Prior Bad Acts

10

KARL HUNKERED DOWN in his nest and chewed on a cold slice of sausage pizza. It hurt to swallow, on account of being choked, but he needed the energy food would give him.

He hurt all over his body, especially his head, where Snake had banged him into the iron bars of a cell over and over. When he tried to touch the wounds, his skull felt squishy, a mess of crushed skin and clotting blood. His brain hurt bad, and he figured he maybe had a skull fracture. But he was alive and he was free, and those were the only two things that mattered.

It wasn’t the first time he had hidden himself in a Dumpster. Dumpsters were warm places on cold nights, if a man could stand the smell and there weren’t rats. If folks had discarded enough trash during the day, a person could cover themselves up real well.

The smell was a benefit, really. If the police brought out dogs and had something to scent from, a man was pretty much done for. But time spent in half-eaten pizzas and rotten eggshells, coffee grounds and wasted restaurant meals hid a man’s natural scent pretty well. Enough to throw the dogs off, if he was lucky.

He wasn’t more than half a block from the hospital, down an alley behind a diner where the special of the evening had been liver and onions. Karl crouched down in a corner of the container, one at the front side where a shadow would fall across him if someone lifted the lid.

The sirens of cop cars were wailing all around, swarming like bees, out to get him. He was the most important man in town tonight. That was something that hadn’t happened very often in his life.

He heard a car coming, creeping slowly down the alley. No siren, but Karl made himself as small as he could, ducked his head down, and went under layers and layers of crumpled paper and food scraps. The lid on the Dumpster was dented and bent and didn’t close properly. White light seeped in and filtered down through the paper, illuminating his strange little world. The security light hanging over the back door of the building on the other side of the alley. Then the light was tinted blue, then red.

The car stopped. Doors opened.

“Hey, fellas. We’re looking for somebody. You seen anyone back here this evening?”

“Just stepped out for a smoke, Officer.”

Employees from the diner. Karl had heard them come outside a while ago. They’d been chatting sporadically about nothing much-what they would do after work, how some friend had gotten a new car, what football teams they would bet on Sunday.

“Who you looking for?”

“Karl Dahl.”

“That killer?”

“Yeah. He escaped custody. You know what he looks like?”

“Seen him on the news. Damn, he’s running ’round loose?”

“Sheriff’s deputies had him at HCMC. They lost him. You haven’t seen anybody back here?”

“Just that raggedy old crazy guy works up and down this alley, collecting cans and shit. Eats out the Dumpsters.”

“Where is he now?”

“How would I know? He’s a crazy old street dude.”

“I seen him sleeping once under the stairs behind that upholstery shop down the block.”

Shoes scuffed on pavement. Closer… closer…

Karl held his breath.

The hinges on the lid of the Dumpster squealed as someone raised it.

Karl imagined himself as being invisible.

The container rocked as someone pulled himself up to get a better look inside. One of the cops, he figured. Confirmation was a nightstick stabbing down through the garbage three inches from his head. The stick came down again and again, gradually moving away from him.

“Careful the rats don’t pull you in there headfirst, Doug.” The other cop.

“It’s clear.”

“You officers want some coffee or somethin’?”

“Who are you, Jamal? King of the damn world? Boss kick your ass, givin’ away shit.”

“That’s okay, fellas. We’ve got to keep moving. Thanks anyway.”

The Dumpster lid lowered.

“You see this guy, call 911.”

“Damn straight.”

Karl didn’t breathe right until he heard the cruiser continue its way down the alley. And then still he didn’t move.

“Man, that’s one bad dude, that Dahl,” Jamal said. “Killed them kids. Cut that woman.”

“Crazy motherfucker.”

There was silence for a moment while they finished their smokes, then went back into the diner.

Still Karl waited before he dared to poke his head out and look down the alley. The cruiser was gone. There was no one in sight.

