First Time Killer Read online

  “You should know, Tin Man. I bet you’ve gotten to know plenty of hot babes. In—and out of—their underwear.” Tubby made a sound that could have passed for a laugh, if you had trouble gauging sincerity.

  “As a matter of fact, I have.” Tin Man went on. “I hear the sales bimbos are easy, too. That’s what hanging out in the lingerie department all day will do to you. Rev up your engine.” Celia wanted him to be outrageous, practically begged him to piss people off. He’d be happy to annihilate this guy if it goosed the ratings.

  “I think I’d better get back to work now,” the flustered sales clerk managed, amid Tin Man’s chuckling.

  “Thanks for your—” Tin Man said, but the clerk had already hung up. He spoke to Tubby. “Well, that was a fascinating call. What’s your take on it?”

  “As usual, you had him—” Tubby began.

  Tin Man cut him off. “Thanks, Tubman. Very insightful.” Tin Man looked around the studio. “Hey, who’s our server this afternoon? Peter Intern or Janie Intern? I need some joe. Now!” Abusing the interns was part of the show. Making them fetch food, clean-up messes, or just plain make fools of themselves on national radio was entertaining. The interns ate it up, considering it a necessary step up the radio celebrity ladder.

  Tin Man scanned the phone queue and hit the button for line two. It was either that, or strike up a conversation with Tubby. An electronic ring-ring chirped, the sound effect he always used right before answering a call. “Tin Man. What’s on your mind today, Ginny?”

  “It’s Jenny.”

  “Okay then, Jenny. What can I do for you today?”

  “Well, I wanted to ask—”

  Tin Man interrupted. “What’s shaking my little Jenny? Besides your ample booty? I bet you got some junk in the trunk.”

  “My butt ain’t big. Not as big as your head, anyway.”

  “Ouch,” Tin Man said, silently flipping a half-hearted bird at the mic. Sometimes he needed to give his listening audience the illusion they could take shots at him. Give and take, give and take. “You got anything you’d like to spit out of your dirty mouth?”

  “This murderer. Why do you think he did it? And why would he call in to a radio show about it?” Jenny asked.

  This wasn’t the first caller who’d wanted to talk about yesterday’s eventful call. Tin Man straightened. “Listen up. There are a lot of wackos in this world, some even live here in Northern Virginia. Could be anyone. He loves listening to his voice on the radio. Don’t we all? Honey, I bet that’s why you called in. So you can hear your sexy voice on the little black box. Am I right?”

  “Shut up. That’s not it. The thought of a killer on the loose alarms me.”

  “Alarms you? Get your boyfriend to protect you. You have a boyfriend, don’t you?” Tin Man asked. He glanced at his partner, who was searching for something in his nose with his finger.

  “No. Not right now.”

  “Want one? Right now? Or at least in a couple of hours when I’m done here.” Men, women, American, foreigner, Tin Man was an equal-opportunity harasser. “How about I come over and protect you? From bad men. I’m a real good protector.”

  “You’re sick,” the caller said. “I would never—”

  Tin Man cut her off in mid-sentence. “Well, if you would never, then I’d just be wasting my time.” The ring-ring sounded and another caller filled the void. “Hello. Circus. What’s up?”

  “This is Rod.”

  “Hello, Rod. Go ahead.”

  “I want to talk about the arm J.T. found. What did it look like?”

  “Why? You missing an arm?” Tin Man forced a chuckle.

  “No, of course not. Was it big? Bloody? Was it a man’s arm or a lady’s arm?”

  “Rod, do you have an arm fetish? Have you been thinking a lot about this arm?” Tin Man said.

  “No, not really. It’s just…creepy. Gross. I don’t want to be throwing away my Big Mac wrappers and see an arm in the trashcan.”

  “You could do what Tubby does with his Big Mac wrappers,” Tin Man said. “Eat them right along with the Big Mac.” He grinned at Tubby, a big shit-eater.

  Tubby didn’t even try to defend himself. Didn’t say anything. Just sat there, looking at him, piehole closed. Tin Man made a mental note to have a talk with him when the show ended. He needed a partner with a pulse, no matter how weak.

  Rod piped up. “Hey, about that arm. Give me some details, man.”

