Copyright

Digital edition 2012

First MOONSTONE edition 2007

The Kolchak Papers: The Original Novels

© 2007 by Jeff Rice

All Rights Reserved

“Kolchak the Night Stalker” © 2007 by Jeff Rice

All Rights Reserved

Cover painting by Douglas Klauba

Without limiting the rights of the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form,or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise), without the prior express written consent of the publisher and copyright holder.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Moonstone

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www.moonstonebooks.com

Letter to the Author

Dear Mr. Rice:

This letter is a follow-up to our recent meeting at the recording studio. If, after reading this, you are interested in hearing my story, call on me.

I no longer work for the Las Vegas Daily News “for reasons of personal health,” to put it delicately. The real reason for my cleaning out of my desk in midsummer this year was because of the “mystery killings.” That and frustration.

So now I am here prostituting my God-given talents as a flack for actors. That’s what I do when I’m not lined up at the unemployment office, or Department of Human Resources

Development or whatever nonsensical name the State of California chooses to call the place where you get your dole.

I’m still not completely settled in and I brood a lot. If you were in my place you’d brood a lot, too. You would sit and wonder how in the goddamned hell you could have been so completely surrounded with well-meaning idiots who couldn’t see past their noses to the evidence–or who wouldn’t get out and look for it. You would sit and think of the queer set of “thefts,” and of the incredible murders–seven by my count, five by the district attorney’s. The same D.A. who is now running for re-election on the “anti-drug, anti-youth” ticket. The same D.A. who publicly claims a 95% conviction rate and more than 2,500 crimes solved in 1969-1970. The same D.A. who has the reason answer to six of those seven murders but who will always keep the file closed and hidden.

Let there be no doubt–the D.A.’s office did conduct an investigation. So did the Las Vegas Police Department, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI. The Daily News conducted a very half-hearted follow up. My own, very much off-the-record inquiries led to my “disassociation” with the Daily News by mutual agreement.

While I can remain sober, I am going to try to get it all down on tape and in print. If you don’t believe it–OK. If no one else does–also OK. It’s no skin off my nose.

But whether or not you do believe it, don’t bother me about it–don’t mention it in my presence once you’ve finished with my notes. As far as everyone is concerned the matter is–if you’ll pardon the expression–dead and buried. And that’s OK with me.

I’m stuck here lying awake nights and wondering what the survivors --- the relatives of those poor souls–what they think about and how they feel when they are told the coroner’s “theory” about how they died; when they are told what finally happened to the murderer.

But, also, I still have a living to earn. It’s not my problem anymore.

However, in the short time I had to talk with you, and in a bit of checking I did later (to find out how much money you’re worth) I feel certain you are the man to either solve this mystery or go nuts from trying.

So, come on, Mr. Rice. Give me a call. You have my card. Don’t let the greatest crime story of the decade–of the century–go untold. Get out of your gray-flannel suit and do something really useful in the world. Expose the bastards that have the secret.

I just can’t fight it alone, anymore.

This is the story behind the greatest manhunt in the history of Las Vegas.

For the first time, the facts behind the incredible police “cover-up” designed to save certain political careers from disaster, and law enforcement officials from embarrassment are revealed.

Between April 25 and May 15, 1970 a cold-blooded fiend murdered five unsuspecting victims. Each of the victims was apparently unknown to the other. None knew their executioner. Robbery was ruled out. So was vengeance. And, there was no evidence of sexual assault.

The only clues to the killer’s motive and his “weapon” were so unbelievable, that to this day the facts have been suppressed in a massive snow-job by mutual consent of the law enforcement agencies involved and the local press.

By the end of the summer of 1970, two more people had died, and “expert witnesses” had either left Las Vegas or were “unavailable for comment.”

One man, an irascible second-rate journalist named Carl Kolchak, dared to print the truth. Each time, however, his reports were censored or suppressed altogether.

In his attempts to reveal the truth, he was laughed at as a drunk and a lunatic. Read and discover for yourself why the findings of the coroner’s inquests remained hidden from the public.

Learn why Kolchak suddenly left Las Vegas for “personal reasons.” And, when you have finished this bizarre account, try… try to remind yourself, wherever you live:

“It couldn’t happen here!”

PROLOGUE

I first met Carl Kolchak in August of 1979 at a recording studio in Hollywood where my associate and I had been making some radio commercials for one of our larger accounts. Kolchak was there as a press representative for one of the actors we were using and I disliked him almost on sight. He was seedy, gross, aggressive, slightly drunk, and a general hindrance to all of us. But, he was also extremely persuasive in his later attempts to get me up to his shabby one-room apartment on the pretext of letting me in on “one of the biggest crime stories of the decade.”

In the course of the several meetings that followed in that depressing place, as he slowly revealed exactly what it was he had stumbled onto during his final days as a reporter for the Las Vegas Daily News, it occurred to me that his story would make a highly interesting (and possibly profitable) book. Besides being the copy director of a leading Los Angeles advertising agency, I was also something of a crime buff.

If what Kolchak told me and showed me in his papers turned out to be factual (as, indeed, it seems to have been), he truly had some spectacular information on one of the great police “cover-ups” of the decade… perhaps of the century.

Kolchak, who later lost his clients due to his alcoholic excesses, had in his possession several small cassettes of recording tapes, and a bulky sheaf of notes, some typed and others only crudely scrawled. The story they related was so fantastic that I was at first inclined to conclude they were the ravings of a drunk. However, as you can see, I was finally persuaded to take him seriously and when you read the letter he wrote me (which precedes his incredible tale) you will see why I allowed myself to get involved in his efforts to expose the whole story.

I felt then that there was something unbalanced about Mr. Kolchak. But aside from anything else one can say about him, he knew how to “read” people. Not only did he correctly ascertain that I would be persuaded to help him publish his account, but I am sure I eventually exceeded his greatest hopes as I actually made several trips to Las Vegas to interview many of the persons involved.

At the time I began my research in Las Vegas, I went with the idea still firm in my mind that I would discover his story to be a wild exaggeration at the very least. The truth became readily apparent when those named in his notes either flatly refused to comment on his assertions, or had left town since the incidents and could not be located.

I was sufficiently intrigued to press my inquiries and, toward the end of this year, they finally bore fruit. After sending out more than a dozen letters across the country I was contacted by Mr. Bernard Fain, a retired law enforcement officer residing in a private retreat in the Thousand Islands. At the time the incidents took place, Mr. Fain was the special agent-in-charge of the Las Vegas office, Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was most cooperative and I consider it a great stroke of luck that he was willing to corroborate much of Kolchak’s story.

I was also most fortunate in contacting Amanda Staley, a retired registered nurse who had moved to Glendale, California. She was one of Kolchak’s “eyewitnesses” who saw the suspect long before his true identity was revealed.

I feel an acknowledgment of their cooperation is doubly necessary here because of their willingness to come forward when no one else would, and in view of what has occurred in the past few weeks as I was finishing this work. (An explanation of this statement appears in the Epilogue.)

I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Kirsten Helms, a former humanities instructor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and a specialist in ancient myths and legends. She not only showed me the books she loaned Kolchak in his initial research, but gave me an important insight into his character.

I received absolutely no cooperation from the local law enforcement agencies or from the Clark County District Attorney’s office. The Las Vegas FBI office informed me they had “no available records” of Mr. Fain’s alleged part in the investigation. In Washington, D.C., I was told the United States Department of Justice had “no file numbered 17-447-B3” nor, in face, “any alien registration forms” listing the suspect under neither his true name nor any of his alleged aliases.

At the time I agreed to help Kolchak, I intended solely to aid him in reorganizing his notes into a compact, cohesive report by eliminating his endless digressions into unrelated subjects, his endless comments on fellow workers, and dissertations on various mundane aspects of Las Vegas not absolutely pertinent to the facts. However, those recent events which I have already alluded to convinced me that I should leave as much of his work intact as possible–just the way he first set it down in his notes and on tape. This, at the very least, not only gives the reader some idea of Kolchak’s style–which is irregular at best --- but also an insight into the man and his thought process. It now seems the least I can do in view of the fact he may no longer be able to do so for himself. Only where necessary (and where indicated by my initials and comments) have I taken the liberty of piecing together reported incidents in an attempt to clarify his account. Also, where necessary, I have taken the liberty of cleaning up Kolchak’s language, much of which consisted of four-letter words.

I am sorely afraid that many will discount this entire tale as rubbish. There is no longer any way for me to prove Kolchak’s claims. As Kolchak warned me in his letter, the story, my subsequent investigations, and the further recent “incidents” have made such a deep impression on me, that I may never have another night’s peaceful sleep for years. It is up to you, the reader, to judge for yourself the accuracy and believability of this book. As for me, I am now of much the same frame of mind as Kolchak was in his introductory letter.

I will not discuss these events ever again, with anyone. The book is finished. And I intend to continue with my present career as best I can.

Jeff Rice

Hollywood, Calif.

January, 1971

CHAPTER 1

On Saturday, April 25, at about 2:30 A.M., Cheryl Ann Hughes was tapping her foot angrily as she waited at the corner of Second and Fremont streets. She glanced repeatedly at her watch. The young man she was currently living with, Robert Lee Harmer, was supposed to be picking her up for “breakfast:” and then a ride home. Harmer was nowhere in sight. He was at that moment quietly puffing away at a joint with some members of a local rock group, oblivious to the time.

Cheryl Ann Hughes: twenty-three, five feet five and a half inches tall, one hundred and eighteen shapely pounds, Clairol blond hair and light-brown eyes. Swing-shift change-girl at the classic Gold Dust Saloon, a gaudy western-styled casino built when Vegas was younger, smaller, and–some say–friendlier.

Cheryl Ann Hughes: Tired. Hungry. Disgusted at having waited twenty-give minutes for a ride, was now mad enough to walk the eight blocks to the small frame house she shared with Harmer just off the corner of Ninth and Bridger.

Cheryl Ann Hughes: now walking East on Fremont Street, past Schwartz Brothers’ Men’s Shop, determined to make It home in time for the 3 A.M. movie and a bowl of chili, but still keeping an eye out for Harmer.

Cheryl Ann Hughes: alone with her irritation, now crossing Las Vegas Boulevard having just passed the white-plastic dazzle of the latest Orange Julius stand, its three male customers giving her a brief appraising glance.

Cheryl Ann Hughes: a girl with less than fifteen minutes to live.

While the Hughes girl was headed to her doom, the Las Vegas Police Department, ever vigilant, conducted a narcotics raid on the apartment her boyfriend was grooving in along with his six companions. Thus, handcuffed, fingerprinted, booked and incarcerated by 3:30 that A.M., Harmer was never on the list of suspects. In due course, this being his first local “bust,” Harmer was politely “invited” to leave town and the charges were quietly dropped. He has since disappeared.

It was just about 3:00 A.M. when Cheryl Ann turned down Bridger at Seventh across from the northeast side of Las Vegas High School’s Main Hall. She went into a dogtrot at Eighth Street which T-ends into Bridger. If she had been a little faster, she might have reached Ninth Street. She slowed just pass the alley entrance to search her purse for her key and was neatly and silently lifted off her feet from behind and dragged kicking into the alley.

Her initial panic passed as she was pulled into the gloom and she remembered her karate lessons. Not overly enthusiastic about what she thought was impending rape, she lifted her right foot and brought it down sharply on her assailant’s right instep, raking his shinbone on the way down as she’d been taught. At the same time, she twisted slightly to the right and slammed her right elbow into her attacker’s middle. The effects were not what they should have been. The grip across her throat tightened like a vise and in seconds she was unconscious.

Not a sound was heard and her body wasn’t found until almost four hours later when two hefty minions of the Sagebrush State Disposal Service found it half-wedged into a garbage can thirty feet down the alley.

The Police Department was duly notified. They arrived and inspected the can’s contents and, in turn, notified the coroner’s office and sent for an ambulance. Since, in the cursory police examination “at the scene” there were no marks of violence save the bruise across the girl’s throat, it was assumed she had died “routinely” of strangulation. So the body was carted off to County General Hospital’s Pathology Theatre “D.”

By the time the coroner, Dr. Oscar Regenhaus, arrived to perform the autopsy, Dr. John McManus, the county general staff pathologist, was already pulling on his white coat. Netski, the diener (clean-up man), had already swabbed down the enameled metal table and wrestled the corpse of Cheryl Ann Hughes onto it. He finished preparing it, arranging the arms and slipping the wooden block under Cheryl Ann’s head as Regenhaus began to note the condition of the body, including each small scar, callus and mole.

