Good Day to Die Read Online Free Page A

incredibly insensitive, even by New York standards. Then I’d discovered that reporters in the Seattle area had routinely identified Ted Bundy’s victims as Miss March, Miss April, Miss May, and so on.) In any event, King Thong had spent most of last year killing and mutilating male prostitutes. He’d earned his nickname by wrapping his victims’ penises with a narrow strip of leather, a thong, then tying the ends around the victims’ waists in what amounted to a permanent erection. The tabloids and the counterculture weeklies (especially the Soho Spirit) had injected a certain bizarre humor into their coverage from the beginning. I suppose the fact that each victim was a homosexual and a prostitute entitled them (at least in their opinion) to a little license, but the humor had ended abruptly when the Spirit published a cartoon depicting the Empire State Building wrapped in a long, leather strip. The caption, “Thong Lives,” had said it all. So had the two thousand protesters who spent the next month picketing the headquarters of the Spirit.
    “Sorry.” I dutifully wiped the smirk off my face. “You caught me by surprise.”
    “You always find murder funny, Means?”
    “Not always, Captain. But, then, not every murderer gets a name like ‘King Thong.’”
    Vanessa Bouton finally managed a smile. A smile and a deep chuckle. “The best part,” she said, “is that we’d decided to hold the leather back. Somebody in the task force leaked it.”
    I nodded sympathetically. Detectives regularly hold back details as a way to separate a true confession from the ravings of a maniac. They just as regularly hand information over to their favorite reporters, despite a professed hatred of the media.
    “Tell you the truth, Captain, the only thing I know about your serial killer is what I read in the papers.”
    And the only thing I wanted to know. Homicides where killer and victim have no prior connection are a cop’s worst nightmare. Where do you begin? Every detective catches his share of professional hits, and I was no exception. After a while, I dreaded them, because I knew I’d never solve one. Not one.
    But I still had to make the rounds. Had to send out whatever evidence I recovered to the labs. Question the locals in search of a witness. File my DD 5’s after every tour. NR, NR, NR. Negative Results. Every inch of the way.
    When it comes to serial killers, you can take all that frustration and multiply it ten thousand times. The media pounds the public every day with the simple truth: no suspects, no clues, no nothing. Despite the creation of unimaginable six-hundred-cop task forces that, in turn, create tons of useless paperwork.
    “You don’t know anyone on the task force? Nobody?”
    “I don’t spend my off-duty time with other cops.”
    “Off-duty time? My information is that you’re a cop twenty-four hours a day. Is it true that back when you were in uniform, you used to ride the subways looking for muggers to arrest?”
    “I used to ride the subways looking for muggers before I became a cop.” I leaned forward, smiling. “Tell ya the truth, Captain, looking for muggers is why I became a cop.”
    It was her turn to hunch forward on her chair. She kept on coming until her face was a couple of inches from mine. “Listen, you sorry-assed motherfucker, if you think you can intimidate me, you’re sadly mistaken. Now, sit back in that chair and try to use your brain instead of your hormones.”
    “I thought that was my line.”
    Stalemate. But not altogether unpleasant.
    “You like punch lines, Detective?” she asked, ignoring my witty remark.
    “Only if I’m not the one getting punched.”
    “The King Thong victims were not selected at random. They were not serial killings as we understand them. The motivation was not sexual, not the product of a demented psychopathic personality. One of the murders had an everyday, understandable motivation. The rest were committed to cover it up.”
    That