  “Just in case you see an armless body around, you’ll know they’re connected? Sort of like a jigsaw puzzle?” Tin Man said.

  “I’m begging you. Give us some dirt. Please.”

  “Okay, okay. Hold your horses. And speaking of horses, why don’t we get some answers right from the horse’s mouth,” Tin Man said. “Or, more correctly, the horse’s ass.” He pointed at master control, then walked the listeners up to the break. “Right-o. Man of the hour, Circus producer extraordinaire, J.T. O’Connor, will join us after a few important messages. Don’t go away, F-heads.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “WHEN I OPENED it up, I almost fainted. I mean, a freaking arm. I think it might have still been warm.” J.T. perched on a stool in the chilly studio, squished between Tin Man and Tubby. J.T. could have gone on the air from master control, but Tin Man preferred having his guests right there with him. Made for more spontaneous radio. It was why he always insisted Tubby sit next to him, despite how he usually smelled.

  J.T. made a sawing motion on his own arm while he talked. “It was cut off just below the shoulder. And,” he said, pausing a few seconds, “there was no hand.”

  “No hand. Freaky. What do you mean by warm? I mean, it wasn’t still twitching, was it?” Tin Man asked.

  J.T. opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “We’re on the radio, dude. You have to speak.” Tin Man tilted his head. “Man or woman?”

  “Hard to tell.”

  “Come on, you can’t tell a woman’s body part from a man’s? I expected more from you.” Tin Man and J.T. got along okay, in real life. On the radio, he was paid to rag on the kid whenever he could. “I bet you’re a lot of fun on a date.”

  “Well, it was just a piece of the arm. No blood, really. I don’t think it had too much hair on it. But it was dark, and…Jesus, it was an arm!” J.T. had gone pale.

  “How about any tattoos?”

  “Didn’t see any. It was just a…a plain arm.” J.T. said.

  “Black or white?”

  “Honestly, it was more like gray. But it was pretty dark.” J.T. fidgeted in his chair. Didn’t seem as loose as he did when he started.

  “Did you go through the rest of the trashcan? Looking for more of the body?”

  “Um.” J.T. wasn’t often at a loss for words. “I let the cops do it.”

  “Did you watch the cops rummage through it?”

  “Tried to. They sort of ushered me to the side. Asked me a bunch of questions.”

  Tubby chimed in. “What kind of questions?”

  “The usual, I guess. What I did? What I was doing there? You know,” J.T. said.

  “They think that maybe you put the arm there?” Tin Man asked.

  J.T.’s eyes darted around. A bead of sweat formed on his brow. “No. I just found it. Told them that. They believed me.”

  “I guess your puking helped convince them.”

  A sheepish grin flashed across J.T.’s face for a second, then faded. “Food poisoning. I must have eaten a bad burger.”

  “Sure, kid. Sure. Any other observations or recollections from that night?”

  J.T. shook his head.

  “Hey, numnuts. I told you, this is radio. They can’t see your head shake and only I can hear it rattle,” Tin Man said. He took a sip of coffee from his Giants mug. If the engineers didn’t like it when the talent drank beverages in the studio, fuck ’em.

  “Oh. Sorry. That’s about it, all right.”

  “Okay. There you have it. Our own J.T. O’Connor with his eyewitless accou
nt. Thanks, man. Now, keep your yap shut for a moment. It’s my turn to talk,” Tin Man said.

  Time to earn his pay.

  “I have a couple of things to say to this killer,” Tin Man said. “You are a lily-livered coward. Killing another human. Not taking responsibility. Not treating the body with respect. I mean, what kind of low-life sicko cuts off the arm of a dead person and stuffs it into a trashcan? A sick pervert, that’s who. And then hides behind a telephone and calls in about it. Like we care about your pathetic little life. I hope you get hit by a truck, die a painful death, and rot in hell. Tonight.” Tin Man waited a beat. “In fact, if you come down to the studio, I’d be glad to run you over myself.”

  Tubby applauded in the background. Tin Man glanced into master control, trying to gauge the boss’s reaction. Celia had a broad smile on her face.

  Tin Man was about to break for spots when a message flashed on his monitor from an intern filling in for J.T. on the board. LINE 5. SAYS HIS NAME IS JEFFREY. YES, THAT JEFFREY.