He checked the dilation of the eyes and was about to open the jaw when his fingers felt the two holes. Now here was something odd. They were approximately three-eighths of an inch across and two and three-quarter inches apart in line with the left carotid artery. Had Regenhaus not decided to check the woman’s teeth he might not have discovered the marks until he did the skill examination.

The holes should not have been there. They looked vaguely like the bite marks of some large dog but that seemed impossible to the two men as there was virtually no sign of bleeding. The wounds were dry. “Damned odd,” was Regenhaus’ comment to no one in particular. However, considering that the girl had been found neatly folded in a garbage can, and that was his job to determine the exact cause of death (and weapon used, if possible), Regenhaus continued with the work. In swift motions his scalpel incised a long Y from the edge of each shoulder to the bottom of the sternum with the Y’s tail going all the way to the pubic bone. The very pale flesh parted as the blade was drawn across her abdomen revealing the yellowish underlayer of fat. In most normal autopsies there would by now have been a considerable spillage of blood. But here, there was no bleeding at all. The thought passed through Regenhaus’ mind that there should have been evidence of “dependent lividity,” a settling of blood to the lowest points of a body when the heart stops pumping.

Regenhaus checked with McManus and Netski but neither had found any sign of “dependent lividity”–no purple skin around the buttocks or feet or, now that they thought of it, anywhere, even though the body had been found roughly in a fetal position.

Regenhaus then peeled back the chest flap, cut away at the flesh with another instrument and then pried up the ribcage with a “spreader” to expose the pericardium and lungs. Still no blood. Normally, he would now be siphoning off the pints that should have settled in the abdominal area. He glanced at McManus who just looked back at him.

Next came the head: the hairline incision of the scalp; the peeling of it and the skin of the forehead down to a bunched fleshy mass over the eyes; then the grinding whine of the power saw which crunched into the skull itself. “This should give us plenty,” he muttered as he sliced open the superior sagital sinus–the large vein running along the membrane at the top of the brain. The vein was collapsed. It did not bleed. Not a drop. He paused, regarded this thing that should not be, then severed the brain from its spinal cord and dropped it into a glass jar of formalin which Netski held.

He turned to McManus. “Start the gross work on the internal organs. I’m going to phone the D.A.” Then, looking at both men, he added, “Don’t talk about this–not to anyone,” and he rushed to McManus’ nearby office to inform the district attorney of his unexpected findings.

• • •

It took some considerable prying to discover what I’ve just related. In light of the later revelations of Dr. Mokurji, I know my guesswork was accurate. I got some of my information from McManus who was later quietly dismissed and who left town. Some of it came from my own (later) observations.

The D.A. must have had a fit when Regenhaus reported the body had no marks except for a slight abrasion on each of her heels where she had presumably been dragged from sight. A later and more complete report added to this that her larynx had not been crushed; thus strangulation was ruled out as a cause of death.

Then, of course, there were the two “holes” in the girl’s neck. That, and the fact there was virtually no blood in her entire vascular system. Cheryl Ann Hughes had been very efficiently drained of all ten pints of her blood; apparently without much struggle and with no noise. If fright at whatever fate had overtaken her did not stop her heart–and there were no indications of this–then the shock induced by this massive blood loss certainly did. And in less than a minute’s time, according to Regenhaus.

The D.A. did some quick thinking and put through a conference call to both the sheriff and the police chief. When he had them on the line he gave Regenhaus an extension and they discussed how to handle the unexplainable occurrence. The four men decided on a press blackout and that the cause of death would be marked “officially undetermined and under investigation.”

Murder, of course, was the assumption. The time of death was fixed at approximately 3:00–3:15 A.M. Her whereabouts were known at 2:30 and it was later established she had walked home and that time factor figured.

Her low-heeled shoes were only slightly scraped indicating they had come off in the struggle–if indeed there had been a struggle. They gave no sign of an attempt of Cheryl Ann to kick her assailant into releasing her.

Not one soul, including those whose bedrooms fronted on the alley, heard anything out of the ordinary.

In short, whoever or whatever killed Miss Hughes must have been terribly strong to so quickly immobilize her. It was assumed–in the absence of further evidence–that her attacker or attackers were male, over six feet tall, and weighed more than 200 pounds.

A bigger mystery is how ten pints of blood could have been so rapidly drained through two such small apertures.

With nothing to go on but the coroner’s report, police were at a loss for suspects, and a subsequent check of her background turned up nothing but a divorced and remarried ex-husband in Desplaines, Iowa who was “shocked” and “saddened” but who could offer little worth noting.

“Yes,” he said, “she had tended to be a somewhat headstrong girl… always clamoring for the bright lights and glamour; interested in becoming a dancer or an actress… careless in her choice of male companions but a friendly girl with no known enemies who would wish her ill–certainly, not dead.”

CHAPTER 2

Nine days later, the second body was discovered. It was found by Bud Jacobs, a Nevada Power Company inspector at 11:00 A.M. Monday, May 4, in a gully, fifteen feet off West Charleston Boulevard, near Power Station Six.

Bonnie Reynolds: Casbar Casino cocktail waitress (swing-shift). Native Nevadan originally from Pioche: twenty-seven, divorced, mother of two boys (Bobby, seven, and Kenny, four). Five feet seven, one hundred and twenty pounds. Brunette. Thin. Friendly according to coworkers. Ex-husband a career mechanic–a six-stripe sergeant in the air force recently transferred from Nellis AFB in Las Vegas to Edwards AFB in Calif. Reported in a state of collapse over the news.

Bonnie Reynolds. Torn fingernails. Bruises on her face. (Later it was discovered by Regenhaus that her third and fifth cervical vertebrae were displaced.) Two small, round puncture wounds were discovered just below the left ear. And, as I found out later, she was drained as dry as a corpse on a mortician’s table.

This one, the police figured, had been “taken for a ride” and tried to get out–too late. This one had fought, possibly without Miss Hughes’ amateur karate skill, but less frantically. Her clothes were torn but no sign of sexual molestation was evident. There were no footprints.

The struggle must have taken place about the middle of the road and the body literally flung fifteen feet to where it came to rest in a crumpled heap; lying face down, legs together in skin-tight bell-bottomed hip-huggers, left arm outstretched, palm down; right arm doubled at an unnatural angle under the body across the waist and groin; face turned back toward the lights of town staring with dead eyes for help that never came.

The first death was duly reported in large, blue headlines by the newssheet “down the street,” an afternoon paper that goes to press around noon.

I blew what could have been a scoop. Well, I didn’t exactly blow it alone. I had help from our front office. Daily News policy dictates that money must be saved at every turn–salaries especially. And, in one way, that meant clearing out the newsroom by midnight. The earliest birds on the News rarely filtered in before 9:00 A.M.

We put out a home (6:30 A.M.) edition that deadlines at about 10:00 P.M. and the presses roll around midnight. Our early morning edition deadlines around 5:00 P.M., prints up at 7:00 or 8:00, and hits the newsstands around 10:30 P.M., in time to catch show-goers on the Strip between shows as they race from one plastic and chrome pleasure dome to another.

Notice that I keep talking in the present tense. It’s hard to turn off old habits after nearly seven years. Oh well, the digression is natural. I’m not exactly sober right now. I wasn’t always a drunk. Not until this thing at least.

Anyhow, we carried the story in the lower half of our front page in seventy-two-point Futura Medium, indicative of unusual restraint on our city editor’s part. As incredibly stupid as it seemed to me ten days later, I picked up the story of the Hughes girl during my usual sounds of the PD and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, and didn’t even pause once to ask why the cause of death was listed as “undetermined” even though I’d been told about the autopsy. Perhaps living in Las Vegas for a decade–almost–had somewhat dulled my reporter’s instincts. Or perhaps I was just careless. It happens.

Or maybe it was the town itself. Whether you take the FBI’s point of view or the sociologist’s instead, dead bodies do not really make news–to other Las Vegans.

The FBI believes any town that has 163,000 persons in a general area-wide population of 490,000 that has as many deaths–murders, manslaughters and suicides–as Las Vegas has; it’s a very unhealthy place indeed.

From the standpoint of the sociologists considering “social interaction,” the picture is hardly as bleak. “Interaction” can be anything from one pedestrian bumping into another to conversation, copulation or killing. Common sense dictates that there were more opportunities to rub shoulders with large numbers of people in a large city than in a small rural community. While small in terms of resident population, Las Vegas played host to nearly twenty million visitors last year, about the same number as those who visited New York City. That’s a lot of people interacting “socially” and, ofttimes, not so socially.

Then consider that the tourists are bent on having a good time in unfamiliar surroundings. They’re often in Las Vegas on a binge or on that last fling before the final fall, the overdose, or the pistol pointed at the head. Then you begin to understand why a woman “found neatly folded in a garbage can some thirty feet into the alley, between Eighth and Ninth streets off Bridger Avenue” didn’t excite more than a passing comment and a few raised eyebrows.

Yeah! Maybe you can understand it. I can’t, and I never will.

My fine newshound’s instinct became aroused in time. On the evening of the second day after Cheryl Ann Hughes was discovered, my instincts were in sufficient tune to provoke my first argument on the subject with Tony Vincenzo, our city editor and my staunchest critic.

CHAPTER 3

MONDAY, APRIL 27, 1970

Tony Vincenzo is a small, dried-out Brooklyn-born Sicilian of such commanding presence and warmth that for years he has been totally disregarded by the Cosa Nostra, the Knights of Columbus and the Italian-American club.

Vincenzo of the rapier wit: “Where else would you put a ‘discard’ but in a trash can?”

Vincenzo didn’t think it was worth speculation even though a police cover-up was as plain as flies in a pail of milk.

By the end of the fourth day, after getting my fill of cold stares from Chief Butcher, Sheriff Reese Lane and the D.A. himself, I knew something was up. Fortunately, I still had friends among the undertaking trade who would, for a generous stipend, look the other way while I performed some mild necrophilic investigations.

I first saw what was left of Cheryl Ann Hughes late Wednesday afternoon, April 29, in the cold room of The Willows, one of our town’s “leading” undertaking establishments. At first, I, too, in my untrained way, saw nothing remarkable about the reasonably attractive young woman who had been neatly opened by the coroner’s scalpel and then, just as neatly, stitched closed. It is usually best when examining four-day-old corpses to take as impersonal an attitude as possible. So I didn’t really look at her face until I was through inspecting the body and was replacing the sheet.

Then I saw the two little holes.

At first I couldn’t figure out what they night be. Largely, because I didn’t try. They didn’t register at all until I was sliding her back into her icy little nook. Then, some little ghost of a thought flitted through my mind and without thinking I pulled her back out and took a second look. I called in my well-bribed contact man and asked him what the holes were.

“Funny, I never noticed those,” he said.

Bullshit! He’s a professional and he’d notice something like that right away. From his deliberately obtuse manner and his sudden myopia I gathered I was really onto something…but what? A girl who died under mysterious circumstances. A murder. No clues. No motive. But not just written off. Oh no! Written off and swept under the rug by the very people who should have been running around in a sweat trying to solve the crime.

With my usual tact, I managed to receive a “first warning” from Vincenzo before the week was out: “Quit bugging the PD. When something breaks, they’ll let us know. Meanwhile, use your head and lay off. Whatever they’re up to, they don’t want any help from amateur bloodhounds like you. And neither does the boss.”

Marvelous! Vincenzo never ceases to amaze me. I have never figured out just why he became a newsman, and I use that term loosely. He’s been one since ’46 and has never had the ambition or curiosity to look outside to see if it was raining. We have locked horns so many times I’ve lost count. Ant it’s sad because he is basically a decent, honest, hard-working man. But he plods! He toes the mark. He never crosses the line or the publisher, even if it means a scoop. I suppose some of this is unfair because, all in all, he has been a friend at times. OK. I’m unfair. But I can still smell out a story. Vincenzo’s sinuses are perpetually blocked. He has all the news sense of a tree stump.

The night before the second victim, Bonnie Reynolds, was discovered. I sniffed out the startling information from a County General intern that the Hughes girl “didn’t bleed at all during the autopsy. All corpses bleed.”

I was just formulating my “crazy theory” when Mrs. Reynolds was found and was alert for new developments on the Hughes thing when the call came in over the police radio.

