"Dispatch, this is Markowski. Go ahead."
"We have a report of a 666-Bravo at the Radisson hotel. Lieutenant McGuire says it's all yours. Over."
666-Bravo was a homicide involving a supernatural. Was this stuff never going to stop? And I know McGuire's a fair boss – if he was giving this call to us, it meant the other teams on shift were busy elsewhere.
Helter Skelter, baby. Helter Skelter.
"Roger that, Dispatch. You got a room number for us, or should we knock on all the doors until somebody dead answers?"
Come to think of it, having a corpse answering the door at that place might not be such a big deal.
Ignoring my feeble attempt at sarcasm, the dispatcher said, "Affirmative, Markowski. Room number is four three one. I repeat, four three one. Do you copy?"
"Roger that, Dispatch. We're on our way. Markowski out."
I wished I'd let Karl take the radio call – he likes saying stuff like that. It might've cheered him up a little, too.
Karl turned to me. "Four thirty-one at the Radisson? Isn't that–"
"Mister Milo and his pet ghouls," I said. "It sure is."
I turned to look at Castle. "I guess you heard. We'll have to continue this conversation later."
Castle nodded. "Of course, Sergeant. I look forward to it." And then he was just – gone. A fucking show-off, in more ways than one.
"Siren and lights?" Karl asked me.
At this hour of night traffic wasn't heavy, but I know Karl loves using our "get out of the way" equipment.
"Sure," I said. "What the hell."
Karl pulled the portable revolving light from the glove compartment, turned it on, and stuck it on the dash between us. I started the siren screaming, checked the mirror for traffic, and got us moving.
Five police cars – three black-and-whites and two unmarked, like ours – were parked haphazardly in front of the Radisson, the light from their red and blue flashers bouncing off the elegant façade like special effects at a Plasma-matics concert. I hoped nobody on that side of the building was trying to get some sleep.
I figured that at least one of the unmarked cars belonged to Homicide, so there was a good chance that Scanlon was already upstairs. Maybe he'd have it solved by the time we got there.
As Karl and I strode toward the elevators, I noticed a lot of people milling around the lobby – too many for this time of night. Maybe they were waiting to see something exciting. As for me, I hoped the excitement was already over.
Upstairs, the usual crime scene tape blocked off the hallway on both sides of room 431, but one of the uniforms who was standing around lifted it to let Karl and me through and into a suite that was already pretty crowded. Scanlon was there, all right, along with a couple of homicide dicks, Homer Jordan, and some guy in a suit who was taking pictures. He had a lot to photograph.
Milo Milo was sprawled across the couch. He wore gray slacks and a white dress shirt covered in blood that I assumed had come from the gaping wound under his jaw. The only way to kill somebody that way is to force the blade through the lower jaw, into the facial cavity and up into the brain. Doing that took skill, strength, and one hell of a big knife.
But the killer had saved most of his ingenuity for the two ghouls who'd served Milo as drivers, gofers, and, I suppose, bodyguards. Some bodyguards.
"You remember their names – the ghouls?" I said quietly to Karl.
"Nikolai and Winthrop." Under some circumstances, saying those two fancy-ass names out loud might have brought a smile to Karl's face. But not this time.
The ghouls were posed – I can't think of a better word to describe it – in the living room's two armchairs. Each one was showing the same wound under his jaw that Mister Milo had suffered, but that's where the similarity in mayhem ended. Both ghouls were disemboweled, the slick intestines gleaming wetly in the light from the room's lamps, which were all turned on. I wondered if Milo had liked a bright room, or the killer had just wanted to light up his little exhibition.
I thought I could see something on one of the ghouls' mouths that was too big to be a tongue. I went over to the body and bent down for a closer look. Just as I thought – it was his penis.
I didn't bother to check the other ghoul. I knew it would be the same. He was thorough, our killer was.
On the carpet near one of the chairs lay an open switchblade. The handle was smeared with blood, and nearby lay two pale severed fingers. I figured one of the ghouls had tried to knife-fight the killer, and come out second best.
"Forensics been in yet?" I asked Scanlon.
"Nah. One unit is tied up over near the university. Some werewolf mauled one of the students, from what I hear."
"He still alive?" I asked.
"He's a she," Scanlon said, "and, no, she's dead. Hard to keep breathing with your throat's been torn out."
"They got anybody in custody?" Karl asked.
"Not as far as I know."
Helter Skelter.
"Isn't it kind of weird," Karl said, "for the boss, here, to die quick, but the thugs get to suffer? I mean, you take out a hit on somebody, it's usually the boss you're pissed off at. If anybody's gonna get butchered, it'd be him."
"You think it was a hit?" Scanlon said.
"Wasn't no bunch of Girl Scouts that did this," Karl said.
"You got a point there," Scanlon said, then turned to me. "You must know who the guy on the couch is, if you know the names of his hired help."
"Yeah, we do. His name, and I shit you not, was Milo Milo."
Scanlon's expression didn't change. "Is that right?" One of the homicide detectives that had come with Scanlon gave a little chuckle. Scanlon turned his head toward the guy slowly, like a tank turret taking aim.
"Something on your mind, Smalley?"
The detective's face reddened. "No, boss. Not a thing."