  He swallowed, but his mouth felt dry. “We have a special caller, everyone.” Tin Man bypassed the ring-ring sound effect and went straight to line five. “Go ahead, Jeffrey.”

  “How dare you criticize me? You don’t even know me.” The caller’s breath was loud over the phone.

  “I know your real name isn’t Jeffrey.” Tin Man felt a surge of adrenaline in his veins.

  “Who says?”

  “Oh, you’re not that stupid. What’s your real name? You can tell me.” Tin Man tried the buddy-buddy approach. His heart beat faster.

  “I’m no coward. I’ve got bigger balls than you do, that’s for sure.”

  “Okay. So you’re not a coward. You’re a butt-kissing, dog-genitals-licking, pitiful excuse for a human being,” Tin Man said. “That better?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Original. Maybe you are stupid.” Tin Man licked his lips. “Hey Tubby, this guy won’t tell us his name. Let’s change that. You know how I love giving f-wads nicknames. The media’s calling him First Time Killer, but that seems too…important. Too weighty. I think I prefer something a little more familiar, more common. How about just First Time?”

  “Tin Man, you are a jerkwad. And your friend is a fat tub of lard. If I—”

  Tin Man potted the volume down on the call so only his voice could be heard. “First Time, how do I know you’re the same caller? Huh? Got any more body parts for me?” First Time was speaking in the same robotic monotone as Jeffrey from the other day, but Tin Man knew his callers would go to great lengths to try to dupe him. He potted the phone call back up. Because of the seven-second delay, First Time wouldn’t know he’d been silenced for another few seconds.

  “—and you have no idea what I’ve done.” There was a slight pause as the broadcast caught up. “Hey! You turned me off. Don’t you dare do that again. Or the blood I spill will be on your hands!”

  “Are you threatening me? Some anonymous joker? Why don’t you come down to the station and show your face? We can take it out into the parking lot. We’ll see who the tough guy is.” Tin Man felt a few drops of perspiration on his forehead. He looked up to see a crowd in master control. Celia fronted the others, waving her hands, giving him the thumbs up. He tore his gaze away, concentrated on the mic in front of him. “What’s the matter? Afraid?”

  “You are a foolish man. But you should be careful. You’re the one who should be afraid. Accidents can happen. By the way, how’s your Beamer driving? You know, the slick red convertible with the personalized plates.”

  CHAPTER 7

  IN HIS OFFICE, Rick prepared for his show, making notes in a spiral notebook open on the desk before him. He’d switched off Tin Man before the first break, tired of the nonsense, and concentrated on coming up with something more substantial, something his listeners could really devour. But the ideas weren’t flowing. Doodles, born from a dot or squiggle, grew and morphed, from bugs to lizards to castles to intricate swirling mazes on other planets, in other galaxies. The black ballpoint pen scritched and scratched across the paper while Rick’s mind wandered.

  An old Afternoon Circus promotional poster hung on the wall. On it, a picture of an anthropomorphic rhinoceros hulked over a radio board, face tilted up to the mic. But instead of an animal’s face, the face of Stanley Weinstein—aka the Rhino—glowered, trademark coke-bottle lenses flashing. An intense half-beast, half-man radio personality. The posters had been part of a promotional effort meant to solidify the Rhino’s position as the top talker in town. During that two-month promo campaign, it seemed everywhere Rick went, the glare of the Rhino had followed. The Rhino’s gaze must have affected a lot of people; the Circus’s ratings climbed to a new plateau. And stayed there.

  The Rhino’s picture creeped Rick out. Big and burly, muscles rippling under the leathery gray skin. Menacing horns ready to gore any foe. But in reality, in the studio and in the hallways of WTLK, the Rhino had the mannerisms of a library clerk. Short and skinny, with splotchy pink skin that turned crimson at the slightest unsavory remark. Fair, thinning hair crowned a light-bulb-shaped head. Stanley looked more like the little birds that sat on a rhino’s back than the rhino itself. Rick chuckled, thinking about the shocked faces he’d seen on those rare occasions when the Circus would do a live remote and the Rhino would venture out in public.