• • •

MONDAY, MAY 4, 1970

I got there probably less than fifteen minutes after the first squad car. I got a good look–if anything like the sight of Bonnie Reynolds’ crumpled form could be called a “good” look. Of course, having to write it up before the autopsy, I was in no position to know that she, too, was found drained of every drop of blood. Nor could I, with any grain of common sense, openly speculate on that, especially since I hadn’t been given any clearance to report the speculations and rumors about the first death.

Vincenzo made one mistake. He let me print the fact that there were two puncture marks in her neck even though he wouldn’t let me link that fact with the similar marks on Miss Hughes. The public wasn’t treated to that little bit of information until Carol Hanochek was found, clad in a see-through shortie nightgown and panties, the following Monday morning around nine, on the kitchen floor of her ground-level apartment on Ida Street, behind the Bird of Paradise Hotel.

• • •

MONDAY, MAY 11, 1970

Carol Hanochek was crumpled up in a corner between the stove and the kitchen wall. Her roommate, Sandi Jensen, a brokerage house receptionist between jobs, had gotten up, wandered into the kitchen and discovered Carol whom she thought had fainted or fallen. She spent a few anxious minutes trying to revive her, not noticing the neat puncture marks under her right jaw. Finally, she summoned an ambulance and the crew, knowing a “dead one” on sight, made no further attempt to find the cause, but notified the sheriff’s office.

Carol, a swing-shift cocktail waitress in the Bird of Paradise’s show lounge had gotten home (guesswork, here) around 2:15–2:30, poured herself a glass of milk, and had opened the back door of the kitchen for reasons unknown. (Fingerprints were later found on the outside knob that, while smudged, didn’t belong to either girl.)

She had opened the door, and died. Suddenly, quietly, without disturbing her sleeping roommate only a few feet away.

Like Cheryl Ann Hughes, Carol was a blond, twenty-three, and just a bit over five foot five, though somewhat chunkier, weighing in at 130 or thereabouts. Like Cheryl Ann, she lived within walking distance of her job and had no car. Unlike either of the first two victims, Carol Hanochek had never been married and had never (Regenhaus’ examination later revealed) borne children. She was described by co-workers and the lounge’s bar manager to be gregarious, efficient and “straight,” with no steady boyfriends and no record of any trouble either at work or (to their knowledge) in her private life.

Something of a pattern had started to form and it was ugly. Young girls, all engaged in casino-oriented jobs and all working after dark, were dead. All were seen more or less frequently with men, none of whom were then (or later) very good suspects.

I was certain it was the work of one individual and assumed him to be a male, well over 200 pounds (he would need size and strength to accomplish his gruesome tasks quickly and silently) and definitely of doubtful emotional stability.

I also decided he was a white man. I’ll explain that in a minute. I further decided that the individual involved got some kind of twisted sexual thrill from the killings, and the way they were performed.

None of the three women died from heart failure, burst blood vessels, crushed larynxes or broken necks. There were few bruises except just under the throat in both the first and third cases, indicating little if any struggle. Discount the badly bruised body of Bonnie Reynolds in this context because the bruises did not kill her (though it was revealed in her autopsy her right arm was dislocated, most likely in the fight).

No. They all died, Regenhaus said (later) from “shock induced by massive loss of blood.’

How the blood was lost was where my theory differed from the professional investigators’. And why I must now digress once more to tell something of myself and my background. It will be dull but brief.

My given name is Karel but no one has ever managed to spell it correctly, hence the use of “Carl.” In the course of my work I’ve been called worse names. I’m forty-seven, a second-generation American, old enough to get “blooded” in Europe by almost two years of combat (most of it behind a typewriter) and lucky enough to have a trick knee left over from that war to miss out on that little “police action” in Korea. I managed to graduate from Columbia University with a B.A. in journalism in 1948 without any distinction unless being near the bottom of my class qualifies in that respect.

My grandparents were immigrants. Pop grew up a hesitant agnostic and superstitious. Mom was a believer in people. My grandmother was a shadow figure in my life as she died of heart failure two years after Pop was born. I was closest to my grandpop, Anton, a cabinetmaker from Rumania with a penchant for telling his young grandson endless folktales in the dark of night. But always with a grain of salt included, or a few historical facts as footnotes, such as his disclosure to me that there really was a “Count Dracula,” a fifteenth-century warlord known as “the Impaler” because he used to pin his enemies to the ground with stakes for entertainment. It was said he often drank the blood of his victims at dinner, his cup a human skull. These were the fairy tales of my childhood. They led me to the movie house on Saturdays and kept me up half the night afterwards. Then I grew up and forgot all about my fairy tales when Adolph Hitler proved to the world that wholesale horror could never be safely tucked away between the covers of a work of fiction.

Out of this kind of background, plus a slight knowledge of abnormal psychology acquired along the way from college to newspapering, I developed my initial theory, to wit: we had a nut running around who had taken all that bloodsucking stuff in movies too seriously. At least (I thought then) he had taken it enough to heart to use some kind of instrument to puncture the carotid arteries of three women will somehow keeping them absolutely still and quiet. Somehow this character managed to draw off ten to twelve pints of blood from each victim and, after due consideration, I surmised that, in his twisted logic, he drank the blood. This, as you will discover later, is not such a fantastic idea as you might think. And, he was very neat. Not a trace of blood was ever found except on Bonnie, around her abrasions.

He had to be big. That was obvious. And, as I contended earlier, white. By and large, if Vegas isn’t a segregated community, it certainly isn’t a fully integrated one. Ask the Westside residents if you don’t want to take my word for it. It’s called “de facto segregation” when all the minorities (in this case, blacks) live in one part of town, even after most real-estate barriers are supposedly down.

Well, anyhow, he had to be white. Police in Vegas are ever vigilant for three things: narcotics; youths; and blacks. Preferably black youths involved with narcotics. Harsh judgement? Ask Municipal Judge Howard “Buzz” Sawyer. He came out of the Vegas ghetto. Ask Police Detective Sergeant Frisbee, also black, why a shooting in a residence near Huntridge is an assault with a deadly weapon while the same thing at a home near D and Monroe streets is a “family disturbance.” The unofficial policy is that “black people just act that way–you know, like animals.” It’s changing, but very slowly.

So, I believed (without too much brilliance) that this faceless murderer’s invisibility was due in part to the fact he was white. A black man would be much more noticeable in an almost ninety-nine-percent-white neighborhood like the one around Vegas High School, or the area around Ida, Winnick and Albert streets where they intersect Audree Lane (where Carol Hanochek was found).

But a white man, moving quietly about in the night might well not be considered suspicious in a viewer’s mind. After all, Vegas is a twenty-four-hour town and nearly a fourth of its work force is up at what most people consider “ungodly” hours. It is not at all unusual to see pale, distinguished-looking men in tuxedos carrying around lumpy sacks (that turn out to contain laundry) at 3:00 A.M. They are captains and maitre d’s and baccarat dealers and musicians getting off late shifts. Women in bikinis and thongs doing their weekly marketing just before sunrise are common sights in Vegas.

No, he had to be white. And probably well-dressed. Possibly with a late-model car. A very middle-class type of character, not a sneaking, second-story type with turtleneck sweater, mask and tennis shoes.

Having spoken of my theory to Vincenzo and having met with his usual stone wall of resistance, I kicked it on up to the managing editor, Llewellyn Cairncross, who looked at me out of his one good eye and said with his customary tact, “Bullshit! Kolchak, for years I have suspected you were mentally deranged and now I have confirmation of that suspicion. Why don’t you go to Alaska or Florida or anywhere and plague somebody else for a change?”

So, very patiently, while jamming his office door shut so he couldn’t throw me out, I went over everything I had come up with including the tight-lipped comments from the police department and the sheriff’s office.

“OK, Lew. What conclusion do you come to?”

He started to fire off one of his legendary put-downs and it died before it ever rolled off his tongue. He slammed his mount shut and stared at me with that bloodshot eye. Then he called the boss, Jacob E. “Jake” Herman, editor and publisher. Herman the Heinous. Herman the Magnificent. Part crusader. Part charlatan. Once the scourge of crooked politicians; now a political kingmaker. Before Howard Hughes came to our fair city, he was one of the state’s biggest wheeler-dealers. And I suspect he could still teach the “bashful billionaire” a few tricks. And probably will.

I went to sit with Jake’s assistant, Bess Melvin, a truly lovely person who could smell a news item through two feet of reinforced concrete. The fifteen years she’d devoted to Jake Herman showed in the frustration and tiny crows-feet on her thin, attractive face. I’ve always thought it too bad that she didn’t own and run the Daily News. Too bad for the public. And, as it turned out later, too bad for me.

The phone rang. Bess picked it up and handed it to me. The receiver growled with electronic venom. “Kolchak, you miserable sonofabitch, if you ever ever go over Vincenzo’s head again…”I let him sputter on. When he paused for breath I got in my two cents’ worth and he surprised me by telling me to write “the goddamned piece” any way I saw fit. He told me to have Lew come into his office. I motioned to our distinguished managing editor and he entered the sanctum sanctorum.

I returned to my typewriter and explained to the public all the things I have just explained to you, put the words in United Press’ best recommended style and headed for home in the sure and certain belief that on May 12 I would either be well on my way to a Nevada State Press Association award for the best crime story of the year, or out of town on a rail.

My story ran the next day with all my pet theories deleted. So much for Jake’s much vaunted “word.” It was not a propitious start at all. Later that day the district attorney called to inquire whether I might not be better used by the Daily News in preparing an in-depth study of the treatment of the mentally ill–from personal experience–up in Sparks, Nevada, the Bedlam of the Golden West.

• • •

TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1970

I sulked in my apartment off Karen Court until I got a tip from an informant that Parkway Hospital had just been “knocked over.”

“Fine,” I said. “Knocked over for what? Cash? Drugs? Equipment?”

“Blood,” said my informant.

“Blood?”

“Blood. Every damn container in the place. Clean sweep. They’ve had the sheriff’s people out here all morning and have sent to the blood bank and to County General for some fill-in stock until they can get stores flown up from California.” I hung up and just sat there, looking out of my living room window at the gaudy, concrete, candy-stripe tent of the Circus a half-mile away on the Strip.

Man! I thought. You couldn’t be this right! There really is a guy running around who thinks he’s a… I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought. Parkway is less than a mile from my apartment–or where it was when I lived there. (I keep slipping. Can’t help it.) So, I threw on some clothes and hurried on over to talk with the chief resident, Dr. Stoddard Welles. He confirmed what I’d been told on the phone.

“Everything, Kolchak. Seems blood type and Rh factor didn’t matter. Every ounce we had. Why? I can’t imagine. Stuff won’t keep without refrigeration and even then, not forever. And there’s no black market for the stuff that I know of. So why? Who knows?”

Dr. Welles’ question was largely rhetorical and it was clear he wanted to be off on his rounds.

I headed back to my place and my upstairs den. Unlike many of my trade, I am not–or should say -- was not a clannish sort, never a joiner, and was neither a member of the Las Vegas Press Club nor a regular at any of the local bars and lounges (though I soon changed my ways, as you can see). When something takes hold of me I don’t know, and if I can’t think where to go with it (the “something”), then I prefer to hole up in familiar surroundings and brood on it. That could be called laziness by some, and they’d be right. I am physically lazy. I’m about five feet ten, weigh about one hundred and eighty-five pounds going on two hundred, am going bald, and look a great deal like a boozy ex-prizefighter. My idea of exercise–lifting weights for example–is to lift one hundred and eighty five pounds just once a day: when I hoist myself out of bed. I like to do my legwork on the phone as much as possible, at least in the preliminary stages of gathering data on a beat. But I surprise even myself when I’ve got my teeth into something solid because then I can go without sleep for three days and not even notice the meals I’ve missed.

I lay on my L-shaped couch for the better part of two hours while the sun moved past its zenith and began to dip towards the Charleston Mountain area. Then, as the sun eased below the top edge of my west-facing window and threw a little gleam in my eye, the idea came to me that FBI Special Agent Bernie Fain might be in a good enough humor to listen to me. So I slapped my half-empty Coors can on the coffee table and gave him a ring. He was in, and, for once, not busy, so I invited him up and thirty minutes later, over beer and pretzels, I went over what I had with him.

His interest was rewarding.

“You’re nuts!” he opined.

I pressed on. “We have three murders; we have a guy, at least one, maybe more, who goes around grabbing young girls–so far all casino employees–and draining them of their blood.”

“You’re not supposed to know about that–much less talk about it.”

