didn’t even know who was driving it.’
There was a long pause, where their heartbeats seemed to stutter together with anxiety.
‘The way I see it, all I really need to do is get rid of my truck and give the support groups in LA a break.’ He smiled. ‘But there are support groups outside LA as well, did you know that?’ Sarcasm dripped off Russell’s words. He walked over to Garcia and placed the scalpel against the detective’s neck. ‘But you were right, Detective. Itisover. For you.’
Sixty-One
Garcia wasn’t the type who scared easily, but what he saw burning inside Russell’s eyes as he quickly moved up to where Garcia was sitting sent fear spreading throughout his body like pumped blood. He was losing this game – he knew that – and this was the final whistle.
‘Wait,’ Garcia called out, his voice not as steady as he would’ve liked. ‘What are you doing?’
In one quick and smooth movement, Russell moved the blade from Garcia’s neck to his chest, pulled his shirt away from it and drove the surgical scalpel through the shirt, slicing it open from top to bottom to expose the detective’s torso.
‘I’m doing what I do best,’ he replied, placing the scalpel in his back pocket, returning to the table and, once again, retrieving the kitchen blowtorch before his chin jerked in the direction of his parents. ‘I’m making them watch.’ He addressed his parents. ‘Watch this.’
As if hypnotized, the old couple immediately set their unblinking eyes forward, looking directly at Garcia. Russell’s command practically turned them into robots.
Garcia felt a panic attack coil just beneath his sternum, as every muscle in his body tensed.
Russell lit up the blowtorch and walked back to where Garciawas. ‘I’m only going to ask these questions once, Detective. If you don’t reply, or if you lie to me…’
Garcia locked eyes with Russell.
‘What was the information that you had on my truck?’
Garcia saw no point in lying.
‘Pretty much what you just said – a dark Dodge RAM pickup truck – either a 2500 or 3500 model. That was it. That was all we knew.’
‘And how did you come across that information?’
‘Your truck was spotted at the 7th Street Bridge,’ Garcia replied. ‘The night you dropped Terry Wilford from it.’
Russell studied Garcia’s expression for a moment before deciding that he didn’t like that answer.
‘Bullshit.’ He brought the torch fire to Garcia’s torso – left side, just between the sixth and seventh ribs.
Garcia felt the fire immediately blister, then rip his skin clean off the flesh. For some reason, there was a two-second delay between what he felt and the guttural scream that he let out. A scream so primal that it could’ve woken the dead. His body jerked violently on his chair, as he tried to deal with the kind of pain that he’d never felt before.
‘Motherfucker,’ he yelled at the top of his voice. A split second later, his nostrils picked up the smell of burned human flesh, which Garcia knew from experience was a distinctively different smell from burned animal flesh. ‘What the fuck? I answered your question. Arghhhhhhhh, fuck, that hurts!’
‘No,’ Russell came back. ‘You gave me a bullshit answer, that’s what you did. There was no one at the bridge that night. Do you think I didn’t check?’