Careful not to make a sound, he climbed out of his hiding spot and made his way down the alley under the cover of shadows. Toward the end of the block on the left-hand side, he could see a broad landing and steps leading down from the back door of a business.

If the homeless man the restaurant workers had spoken about slept under those stairs regularly, there was a good chance he kept his stuff stashed under there.

Karl slipped across the alley. He could see a grocery cart loaded down with the stuff homeless people keep-soda cans and beer cans they gathered for the recycling money, filthy blankets and clothes.

He needed to get rid of the jail jumpsuit and into a disguise. No one looked twice at street people if they could help it.

The owner of the cart was nowhere in sight. Like as not, he was still working his alleys, or panhandling on the street in front of restaurants with no valet. The night was young.

Karl began to dig through the stuff in the shopping cart. A garbage sack full of cans. Another with beer and liquor bottles. Wedged down into the folds of an old blanket, he found a bottle of bourbon with two fingers’ worth in the bottom and helped himself to it, hoping it would numb his pounding head and aching throat.

“Hey! That’s my stuff!” The indignant voice came from beneath the stairs, under a pile of discarded upholstery fabric. The fabric rustled and moved, and a dark lump of rags and matted hair emerged.

“You can’t have it! Pope Clement gave that to me!”

The man came at Karl, arms flailing, mouth tearing wide to shout. Without hesitation, Karl swung the bourbon bottle downward and hit the man in the head as hard as he could.

Without a sound, the ragman dropped straight to his knees, his momentum carrying him into Karl and knocking Karl backward. Regaining his balance, Karl was on him in an instant, hitting him again and again, feeling bone give way and splinter beneath the heavy glass of the bottle. He kept pounding away, as if the bottle were a hammer, over and over until there was no skull left to break.

Spent, he sat back on his heels, trying not to wheeze. He was sweating and shaking and dizzy. He wiped a hand over his face, and it came away sticky with the ragman’s blood and brain matter.

Karl pulled the carcass back under the steps, stumbling over another bottle, this one with something clear in it. Karl opened it and sniffed. Grain alcohol. He used it to wash the blood off his face and hands, then drank the last swallow.

Methodically, he pulled off the dead man’s coat and shirt and T-shirt. He stripped off his own jail jumpsuit and dressed in the dead man’s clothes, which reeked of body odor, bourbon, urine, and feces.

The man had stashed his money down the front of his undershorts, taped against his scrotum. Karl took it, still warm from the body heat of his victim, peeled off a couple of bills to put in his pocket, then stashed the rest the same way the dead man had.

Hiding the jumpsuit beneath it, he covered the body over with the musty remnants of upholstery fabric that had made the man’s nest, then went back to dig through the shopping cart for anything else he might be able to use.

He found a steak knife with a good blade and slipped it in the coat pocket. He found a knit cap and pulled it on, wincing as the wool settled onto his wounds. The idea that it was probably infested with lice made his skin crawl, but he had no choice. He had no choice about anything if he wanted to stay alive.

He rubbed his hands on the filthy pavement, then rubbed them over his face, working in the grime. Hide in plain sight. He knew how to do that. He knew how to be invisible. He was an unremarkable man with a forgettable face devoid of expression. It was easy for people to look right through him.

It would be impossible now for him to try to leave the city. The police would be all over the bus stations, the train depots, the truck stops. They might set up roadblocks and checkpoints. They would be expecting him to run. His picture would be everywhere, a picture of him clean-shaven and bareheaded. But he would no longer be that man, and no one would catch him running.

In fact, it seemed to Karl the best thing for him to do right now was stay put. The cops had already been down this alley. They had already been told about the homeless guy living under these stairs. He couldn’t say for certain, but he imagined the police had checked out the spot on their way down the alley. They had maybe even spoken with the ragman long enough to know that he communicated regularly with Pope Clement.

Knowing he was in as safe a place as any, Karl crawled back under the stairs and stretched out beside the dead man’s still-warm body to catch some sleep.