“Well, I do. What about your people, Bernie?”

“This is nothing for the Bureau to mess with at this stage.”

“True, but you could make some ‘unofficial’ inquiries for me…”

“Like…?”

“Like to other police departments in the cities where we get our greatest flow of tourist traffic: LA, Frisco, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Miami, Boston and New York. Like check the hospitals in those cities, particularly the mental hospitals. Find out if there have been any other corpses like the ones found here–you know, bloodless and all that and not necessarily women. Also find out if there are any guys in these bug houses who think they’re Count Dracula, even if they haven’t done anything to prove it.”

Bernie just looked at me. “You believe in vampires, little boy?”

“Very funny,” I said. “Will you do it or are you just going to sit there like a cheap gonif and drink my beer?”

“I’ll think about it. Repeat: think about it.” He glared at me. Everybody had taken to glaring at me. “Vampires. Jesus H. Christ!”

I just sat there staring at the painting over my desk: a Transylvanian village street at night with the wind blowing sheets of rain into the face of a bluish, gabled building at a dir-road intersection. I had that painting for years. It brought back the tales of my grandfather’s homeland and it was smuggled into this country with him when he was a lad. After this thing was all over and I had left Vegas, looking at it made me uneasy. I have since burned it.

I regarded Bernie with a sideways glance as he gnawed on a pretzel. “You know about the blood stolen from Parkway Hospital?” I asked him.

“Ummhmm.”

“Know how much?”

“Ummhmm.”

“And the three dead girls…”

“Ummhmm.”

“How much blood do you figure the average, adult-type girl has in her body?”

“’Bout ten, maybe twelve pints.”

“So,” I jumped in, “if we add up what I’ve given you, in the past sixteen days someone, or some thing, has taken thirty to thirty-six pints of blood from three Women. And somehow, just by coincidence of course, thirty pints of blood were stolen last night from Parkway. Don’t you see any possible link?”

“Hmmm. Couldn’t say. Maybe yes. Maybe no.”

Bernie Fain. A fund of information. A wealth of suppositions. Brother!

“Stop drinking my beer and listen to me! Add up the thirty or so pints of blood missing from the three corpses and the thirty pints from the hospital and what do you get?”

“I get thirty to thirty-six pints missing from three women’s bodies. Also, I get thirty pints missing from Parkway Hospital. I do not see an implicit connection between these things and I sure don’t see any vampire written into any of this.”

“OK. Fine,” I told him. “Close your eyes and it’ll go away. I’m only working on theory anyhow. But check out what you can for me, please. I want to be on top of this thing when the next one…”

“What next one? How come you’re so sure there’ll be a next one?”

“That is part of the old Kolchak ‘vampire theory’. Whoever this character is, he has a lust for blood so powerful that fear of discovery won’t hold him in check for too long. He’s bound to strike again. Sure, I know this is crazy. So was the situation where that kid shot three dozen people from a campus tower at that Texas University. But I’m sure there’s a connection between the disappearance of the hospital’s blood and these murders.”

Bernie gave me one of his sidelong glances. “Hope it won’t disillusion you to know that the local law enforcement people share your views–somewhat–and are working along those very lines. If you’d stay in your office more you might hear things on the radio. You’re getting too fat and too lazy.”

“Lay off my gut and proceed with your point.”

“Well, Kolchak, you’re not the only one who likes to play detective. The police and sheriff’s boys think they’re pretty good at it, too. They think there’s a possible connection between the missing blood and the dead women. Not that they buy that vampire crap…”

“… even in the face of no other easy explanation,” I broke in.

“… but even so,” he continued, “they continue to probe and ask questions. Last I heard, they were waiting for a special report from two pathology experts who were flown up from the Los Angels police department together with a small truckload of equipment. If you want to join me at the sheriff’s office, they’ll be meeting at 6:30 with Chief Butcher and the D.A. to present their findings. You may still be able to get into these little sessions if you haven’t worn out your welcome with this stupid vampire theory of yours.”

“Well, thanks, I’ll…”

“One other thing, Sherlock. Scuttlebutt is: one of the Parkway nurses saw something. Told the cops she noticed an orderly near the blood storage area last night. Her name’s Amanda Staley. She only noticed him because he was new.”

“And?”

“And hospital records show no new orderlies hired in the past three months.”

“Got a description?”

“Ummhmm. About six-four and skinny. Pale. Dark hair. And bad breath.”

“Whoopee! Bad breath. That ought to be a great help in finding him.”

“If you were a professional detective maybe you could make some sense out of it. Since you are a writer and not a detective, it might be wise for you to stick to reporting and leave the detecting to us poor benighted professionals. To know what I know, all you had to do was ask. See you at 6:30.”

He left me feeling like a punctured balloon.

CHAPTER 4

TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1970

EVENING

The 6:30 meeting in Sheriff Reese Lane’s inner office was most interesting. I sat there and was grimly tolerated by the law officers at hand, mostly because they had opened the door voluntarily to me to attend these meetings some months back. There was no real reason they should have let me remain as my presence was strictly a courtesy in return for several years of fair treatment in my reporting and they, in turn, had given me straight answers to my questions. That is, up to now. I was there because they knew that to lock me out would add fuel to my already unpopular theory and get other people talking.

The report itself was routine, for the most part, dealing with medical facts in ten-dollar words with a lot of Latin terms thrown in for good measure. It was delivered by LAPD pathologist Dr. Mohandas Mokurji, in a soft, reedy voice.

“At any event, we surmise that death in each case was extremely swift, coming in something less than one minute. Unconsciousness would have come even more quickly. If the victims had had their throats slit with a sharp instrument such as a knife or straightedge razor, and if both the carotid arteries and jugular veins had been severed, the blood loss alone would have resulted in unconsciousness in from fifteen to thirty seconds. Those are approximate figures.

“However, it is possible by the careful pinching of certain nerves in the neck, near the base of the skull, or by forcefully depressing the windpipe and at the same time those carotid arteries to render a victim unconscious in as little as five to seven seconds. It is our assumption that such was the case with both the Hanochek woman and the Hughes woman. As for Mrs. Reynolds, it is apparent she struggled with her assailant…before she was immobilized.

“After the initial wounds were inflicted, the blood was drained very quickly and I would definitely say some kind of suction device was used. This would explain why no blood was found anywhere on the victims or in the area where they were discovered.”

Then Mokurji dropped his little bomb.

“In our examination of the Hanochek woman we came across something rather interesting. As you might surmise we were quite intrigued with the fact that the body had been almost entirely drained of blood. I say ‘almost entirely’ because, of course, there were still some bodily fluids, for example, in the stomach, kidneys, etc. However, there were also, in the minor blood vessels, tiny traces of blood. And almost microscopic traces of blood on the inner edges of the wounds. From these traces we were able to type the woman’s blood.

“What is so very intriguing is that we found another substance mixed in with this blood. Something we found nowhere else in her body. It was… sputum.”

Chief Butcher shifted his bulk uncomfortably and turned his florid face to the doctor.

“Well, man. Don’t keep us waiting. What was this stuff?”

“Saliva.”

”Spit?” asked the chief.

“So it would seem,” said Dr. Mokurji.

“You’re telling us the sonofabitch who killed her drooled all over her neck?”

“No. I am merely…”

“Well what then?”

“If you’ll let me continue, please… What I am saying is that we found a minute quantity of saliva on the inside edges of the twin wounds in the woman’s neck. No more. No less. It is enough for us to say the wounds were made by two round, smooth-edged, pointed instruments approximately three-eighths of an inch in length but possibly as long as six-eighths of an inch in length, taking into consideration the ‘give’ of the skin. We assume, from the exact parallel course of the wounds and the saliva found that they were made by teeth such as the incisors of a medium to large-size dog.”

“Dog! Dog!! What the hell is this?” shouted our intrepid district attorney, Thomas Paine, Jr. “Are you telling us a dog did these… murders?”

Mokurji never raised his voice a single decibel. And he’s about half Paine’s size. He merely gave the D.A. a long, hard look, as if he was regarding the remains of some Mongoloid idiot, and continued.

“Not a dog. I never said ‘dog,’ Mr. Paine. But is seems likely that the wounds were made by the incisors–or ‘dog teeth’–and there are many animals that have such physical equipment. Even, “he shot the D.A. a chilling little smile, “even men such as you, Mr. Paine. If I were to hazard an educated guess, I would say that whatever made these marks was most probably human.”

Paine couldn’t stand it. “What the hell do you mean human? Who in God’s name has teeth like a dog?”

Mokurji answered him, unruffled by Paine’s bluster. “Many men and woman have rather long and pointed incisors. Most often these ‘dog teeth’ are cured by simple orthodontal work or by minor dental surgery, by filing and capping. However, it is not just the teeth marks that lead us to the conclusion they were made by a human. You see, the saliva sample is human. The blood seems to be a new classification and very… anemic… but definitely human.”

“Would you go over that, doctor?” asked Sheriff Lane.

“Let me put it this way. You can type a person’s blood from his saliva. This saliva smear does not match the blood type of the victim. Now, by eliminating all the possible blood types and looking for what remains, I would say you should look for a very anemic fellow, possibly with some rare blood disease… something like leukemia, but definitely not your average, run-of-the-mill anemic. He is obviously energetic and strong. Oh, I might add, the same saliva traces were found on Mrs. Reynolds and Miss Hughes.”

I then raised my hand. “May I ask the doctor a question?”

They all knew what was coming but weren’t quick enough to stop me.

“Kolchak, Daily News, Dr. Mokurji… is it possible that someone killed these women by drinking their blood for the express purpose of drinking their blood–and killed these woman by biting then?”

“Physically, it is possible. At present, the evidence points that way. But I must advise you that I am a pathologist, not a psychologist even though the two lines of endeavor often cross in my particular line of work. I couldn’t and wouldn’t hazard a guess as to motivation.

“The women were killed most likely by being stabbed or bitten; I’d say bitten and held or choked into unconsciousness. A human being did the killing. The saliva traces prove that. They each died from shock induced by massive loss of blood.”

I asked one more question. “Doctor, are there such things… I mean, is it possible that someone could have attacked these women in the belief that he was a vampire and had to drink their blood to stay alive?”

“Oh, Jesus!” said the chief.

“Kolchak!” said Paine. “You’re here by mutual suffrage of us all.”

“It’s sufferance, Mr. Paine,” I told him.

“Whatever. Shut up!”

“Ah, Mr. Paine. I’ll answer that, “Mokurji broke in quietly. “There have been cases of people who, through some mental derangement, have come to believe they were vampires. Several of these committed crimes of violence. A few have even murdered some unfortunates and swallowed their blood. But in most of these admittedly exceptional cases, a knife or other sharp object was used. But… in Germany, in the 1920s there was one fellow who did use his teeth to rip out his victim’s throats. I forget his name.”

“But it is possible, Doctor, that such a deranged person, say a large and powerful man with abnormally long incisors, could, in the belief he was a genuine vampire, murder three, helpless women.”

“It is quite possible,” he answered. “Even probable if the annals of crime literature and police files are any indication.”

“And that,” I shot back, “would make our suspect, for all practical purposes, a living, breathing vampire, in the full sense of the word.”

Mokurji gave me a very long look. “It would make him, Mr. Kolchak, a man who acted very much like a vampire. However, I would hardly think that if this is the case, that it would take silver bullets or wooden stakes driven through his heart to apprehend such an individual.”

“Well, gentlemen,” injected the sheriff. “We are getting ahead of ourselves. We are just here to get a detailed report on possible causes of death. Let’s not start jumping to conclusions as to who or what killed these three women. At our request, Mr. Fain of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been pursuing an investigation of his own… ah… inquiries into similar violent deaths around the country. Mr. Fain?”

Bernie just winked at me and whispered, “Told you that just once in a while the professionals are on their toes. So why not shut up and learn something?”

Taking the line of lease resistance, I smiled weakly and nodded.

“As you know this case does not properly come under our jurisdiction. However I checked with Washington and was given the OK to put out a request for pertinent information through our offices in all major cities. The results have all been negative. In the past ten years there hasn’t been a single case even remotely like this one. All the weird murders committed right on up to the Sharon Tate thing were done with the usual weapons–guns, knives, etc. The Manson people are reported to have drunk some blood at the scene of the crime, but I think you’ll find they eat the food at the LA County Jail much the same as anyone.”

“So there was nothing you found that changes the picture, right?” asked Butcher.