  The Afternoon Circus was a modified version of the myriad Morning Zoos that had littered the radio dial in the eighties, and it was custom-built for the Rhino. On air, he was brash, brazen, outrageous, compelling. The Circus quickly became a train wreck you couldn’t pass by without stopping for a while to rubberneck.

  The show was the brainchild of dot-com millionaire Brewster Landis. He spurned the traditional radio ways, instead organizing the Circus like an Internet start-up venture. The iconoclastic Brewster had enticed the Rhino—at the time a virtual radio nobody—with a competitive salary and a promise. A promise of big money in the form of equity. Come work for me, Brewster said, and a piece of the whole shebang is yours. With that strategy, he cobbled together a talent pool offering others a slice of the pie to work at WTLK.

  At the outset, the shares were basically worthless, and Brewster waved them around like bus passes. In the dot-com world, betting on fliers was commonplace, but most ventures didn’t come close to paying off. You’d have to be the wildest dreamer in the world to believe this gamble would, especially with a radio neophyte behind the helm. Rick remembered joking with Barb about it—how, if they were really lucky, they’d be able to get a couple of Frappuccinos at Starbucks with the proceeds from their stake.

  The first year, Brewster launched the Circus on each of the five stations he purchased. He promoted the hell out of the show, using his Internet savvy to boost awareness, and it paid off. The ratings skyrocketed. Two years later, Brewster rolled the show out in syndication. Seventeen cities the first year, twenty more the next. Syndication proved to be so successful that Brewster packaged the rest of the WTLK line-up and offered it to stations around the country. Rick smiled, thinking about the first emails he’d received from places like Sacramento and Tucson.

  Nine months ago, Brewster took the next logical leap and entered negotiations with SatRad to bring the Circus to satellite. Big bucks. Widespread audience. Complete clearance. Everything looked great until the Rhino celebrated too hard on Halloween. His death—due to a heroin overdose—sent everyone reeling.

  The braintrust at SatRad immediately put the kibosh on the deal. The commodity they were buying—the Rhino—was dead. But after some desperate last-ditch discussions, Brewster persuaded SatRad to give the Circus’s satellite deal a three-month stay of execution. Three months to prove the Circus was just as popular without the Rhino. Three months to deliver killer ratings, which, after all, were what anyone really cared about.

  Brewster scrambled. Brought in General Manager Marty Williamson to run WTLK. Fired the old program director and hired Celia, hoping she’d perform the same turnaround miracles in radio t
hat she did for his Internet telephony company. Hoping her business-building skills translated to radio audience building. So far, Rick didn’t think things were working out like Brewster had hoped.

  Angry, disturbing patterns and shapes covered the sheet of paper Rick had been scribbling on. He ripped it off the pad, balled it up, and flung it in the direction of the trashcan. He was interrupted from his little pity party by his phone. “This is Rick.”

  “This is Celia.” She practically trilled her name.

  “What’s up?”

  “You’re not listening? Shame on you.” Still way too much glee in her voice. Something was up.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Our friend Jeffrey—or should I say First Time—just called in. He actually threatened Tin Man.”

  “And that’s good news?”

  “Oh, Rick. He’s not serious.” She laughed. “We’ll be riding the First Time Killer all the way back to the top of the ratings.” She paused. “And you and Tin Man are our jockeys.”

  “I killed two kids. Dumped their bodies in the Potomac.”

  “I slashed the throats of three college professors. They wanted to give me D’s.”

  “Want to buy some used body parts? Cheap?”

  Over the next two days, the calls poured in to the Afternoon Circus. Copycats. Crazies. Drunken fools looking for laughs. Listeners called in relentlessly, wanted to discuss their theories and opinions about the First Time Killer.

  Rick hated it. Celia loved it.

  Rick tried to downplay things, but every time he found a caller willing to talk about something besides First Time, five more would follow up with questions about the severed arm. Celia kept fueling the fire, tweaking the promos to reflect the changed tone of the Circus. Rick knew she wouldn’t be happy until it was First Time, All The Time.

  An hour before the Friday episode of the Circus started, Rick joined Winn at one of the half dozen Formica-topped tables in the break room. “Hey, old man. Ready for your date? Barb just called. She and Livvy’ll be here any second.” Every Friday afternoon, Winn took Livvy out for an “adventure.” To the zoo, for ice cream, to McDonald’s.