“Well, unless you want to go so far as to contact the authorities in England and on the Continent, I’ve gone about as far on my end as possible. Of course, if something like this happens across the state line, say in California, or Utah, or Arizona, we could move in with a little more leverage…”

“The fact is,” said Paine, “It’s happening here. So we better make up our minds that some guy is doing it and get out there are catch him before he does it again.”

“Just like that, huh, Tom?” growled Butcher. “And what do you think we’ve been doing?”

“I don’t know what you think you’ve been doing, but I’ll tell you this. Some nut is out there, and I’ll bet he’s high on port or the hard stuff, and he’ll kill again unless he’s stopped. Reese, what have your people got on that Parkway blood theft?” (He saw the connection. Everybody did.)

Lane looked up and drawled. “Well, the latest thing is there seems to have been a witness of sorts who saw something funny out there either late last night or early this morning.”

Bernie nudged me in the ribs, smiling his irritating Cheshire-cat grin.

“It seems a registered nurse named Staley saw a tall, skinny guy dressed as an orderly nosing around the refrigeration storage area where the blood and plasma is kept. Didn’t think much about it at the time but when she mentioned the guy to a floor super she was told there was no tall, skinny guy on duty there. A subsequent check revealed no orderly of that description ever hired by that hospital in at least two years. But we do have a description of sorts from this Mrs. Amanda Staley, who, by the way, is a crotchety old widow of fifty-eight who doesn’t seem given to seeing things in the dark, so my boys tell me.

“Description as follows: WMA–about six-two to six-four; thin–about 160-170 pounds; pale; dark hair receding at the temples; and, now I quote Mrs. Staley’s exact words, ‘absolutely foul breath. You could smell him halfway down the corridor.’”

“So,” said Butcher, “we start looking for a man who could be either a local resident or, worse yet, an outsider who may not even still be in the area. Check the airport, bus terminal and train station, block off the highways and hope we catch him… just in case he’s stupid enough to hang around after three killings.”

“Got any other suggestions?”

“No. Suppose you start checking your work registration cards for anyone working around the casinos that might answer that description. If you come up with anything we can check the fingerprints with…“Butcher stopped.

Lane looked back glumly. “With what? You haven’t found any prints. And what we found on the Hanochek girl’s back door is pretty badly smudged. We’re pretty sure it doesn’t belong to her or her roommate but I’d hate to try to make a positive ID from it.”

Paine broke in. “Just get us enough to hold the sonofabitch for twenty-four hours on suspicion. I’ll find the right nails for his coffin.”

“You’d be stretching it. If we were wrong… false arrest suit… headlines and that sort of thing, “mused Lane, sensitive to possible lawsuits in an election year.

“Do it,” commanded Paine. “All right, let’s break this up. I’m due at the Elks Lodge in ten minutes. Than you Dr. Mo–Mo –ku…” He struggled with the name and finally gave up. “Thank you, Doctor, and please express our thanks to your associate.”

Mokurji was zipping his briefcase shut. He turned to Paine.

“I shouldn’t be too inclined to reject Mr. Kolchak’s theory out of hand, if I were you. It is at best highly speculative. But, in view of other, earlier cases in police files and in medical journals, not altogether unwarranted.”

Before we could leave, Paine made one further statement–a warning.

“This ‘vampire’ stuff is to stay right in this room. Until we have the assailant in custody we say nothing about these girls being drained of blood. No more rumors. No reports in the papers,” he added, looking directly at me and ignoring my colleague from the opposition press. ‘The official opinion at this time is that the cause of death is ‘undetermined and under investigation.’ We don’t want to start a panic. It’s bad for police operations. It’s bad for the people. And it’s bad for business.”

As we started to file out into the hall, the D.A.’s assistant, a mousy little former city attorney named Koster (whose great secret was that he had the largest collection of pornography in Las Vegas) slithered over to me and said unctuously, “Mr. Paine would like a word with you… out there by the elevators.”

I came upon our great gauleiter rocking to and fro, hands clasped behind his back. When he saw me he said nothing, but waited until the elevator had arrived and he had stepped into it, turning around with the doorway framing his bulky form.

“Kolchak, you’re becoming a real pest. I’ll have to have a word or two with Jake about you. I think maybe Pete Pryor should handle this thing from here on.” Then he smiled his sincerest campaign grimace and added a fatherly, “Keep your nose clean. Stay out of other people’s business, son. It’s healthier that way.”

The doors hissed shut and Paine descended out of reach of any epithet I might have had for him. Pete Prior! One of the most unprincipled muckrakers to ever hoist a quill. He and Jake Herman were like The Goldust Twins. If Jake gave him the word, Pryor would nail my hide to the composing room wall. In fairness, I must say that Pryor has many times exposed graft and corruption in places both high and low. He has even taken on the federal government when he felt it was encroaching on the rights of Las Vegas residents. But he has covered up far more than he ever exposed, has dabbled in character assassinations, and entertains powerful political ambitions. I suppose I just naturally resent anyone who supposedly makes the same salary I do but seems able to take off two weeks out of every six and travel to Greece and Bermuda or Hawaii at the drop of a hat. It might be interesting if I were to reveal the true source of his income. The IRS boys would very likely desire a meeting with him.

I took the next elevator to the street level and Bernie caught my eye as I headed out the Carson Street exit.

“Learn anything, friend?”

“If you mean, to let sleeping dogs lie, “I answered bravely but without conviction, “no.”

“It’s your funeral,” he retorted happily. “Go ahead. Let the local minions of law and order roll you under their steamroller. Goddamit, Carl, you want to snoop? G’head. Snoop! But stop making ‘suggestions.’ Stop interfering with the pros and implying that they don’t know their jobs. You might not like ‘em but you’ve got to admit they’re not dunces. Everything you told me they ought to do… they are doing and were doing before you got your bright ideas. You haven’t got an exclusive on vampires this year.

“And don’t kid yourself. These Vegas boys are not a small town bunch of political hacks. They are as smooth and canny a group of sharpies as ever ran Chicago or New York. And they can play rough if they get pushed too far. Especially when their reputations are at stake. Wise up to yourself, boy, or you’ll find yourself out of a job and ‘eighty-sixed’ all over the state.”

Now I started getting hot. “Does that go for you too, Fain?”

“No, it doesn’t, but… aaah, Jesus! Who can talk to you when you get like this? Look. The bureau isn’t in this officially but I’ll nose around unofficially on anything you bring me. Just between the two of us. But do me a favor. Stay away from me for a few days. Just for friendship’s sake.”

I left Bernie at Third and Bridger and ducked into the courthouse lot to my car while he headed back to Fourth Street and the Federal Building, one of the true architectural mediocrities of this age and, as I turned down Fourth Street, I gave him a loud Bronx cheer. Then I headed for the Plush Horse on Sahara just a block from my apartment.

Once there, I got slowly and pleasantly stewed, grumbling to myself about the cupidity of the D.A. and his two buddies, Lane and Butcher. I was also disgusted with my own performance and realized that within only a month I’d managed to blow whatever working relationship I’d had with the PD and the sheriff’s office, and all because I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut!

As an amateur sleuth I was, it seemed, outclassed in even the simplest mental processes. But I didn’t have the good common sense to let it go. Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I Chicago Daily Journal once told a cub reporter, “Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.” Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer.

The frustration continued to grow. I was a journalist. I stood, as Duffy put it, with Galileo. So I ask: what would you do if you could smell a news story like this and couldn’t go anywhere with it?

With me the answer was simple. I knew I was stuck. I knew I was (and am), at best, only a second-rate hack and that my dream of getting back on a big-league daily is just that: a dream.

So–I got drunk.

Drinking is an occupational hazard with many of us scribes. I have always kept an emergency supply of White Horse “miniatures” handy just in case the bars were closed. These little Scotch delights have laced many a cup of city-room coffee over the years. But drinking doesn’t get the job done. I had blown the first murder, that of Cheryl Ann Hughes, and even if I’d been on the ball, the story wouldn’t have rated an “extra” edition. And with the competition down the street hitting the newsstands in early afternoon on their regular schedule, the Daily News got scooped on Murders Two and Three. Now, in a normal town, we would have hit the streets with an “extra” at least by the third killing. But death, as I said earlier, excites little real interest in Las Vegas. The people for the most part are very conservative and insular. They mind their own business. They do not rise up en masse demanding investigations. The Asbill murder case excited much comment in the local bars and the Alsup killing caused a lot of working men to pause and ponder. But no hue and cry went up except for a few editorials. No public demonstrations. No phone calls or letters to the editor demanding action.

Stories peak very quickly and are good for only one or two resuscitations. Columnists fare slightly better and several local scribes have certain pet gripes they use as column fillers when topical issues on a local level are lacking. At the time of the “vampire killings” (the true nature of which was still not made public) the going column items were homosexual rape of first-timers at the state prison; the bungling of the convention board and of County General’s administrators, another perennial favorite; the slapping of wrists belonging to various entertainers who play Vegas regularly but neither love nor was ecstatic over the town and its residents; pot-smoking students; and, of course, that great scourge of morality (in a very moral town), the “adult” book stores which sell “filth and smut” to a great variety of people who anxiously return to buy more even though not one in 50,00 residents would ever admit to such a thing. Still, the number of these stores continues to grow and the business is mostly local trade. They now feel free to advertise openly in the hand-out papers printed for the tourists. No one objects.

Having done so badly with the last attempt at getting the truth made public, I then did what I had sworn to myself I would not do. I called the paper and talked to Vincenzo. I went so far as to suggest we do a takeout for the upcoming Sunday edition (pending, of course, further killings) and restage the murders with pictures of the investigating officers “on the scene,” getting a full share of quotes and speculations and taking an editorial stance of outrage at the cumbersome machinery of the law. The reaction, as expected, was negative. And Vincenzo had a suggestion for me which would have been physically impossible to comply with.

By the time I noticed it was dark outside, I was well removed from reality and so, I tottered out to my car, drove it the hundred feet or so to the little 7-11 Market that borders on the alley behind my apartment building, bought a load of aspirins and coffee, and headed home. There, I soaked for an hour in a very hot tub, swilled down a pot of the brew and prepared to beat my head against the brick wall of police-news media resistance one more time.

My friend Pete Harper, on vacation from the Newark Post, dropped by and fixed up a savory collection of scampi and rice, and by the time I’d finished the meal I felt almost human. Harper is tall, six-six, and looks like a stretched Peter Fonda. He’s a Hemingway bug and a true journalist: game for almost any kind of pursuit that might lead to a by-line. So, after helping stoke the “inner man,” he gladly accepted my invitation to revisit Parkway Hospital and talk to Nurse Staley.

She turned out to be a small, truculent woman who was all business. “I’ll give you one minute. Not a second longer. And I’ll tell you what I told the deputies. Nothing more. He was tall–a couple of inches shorter than your friend here. He was pale, looked like he never saw sunlight. He had dark hair receding at the temples. And he had bad breath. Absolutely foul.”

Her description to the deputies, verbatim.

Then she added, “His breath was really something! I mean it was worse than anything I’ve encountered in… well, never mind how many years of nursing. Worse and different. Not like sick bodies. Not like gangrene. Not like death. It carried halfway down the corridor. Nauseating, and I’ve got a pretty strong stomach; you need one in this work.” She stood there, hands on her hips, a challenging look in her eye. “Anything else?”

“No, that about does it. Thanks very much.”

Outside I lit up a cheap, fat, blunt cigar and looked west toward the lights of the Strip. I told Harper I was stumped. He knew what I thought about the killings, so I asked him, “Do you think I’m nuts?”

“Sure,” he said. “Ever since I’ve known you. Isn’t everybody?” I asked him if he’d care to join me on a night ride with the friend I had from the Sheriff’s Office on patrol of the strip area but he declined, saying, “I’ve got a date with this girl named Marni. Works for the juvenile court services. Out here from Nebraska. Thought I’d do her a big favor and show her the ‘Sin City’ we all just read about.”

“That should be very enlightening,” I countered. It meant, of course, that he was planning to show her nothing more than his own apartment.

So, I dropped him off at my place and called the sheriff’s office and asked for Chuck Hunsaker, a sergeant I know who used to get me passes to the police pistol range. The switchboard girl called the dispatcher who called “Kraut” (my nickname for him) and then I hung up. He got me on the phone about five minutes later. Ten minutes after that he wheeled by my place and picked me up. We tooled around the Strip until 3:00 A.M. with nothing to break the monotony but a couple of “noisy party” complaints and some drag racers on Flamingo Road.

• • •

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1970

EARLY MORNING

“Kraut,” who’d been around in his forty-two years, couldn’t come up with any alternate theories, but also didn’t, I was relieved to discover, think my “vampire theory” was any worse than others he’d heard. He’d been in on strange cases before.

A couple of years back, he’d taken part in a shootout between two limp-wristed types at the Circle West Apartments off Paradise Road. One little chap, a dancer, had become enraged over the fact that his former lover, a hairdresser, had thrown him over (and out) for a showroom choreographer and taken possession of their three Siamese cats in the bargain. So one night he’d unloaded an Army .45 through his ex-boyfriend’s front door, killing the intended victim and scaring the cats half to death. Subsequently, he shot it out with deputies called on the scene yelling that unrequited love was one thing but the theft of his cats had been “just too much!” It wasn’t the strangest case I ever reported but part for Vegas. And in two days, the residents had forgotten all about it.

When he was ready to call it a night, I had him drop me at the Dunes where I headed for their Persian Room lounge. The big “V Les Girls” revue was just going off and in its place was a singer named Misti Walker, a genuine, long legged, sexy-as-hell saloon singer whose particular brand of vocalizing was just what the doctor ordered for this unrepentant journalist. She’d only been on the Vegas scene about a year and hadn’t yet become a nationwide hit, but at twenty-two, she was already a veteran of nearly ten years as a professional, working her way from dingy bars steadily toward stardom under the firm hand and eagle eye of her performer-manager-husband, Bobby John Henry.

I listened to her renditions of “What Now My Love?” and “But Not For Me” which seemed curiously apt under the present circumstances. I listened and I drank. And drank. And I talked with a succession of cocktail waitresses who were getting very uneasy about the series of killings. They seemed to feel it “in their bones” that the end was not in sight.

When one of their number is hurt, they rally to the cause. Flowers, sympathy. Even money. Because of the odd hours these girls work, and the fact that most of them go home alone, feeling was running high. They didn’t reject my theory, possibly feeling it was the result of the booze. They didn’t particularly care. They just wanted the guy “caught and hung up by his thumbs.”

Misti worked her way into “The Dark Side of the Street,” a haunting underground soul thing–and a very dangerous place for young women these days–and finished up in time with my fifth bourbon with a soulrock number called “Livin’ In Heat,” a genuine foot-stomping item that never fails to please the captains as well as the patrons. The cynical gentlemen in the tuxedos gave her a standing ovation. She deserved it. She had a voice that combined the best of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn.

I left the Persian Room around 4:15, saying good-night to Gino Altamura and his lieutenants and headed for the coffee shop waving at Misti and Bobby John who didn’t know me from Adam. I’ve never been an autograph hound and I’m shy around all showfolk.

Just to the right of the Savoy coffee shop is the Monte Carlo bar, a semicircle that leads from the casino toward the Tower shops. Depending on the hour and the day, it is filled with conventioneers, executives, early afternoon arrivals and hookers.

Sam was there, on an off night, sipping a whiskey sour and chatting with Pablo, the bartender. Sam is the quintessential Las Vegas hooker; several cuts above the best of them. Five-six, twenty-five, dollar smart and, deep inside, basically decent. Never been on dope. Been divorced only once. Has three years toward a degree in psychology and periodically attends UNLV. She is one of my favorite people and I flatter myself that she likes me too. No great love affair, just a mutual anti-loneliness league, mostly around Christmas when the days for both of us get long and the nights, cold. She has cooked my food, ironed my shirts, and warmed my bed and my heart more than a few times. Certain columnists’ opinions notwithstanding, if you are one of the trusted ones, hookers are not only good friends, but fine sources of highly accurate grapevine information. They don’t miss much.

Sam agreed to join me in the coffee shop and we dug into the excellent prime rib; she took it English cut and I got a hefty, medium-well end slice. She told me the “girls” were getting very uptight about the killings and had taken to going to and from work in pairs. And, being possessors of buckets of common sense, they were all staying away from thin, tall, pale types. Beyond that, she had no information.

We topped off our “breakfast” with some lead-heavy pineapple cheesecake and she offered a lift home. On our way I stopped by the newsstand and checked out the Daily News. The University of Nevada’s Reno Campus had had its second firebombing of the week. D.A. Paine vowed to “combat any drug use” at an upcoming rock festival in nearby Jean that had already been banned by the county commissioners. The death toll in the tornado that had hit Lubbock, Texas, had reached twenty. The Israelis hit Lebanon in “the fiercest fighting since the Six-Day War.” And Jake Herman was urging the U.S. to “get off the dime” and sell the fifty Phantom jets to Israel while there still was an Israel.

Glancing through the paper I noticed that, with his usual prescience, our entertainment editor, Wilbur Pigeon, had written an open letter to the “mystery killer” urging him to unburden himself to his “family clergyman” and the police before his activities put the skids on the upcoming tourist season.

Ah! Wilbur Pigeon. A small, mobile, chancre sore with the body of a bedbug and the brain of a gnat. He is but one of the many so-called writers to flock to Las Vegas hard pressed by bad debts and repeated failures in bigger, less-glamorous cities. They survive largely because they work for peanuts and the Vegas public has become inured to their pawky ramblings. Although they write chiefly for the tourists who almost never read their scribblings, the locals tolerate their insane mutterings as a form of compensation for those days when the comic page is composed of blank spaces stamped: “Delayed in Mail.”

Their numbers include a self-styled Walter Winchell type who has never written anything less than a rave review; a great bearded prophet; and one who hands out is pronouncements flavored with equal parts of ignorance and Irish Whiskey. These statesmen of the fourth estate and their locally televised counterparts are on hand for every freebie and party. They are some, like Gus Giuffre–a fine, decent human being, the kind Las Vegas could use by the gross–who also act as hosts at charities, telethons and public functions. Most, however, concentrate on being professional “personalities” which does make it possible for better men to get on with the actual work of running the community, when better men can be found.

I groused about these and sundry other gripes as Sam drove me home where I called up a friend of mine, a graveyard shift switchboard operator at the Deauville, and asked her to call the paper when she got off and report that I had the flue. Meyer Moses could cover my beat.

That done, I sank into an uneasy sleep wherein I dreamed of an assembly line of pale, bloodless girls walking down an endless dark street and moaning softly for help. Somewhere, toward the edge of my inner vision, a shadowy figure pursued them with long, beckoning arms.

Goddamn booze!

Somewhere in the midst of this ghoulish girl parade Cairncross materialized and hung a garland of garlic around my neck, glaring at me with his good eye and intoning, “Go and sin no more.” Vincenzo appeared at Cairncross’ side and together they laughed insanely, then vanished in a puff of sulphurous smoke.

I made several high-minded resolutions, muttered half-heard but sincere-sounding prayers to all the recently deposed saints, thrashed and rolled clean off the bed.

I might just as well have stayed up.

CHAPTER 5

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1970

At 8:00 A.M. sharp, the phone jangled me awake and my little girl friend (she’s sixty if she’s a day) at the Deauville said, “It’s June over at the Deauville. Wake up, stupid.”

Such greetings, on top of a hangover are just the thing to start the day.

“Just thought I’d do you a favor and give you a little tip. I was just getting ready to get off and security put through a call to the sheriff’s office. He did it again!”

I was still groggy. “Who did what again?” I didn’t really want to know. I just wanted to get back to County Dracula who was chasing Sam through the Caesars Palace casino.

“Security,” June repeated, “just called the sheriff’s office. They found another body right out in the employees’ parking lot. Not five minutes ago. A showgirl I think. Are you awake?”

I was, then. Completely, even if my motor impulses were a bit shaky. “Have your people got an ID yet?” I asked her.

“How should I know? I’m not a cop. I’m a sweet, little old lady who minds her own business. You still want me to call you in sick?”

“Christ, no!” I couldn’t see any sense in letting Meyer beat me to it.

“Well,” she cautioned. “Better hustle then. If the sheriff’s people aren’t here yet, they will be in the next couple of minutes.”

“Thanks, sweetheart. I owe you one.”

“Never fear. I’ll collect in due time,” and she clicked off.

I jiggled the receiver button and called Stefan Temcek, a landsman of mine and the assistant chief photographer for the News.

“Get your ass out of bed and away from your succulent wife and meet me at the timekeeper’s office behind the Deauville Hotel on the double. Another killing. Bring your Speed Graphic, too. I want close shots of her neck. If you get there before me, start shooting. Don’t wait. You’re closer to the Deauville than I am anyway.”

I slammed the phone down without waiting for his complaint. Then I looked up Vincenzo’s home number. I interrupted his breakfast with the dope and begged for an “extra.”

“OK, Kolchak. If it’s for real, call me back at the office and I’ll get Cairncross. If he says OK, we’ll replate page one and try to beat the other paper to the streets.”

I made one more call, this time to a girl name Michelle, who is in the Deauville’s main show, “Paris Extraordinaire!” as a nude adagio dancer. She was sunning herself on her apartment balcony.

“This is Kolchak, dear heart. Brace yourself for a real jolt. One of our friends has bought the farm. It may be the ‘mystery killer.’” There was an instant’s pause and a sharp intake of breath. “Now,” I raced on. “A favor, please. Call up to or three of your friends in the line and ask them to meet you in the Deauville coffee shop. Tell them to get there in the next thirty to forty minutes and not to spare the horsepower. Don’t tell them why. Just get a booth and wait for me. And… Michelle, if one of them doesn’t answer, don’t panic. We don’t know for sure who got nailed. How about it? A tall order for old time’s sake?”

“Jesus!” she said. “That’s the fourth girl, isn’t it?” Another long pause. “OK. Can do. See you by 8:45?”

“Or as close as I can make it. If I’m late, just sit tight.”

I hustled into some chinos and a bush jacket, grabbed my Sony tape recorder (to catch what my shorthand might miss) and made it three steps at a time down the two flights to my car. I got it up to seventy-dive on Paradise, and ninety on Flamingo, running a red light on the Strip as I headed left past the Dunes and Aladdin, and pulled into the Deauville’s north entrance, jouncing over the speed bumps and onto the employees’ lot at the rear of the hotel. There was already one Sheriff’s car there and one came roaring in behind me as I killed the engine and bolted from the car.

There, in the third row from the timekeeper’s office, was a tall girl, in bell-bottoms and a knit pullover, sitting propped against a weather-beaten Austin Healey.

As I got closer I could see her eyes were closed. Her huge leather handbag was lying just to her left, with the strap still clutched in a closed fist.

Two deputies were talking to another woman who was sobbing and shaking, while two security guards hulked in the background.

I switched on the tape machine as I noticed my friend Temcek’s white Porsche which was parked discreetly by the timekeeper’s office. He was talking to the timekeeper. I go to the dead girl just two steps ahead of the deputies who’d pulled in behind me and called for Temcek to come over.

“Already got all we can use. Want me to get this stuff souped?”

Just then I noticed Deke Clausen, the assistant chief of security heading toward us, buckling on his .357 Colt Python.

“Yeah,” I told Temcek. “Get moving and have the stuff ready for Vincenzo. Call him and tell him I’ve got the dope from the Sheriff’s Office here and am getting background from the girl’s friends (I hoped) in the coffee shop. If he wants me, tell him to have me paged. Tell him I’ll piece it together here, borrow a typewriter if necessary to rough out the notes, and then call it in by 10:00. Got it?”

“Right!” and he was off and running toward his little white bomb. He screeched on out of the lot making racing changes as he dodged the speed bumps.

I turned to the deputies who were going through her purse. I didn’t wait to see what they found. I went over to the other two who were talking to the woman.

“Sit tight, Kolchak,” said the big one. “We got a witness of sorts here. No names. We’d like to keep her alive. She’s pretty shook, so make it short.”

I asked Deke if I could talk to her in his office and he looked at the deputies. A small, round one detached himself from the group. I didn’t know him, but he was a sergeant and seemed to be running the show.

“You Kolchak?”

“Umhmm.”

“I room with the ‘Kraut’ and he says you’re OK. You got five minutes with her and I’ll hang around, if you don’t mind.”

“Suits me, “I answered. “Deke, is there a coffee pot going in there?” He nodded, so I turned to the deputy who now had his arm linked protectively through the woman’s. The others were busy putting a blanket over the now prone body of the deceased, and as yet, an unnamed victim.

The sergeant, whose name turned out to be Clabaugh, said, “I’ve got a copy of the official report and her initial statement. You can have a look when we get inside. Remember, keep it short.” Off we went.

The Deauville’s security office was reached by passing through the electrically controlled gate and down a freight yard some 300 feet long flanked on one side by the hotel’s laundry, carpenter shops and boiler rooms. The woman, in a state of near collapse, had to be helped along by both of us. She was trembling and her eyes kept darting about her. We passed the receiving office, took a sharp jog to the right through a dark concrete passageway, then a left and through the Louis Quinze Theatre’s scene dock and down a hallway past the stage manager’s office. The air smelled of stale makeup and the walls were hung with costumes and props used in the show: foil spears and plastic armor, rhinestones, lame and ostrich plumes.

The security office, an afterthought in the hotel’s blueprint, was a musty cubicle eight by fifteen feet in size, furnished with a government-surplus gray steel desk, three matching chairs and an old army camp bed. Lined up on shelves above Deke’s desk were Coleman camp lanterns for use during power failures. On the floor against one wall were several fire extinguishers and three oxygen tanks with masks. Behind the door were three folding wheelchairs. Our sobbing witness looked like she could use one of them. She desperately needed something to steady her nerves or she’d be no good to herself, or to us.

On a small steel table just past Deke’s desk was a two-unit hotplate with a silex of coffee. Next to it were Coffeemate and sugar. The desk was littered with theft and accident forms, copies of Argosy and Playboy, and last night’s Daily News. I set them to one side and put down my tape recorder, turning it on again and positioning the mike so it pointed to the chair next to the desk.

In this cheery atmosphere I was about to question the woman who was sniffling quietly as Clabaugh seated her on the chair. Then he slouched on the camp bed while I offered her coffee.

“Black,” she said, sniffling.

“Just take your time. My name is Kolchak and I’m with the Daily News. I’d like you to tell me your name, what you do here, and just what you told the deputies out there, ma’am.”

“Oh dear Jesus,” she moaned. “That poor girl…poor girl,” and she again started to sob.

I glanced at the clock on Deke’s desk. It was almost 8:40. I took her gently by the shoulders. “Just take it easy, lady. This will only take a minute. C’mon. Drink some of that coffee.”

She sat there, dabbing at her nose and eyes with a Kleenex and I started going through Deke’s desk drawers looking for his bourbon. I found it, in the bottom right drawer next to several Peters .38 special ammunition and poured a generous dollop into her plastic mug.

“C’mon. It’ll do you a world of good.”

She sniffed, took the cup without looking at me and made a hesitant attempt at sipping. Then she looked me right in the eye, pulled herself erect and took three fast swallows almost draining the cup. She set it down on the table, grabbed a fresh sheet of Kleenex from her purse and blew her nose.

“I’m… I’m all right. Uh… where do I begin?”

Her name was Olive Bowman. She was forty-eight years old, a native of Salt Lake City, and a day-shift waitress in the bosses’ section of the Deauville coffee shop for the past seven years.

She had been called in early, arriving around 5:50 and parking in the sixth row of the employee’s lot. As she had walked towards the timekeeper’s office, the dim glow of the impending sunrise just backlighting the hotel, she had seen what she thought were a man and woman kissing by a sports car in the third row. Her route was taking her right past them and she saw that “they didn’t want to be disturbed.” As she started down an alternate row the man turned toward her.

It was too dark, still, for her to see his face clearly but she noticed he was very tall, and thin. As he turned, the girl with him slumped to a sitting position against the side of the car.

“My mind was on other things, but I think my first reaction was that she was drunk. I half expected the man to help her up…”

“And…”I prodded her.

“He just stared at me. Then he… he… sort of hissed, you know… like a cat spitting when it’s mad. He hissed at me and turned… uh, off to his left, uh… my right, and put both his hands on the top of the car next to him. He just sort of pushed himself up with his hands like some kind of athlete and jumped right over the roof… and then he started running like crazy across the lot.

“I looked down at the girl to see if she was alright. She hadn’t moved. Then I looked over the other car at the man who was halfway across the lot near that place where they keep the elephants they use in the main show. I shouted at him to stop but he just kept on running. He jumped into a car and took off around the… uh… south side of the hotel…”

“Did you see what kind of car?”

“It was white… uh… dirty white. I can’t be sure. The light, you know. I’m not much good at spotting cars. And my eyes aren’t what they used to be. I’m just not sure. I think maybe a Chevrolet.”

“Two or four-door?”

“Oh. It was a coupe… you know, a hardtop I think they call them, now.”

“New?”

“No. It was a few years old. Oh, I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. It wasn’t real old. Not a junk heap, you know. I didn’t get that good a look.”

She finished the coffee. “It didn’t have any fins on it if that helps.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, I just stood there and watched him disappear. Then I looked back at the girl. I started trying to lift her up and she was all limp. I thought she had passed out and then I noticed some wet stuff on her neck. It was… oh, Jesus, it was b-blood. I got closer and saw she wasn’t breathing. And then… and then…”she started sobbing again, “and then I fainted.”

She had fainted very conveniently for the girl’s killer. She had been out just about a full hour before she recovered her senses and ran for the timekeeper who had seen nothing at all.

“That’s about it, Kolchak," Clabaugh broke in. “We have to get her down to the office and have her check some mug shots.”

“One more question, OK?”

I turned back to Olive Bowman. “Can you tell me anything at all about the man you saw?”

“I… I don’t know. It only lasted a few seconds. I mean, he didn’t say anything or… or touch me. He just hissed like I said… wait a minute… wait a minute! There was this smell, yet it was… like he had… bad breath… but worse. I thought it was coming from where the elephants, oh I don’t know… I guess it seems stupid to think of a thing like that. It was like… a grave I saw once that bad been dug up after about two weeks, up in Utah… a dead dog. And the stink… God!”

I snapped off the recorder and turned to Clabaugh. “You got the dead girl’s name?”

He picked up his clipboard. “Got it off her driver’s license. Mary Branden, twenty-four, give-eight, one hundred and twenty-six pounds, brown hair and eyes. And she’s got a sheriff’s card. Timekeeper told us she’s got a time card listing her as a showgirl here. Checked in at seven last night. Never checked out. Lived at the Westhaven Apartments on Pershing.”

He paused. “Listen. You better hold up on this until we check her out for survivors. They have to be notified first.”

“I’m just going to phone in the information to my office,” I told him. “My editors will handle that end of it. Ah… what if she can’t find this character in your files and want sheets?” I asked, pointing to Olive Bowman.

“We’ll try the Iden-T-Kit for a composite. Wish we had a staff artist on hand for these things, but the departmental budget’s strained as it is. Damn town’s growing too fast.”

I thought that one over. “Hold on a second.” I grabbed my pocked phone book and flipped through it. “Here. Call this number. That’s the university. Ask for the fine arts department. Call about fifteen minutes from now and ask for the secretary. Tell her who you are and get her to put you in contact with Steve Rayeburn. He’s a grad student out there and a helluva sketch artist. Get him on down to the sheriff’s office and give him ten dollars an hour and he’ll make you the best damn composite you ever saw.”

“Sure, and where’s the ten bucks going to come from?”

I didn’t answer but thanked the waitress and took off down the hall, past the costumes, props and dressing rooms, all padlocked. I ducked through the showroom and into the kitchen. Before the checker could ask who I was, I’d made it into the coffee shop and was craning my neck for my four “girl friends” who I finally spotted, sitting on the far side in a big, yellow booth.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Michelle,” I panted. “The girl’s from here, all right. Confirmed. Her name is Mary Branden.”

Michelle looked stunned. The pert redhead next to her spilled her coffee and the two others across from me, both blondes, just stiffened and looked at each other.

“Friend of yours?” I asked.

She looked very pale and her hand shook visibly. “Good friend. Three years. A… a nice girl. Crazy as a bedbug. But nice. Straight. She… she might have become a line captain in a year or so. Jesus H. Christ!”

From the girls, by turns, I learned that Mary Branden was a thoroughly professional dancer. She’d studied ballet from the age of nine in Syracuse, New York, and later in New York City. Her parents were divorced. Mother in New York. Father in Miami. When she turned eighteen, she moved in for a time with her father and auditioned for the Harkness Ballet. Danced with them for a year and then joined the Jane Trobridge Dancers. When she’d turned twenty-one she had come to Vegas to try for the $225-plus weekly check that dancers were getting on the Strip and, with unusual luck, clicked the first time out. She’d been at the Deauville just over three years and was known as a very hard worker. Some comments were: “Crazy. Lots of fun. Couldn’t save a dime.” “Always buying stuffed animals and ‘frou-frou.’” “Dead serious about here dancing career. Practicing all the time.”

“When she wasn’t subbing for the line captains in breaking in new girls on their routines,” Michelle told me, “she was off alone at odd hours working on routines of her own… sometimes with friends and sometimes alone.”

During the past week or so, Mary Branden had been staying well past the 1:45–2:00 A.M. check-out time of her friends. She’d been working on a solo number she hoped to convince the stage manager and choreographer to put in the show’s new edition, still (then) more than seven months off.

Mary Branden, Attractive. Warm. Friendly. Talented. And dead at twenty-four.

The five of us sat around and looked gray. They, out of grief. I, out of a growing sickness composed of equal parts of shock and my hangover. The waitress came by and I ordered an extra-large orange juice with a raw egg beaten into it. The waitress gave me the look usually reserved for “freaks and other tourists” (the girls explained it to me later), then turned tail and headed for the kitchen.

I excused myself and went in search of a phone. I found one in the deserted boss’ booth at the front of the coffee shop. The hotel operator got me through to Vincenzo at the office. I gave him what I had and he plugged Meyer into the line for a rewrite while I played back the tape of Miss Olive Bowman’s story. Then I got Vincenzo back on and asked him about the “extra.”

“Boss says you’ve got it–this time. Guess four killings is too many for him. He checked with Jake and the old man is on his way down here to do a special piece in his column on the murders. Hope you’re finally satisfied,” he growled.

“Satisfied.” Christ! I may have my odd points but I never got any particular kick in seeing innocent people used for blood banks.

Vincenzo cut off my thought. “Also, we got some of the girls in display working up a map of Vegas -- simplified, of course–with the killings pin-pointed. This ought to play for at least three days. Might even make it through to Monday. Cairncross is planning a special full page for the early edition. You’ve finally got what you’ve been begging for, you bastard. So enjoy it while you can.”

Vincenzo’s got some warped ideas of what my enjoyments are.

“He wants to use on-the-scene shots [my ideas, which had died on Vincenzo’s desk only a day before] with portrait-art of the victims, quotes from friends–we got Meyer on that sidebar stuff–and, of course, quotes from all responsible officials.”

I guess I did have some kind of grim satisfaction in seeing my colleagues trying to run the Daily News like a real newspaper. Even Vincenzo sounded interested, almost excided when he talked about it.

“What about the Sunday takeout?” I asked.

“Don’t push a good thing too far. A full page tonight and tomorrow morning is about all you can expect. It’s more than I’d give you. But, I don’t run this paper. I just take orders. Oh, yes. Forget about the holes in her neck. Until we get an OK from Jake, she was killed and the police are investigating the particular method used. Period!”

“What about art on the suspect?”

“What can you get me?”

“Call the university.” I gave him the number, and the info I’d given Clabaugh. “This Rayeburn kid’s a pro. The sheriff’s boys may use him on this. He’ll do a good job on this thing. I think you can get him for… twenty dollars an hour. Not even one cent less.”

“My ass,” said Vincenzo. “Nobody’s worth twenty dollars an hour. Not even Michaelangelo. He’ll take ten dollars and like it… if we use him.”

“You’ll use him. And fifteen dollars an hour is as low as he goes. C’mon, Tony. Don’t you want to pretend just once in your life that you’re a real, live newshound? Don’t you want to cream the opposition? Let’s not give up an exclusive to the little yellow rag down the street. Remember Pulitzer and James Gorden Bennett? Remember?”

With his usual courtesy, Vincenzo hung up in the middle of my pep talk. For a fleeting moment I had the bleak thought that he’d get mad enough to kill the whole deal. Then I forgot even Vincenzo isn’t that stupid, I told myself.

As I walked back to the table, I thought about the walking-around-money I’d arranged for Rayeburn. My good deed for the year.

The girls were sitting as I’d left them, looking glum. I slipped into my seat and started on the juice. It slithered into the pit of my gut like a cold lump of glue.

The redhead looked at Michelle. “I don’t feel so good. I think I’ll go home.”

“I think we all should,” said Michelle. They excused themselves and I got up to let Michelle out.

I grinned sickly at her. “Thanks, kid. I appreciate you and your friends coming down.”

“Yeah. Sure. Well, just spell our names right. And take care of yourself.”

I grabbed the check away from her and sat for a while feeling drained and grubby. Then I paid the check, by telling the cashier to put it on my city ledger, and headed out through the casino, turning into the artists’ entrance next to the showroom, and back on out to my car. I figured there was no sense in trying to catch any sleep, so I stopped off at my place just long enough to shower and shave, and put on a sportcoat and slacks. Then I was off for the sheriff’s office where the main effort of the law’s investigation was headquartered.

On something like this, involving both Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, the two agencies–LVPD and the Sheriff’s Office–joined forces with a command post at the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in the courthouse because of their bigger budget and better facilities. There has always been inter-service rivalry between them. The county, with its greater share of multi-million dollar hotel-casinos, has more money with which to operate. So, generally speaking, the sheriff’s office is better equipped.

They haven’t always cooperated on cases, especially on narcotics raids where they once openly competed for the publicity. But after one particularly disastrous affair involving a large haul of drugs by air from Mexico to a small town outside the Vegas city limits where several agencies stepped on each other’s toes to the mutual and very public embarrassment of all, changes were instituted, mutual cooperation was arranged for, and heads rolled. One of the first belonged to the disgruntled boss of a narcotics squad who was known as a particularly tough cop. It was known inside his particular department that if he couldn’t effect a clean bust, he would always being along some marijuana to use as a “plant.” Thus, until the aforementioned raid, he’d never come up empty handed.

The papers (our own Daily News far out in front) nosed out the story and shortly thereafter Las Vegas Major Olin Preston announced the new “combined forces” concept which has resulted in a more efficient law enforcement effort in southern Nevada. On any major crime that crosses county lines or city boundaries, a liaison officer from one agency is always present at the other’s command headquarters.

As two of the bodies had been discovered in the county and one was right on the county line, the sheriff’s office had a marginal claim to running the operation. As the first murder had occurred in the city, PD Captain Ed “Bat” Masterson was named by protocol as command post operations director and Sheriff’s Lieutenant Bill Jenks was assigned full charge of field operations. In return for the sheriff’s office footing the lion’s share of the bill, the PD offered the use of its newly acquired Hughes helicopter.

The sheriff’s office is on the third floor of the Clark County courthouse, occupying virtually the entire floor with windows giving a clear view of the municipal parking lot across Carson from Second to Third. Over its bulk, the tops of some of Glitter Gulch’s new high-rise hotels can be seen.

I stopped off on the fourth floor and entered a door marked “Private” to pay my thrice-weekly respects to Helen O’Brien, the chief switchboard operator. [Now retired. J.R.] With very few exceptions, Helen knows more of what is going on in Las Vegas’ political and official circles at any given time than anyone I can think of. She can tell you what the D.A. had for breakfast; who is on “report” for misconduct in the sheriff’s office; who is planning to “ditch out” on a political race and why. And she keeps her mouth shut. There are not many people she will give the occasional tip to. Not many she trusts. I was one of the few. And she didn’t trust me too often, or, as she used to say, “Not farther than I could throw a piano.” At five-one and ninety-five pounds, that would not be far.

She castigated me for my increasing girth and told me that the sheriff’s boys were checking with the department of motor vehicles on registrations of every white Chevy hardtop in Clark and neighboring Nye counties. She tipped me that the D.A. was meeting with Sheriff Lane in the D.A.’s office. I thanked her and promised to come by some night soon for some home-made cherry pie and took the elevator back down to the sheriff’s office. I passed by the “Complaint desk” behind which is a showcase of weapons–pistols, rifles and shotguns–and on around it, doubling back down a glass-walled hallway, and into Lieutenant Bill Jenks’ cubicle. Jenks works a twelve hour day and his door proclaims simply: “Lt. Jenks, Cmdr. Uniform Div–Day.”

On the western wall divider of his “office” was a map of Clark County. A smaller overlay of Las Vegas was on top. It was studded with little colored pins. “Take a look, “he said, pointing them out. “Yellow for victims. Yellow with a slash for victims and witnesses at scene [a new pin, referring to Olive Bowman, I assumed]. Red for the blood theft. Well, what do you see?”

I looked. A yellow pine marked “1” on Bridger between Eighth and Ninth streets. One marked “2” on the end of a long strip of tape running off the map on West Charleston Boulevard. One marked “3” on Ida, halfway between Audree and Suzanne. A blood-red pin stood over Parkway Hospital.

“And”, he said, pushing another yellow pin with a red slash into the map at the Deauville Hotel location. “Here is number four.”

Well, I looked. But I didn’t see anything in particular and said so.

“Exactly,” he replied. “No pattern here. Could be in the victims. All young girls–twenty-three to twenty-seven years old–all casino employees except for the last, who was a hotel dancer. Same thing. But that’s it. One lived with some guy named Harmer who’s been run out of town. The Hanochek girl had a roommate. Nothing there. The others lived alone, except for the Reynolds woman who had two kids. That’s really rough. And so far,” he added, sliding back into his chair and propping his feet on his desk, “we can’t establish any connection between any of the four. As far as we know, they didn’t know each other.”

He indicated the only other chair. “Take a load off. I don’t see it as a sex thing either… at least not the usual. None of the indications. No sperm on the bodies or their clothing. No marks of rape. Clothing not even disturbed.”

I looked at the blood spot on the map over Parkway Hospital. I got up and pointed to it. “What about this? Doesn’t this tie in?”

“Well, we figure there’s a connection with that Parkway thing and we’ve got plainclothesmen stationed at strategic points over at County General and the Old Town Hospital down on Eighth. Also at Southern Nevada Memorial up on Charleston. North Las Vegas is watching its medical center. If that buggy sonofabitch did steal the blood and does try something like that again, we’ve got him cold.”

“If,” I said.

“Look,” he countered. “You’re the guy who came up with this vampire theory, right? Oh, yeah! I heard what went on at that little meeting in Lane’s office last night. You and the East Indian sawbones from the LAPD start it and now everybody sees a possible connection.

“Well, this bastard’s nailed four victims. If he did steal the blood, I’d say the odds are at least fifty-fifty he’ll try again. At least now we’ve got a description of sorts. It’s working up pretty good. We’ve got the Bowman woman down the hall working with the Iden-T-Kit and I hear the university’s sending over some young kid to try to work up a likeness. Never did like composites. They don’t look real, is all. They work but a good artist is a better bet.

“Oh. And we’re working on the car thing. Checking with the DMV. If we get anything from them, we can backtrack with local car lots for confirmation. Too bad Bowman couldn’t spot the plates. If it’s an out-of-towner, we’re in for trouble. More lost time. More time for him to ditch it if he’s still around.”

“I’ll bet he is,” I told him.

“And how do you figure…”

“Well, he’s killed four people in nineteen days, and stolen blood, too, I’ll bet, from just one of the three or four principal area sources.”

“Well, like I said, we’re on to that angle. Henderson PD’s got a watch on Rose Da Lina Hospital and that women’s hospital on Sahara has hired private security guards.”

“Well, anyhow, I’ll bet he’s still around. Because, I don’t think he’s scared. Again, it’s only theory and you’d be better off talking to some of the local psychologists at the university, but I bet this guy doesn’t think he’ll get caught. Less than three hours ago he stood within reaching distance of an eyewitness and didn’t touch her. Just took off. If he was really scared of being caught, he’d have nailed her on the spot. It wouldn’t have taken him more than a few seconds.”

“He didn’t really have to. She didn’t see him do anything. But then, he couldn’t know that for sure. Hey. You’ve given me an idea. If you’re wrong, both the nurse and that Bowman woman could be in danger if left unguarded. Might be a good idea to assign a man to each just in case.”

“For Miss Bowman, I’m sure you’re right. But I wouldn’t want to be the guy who draws Nurse Staley for guard duty. She’s a regular female drill sergeant from the looks and sound of her. If the ‘vampire’ ever tries to take her on, I’d give even money she gets him with a scalpel first.”

“Sure,” he said sourly. “And that Hughes girl it turns out knew karate pretty good. Worked out three days a week in some studio over on Industrial Road. Lot of good it must have done her. If she ever had a chance to use it. I’d rather trust things to trained men if you don’t mind.”

I took the hint and went on down the hall where Miss Bowman, now fairly calm, was busily describing the man’s chin to the Iden-T-Kit operator. She wasn’t having too much luck outside of his high cheekbones, but with Nurse Staley’s description on hand; the deputy operating the kit had already satisfied Miss Bowman as to the hairline.

As I started to leave I bumped into Rayeburn coming down the hall with a Strathmore pad under one arm and a box of pencils and pastel chalks in the other.

“Keeping your hand in?” I asked knowingly.

“Yeah. Got a call about forty minutes ago.”

“Well, when you’re through here, head on down to the Daily News and do one for us. We may run it in our early edition.”

“You mind telling me what I’m down here to draw?”

“Sure. The mystery killer.”

“Oh.”

“And when you get down to the paper, ask for Vincenzo. Don’t settle for less than fifteen dollars an hour. It’s all set. Here, they’ll give you ten dollars an hour.”

“You set this up?”

I nodded.

“Much grass,” he replied. “Every little bit helps.”

I went directly from the courthouse to my office and by the time I’d got over there, the “extra” I’d been begging for was already on the stands. It was strictly a replated front page of the earlier, “home” edition, but it listed the newest victim under my by-line and the headlines were in red, two inches high. The copy was, of course, edited to root out any references to the holds in Mary Branden’s neck. Other than that, it was fairly complete.

By the time the new, early “Thursday” paper came rolling off the press at 9:30 that (Wednesday) night, with the same hysterical headline, the story ran three columns to a depth of nine inches. Right next to it, on the right, under the banner, were two two-column photos of Mary Brendan: the top one showing her sitting against the Austin-Healey and the lower one, a close-up, showing her with eyes delicately closed (and the puncture marks in her neck carefully airbrushed out). To the left of my copy was the single column that belonged to Jake headed “From the Heart,” which served as his personal pipeline to the town. He was only mildly hysterical, calling for everyone to walk in pairs; to stay in after dark with the doors securely bolted; and asking why the D.A. had nothing to say about the “incredibly vicious and senseless murders perpetrated by a genuine fiend.”

In all fairness to D.A. Paine, he was up to his ears in the investigation, while sweating out his primary campaign. But his hands were tied. He couldn’t really begin to function until he had someone in custody to prosecute. But, when he’s on the outs with Jake (as I assume he must have been, since Jake doesn’t like holding back facts from his readers) our fearless editor and publisher doesn’t miss a chance to give it to Paine right in the neck.

The main “local” page for that issue was devoted entirely to the four killings. Some of my earlier stuff, reworked, appeared under Meyer Moses’ by-line, and, in addition to portrait shots of the four victims from happier days, there were photos of Nurse Staley, a bootlegged print of Olive Bowman (when the Daily News pulls out the stops there is no such thing as privacy), the display department’s “war map” and Rayeburn’s completed impression of the killer’s face, excuse me, the suspect’s face. Oh, Libel!

The face was long and saturnine, thin, cruel looking, just as Nurse Staley had described it (even if not to graphically). By 9:00 A.M. Thursday morning, every Daily News reader would know who to watch out for.

The picture, and its “original,” which was being reprinted for use by the PD and the sheriff’s office, gave everyone who cared to look a slight vision of the hereafter walking among them. Jake, with a showman’s eye as well as a genuine interest in public service, beat the opposition’s request to the sheriff’s office for a composite by voluntarily supplying them with a reprint of our drawing, sending it down by special messenger just after their late deadline with a note stipulating the picture be credited: “Daily News Staff Artist Steve Rayeburn.” I must assume he felt it would make up for the fact that he managed to gyp Rayeburn out of five dollars on the check he signed.

By the time I’d finished scanning all this it was 11:00 P.M. Feeling disgusted and drained, my thoughts turned, naturally, to my stomach. During this day, periodic pangs reminded me I’d eaten nothing solid since the previous evening. By now my midsection was sending third-stage distress signals, so I drove up to Duffy’s Tavern.

John, the manager there, gave me a booth in the corner and Rosa brought me a monster salad with a triple serving of garbanzo beans. In due course, I worked my way through two heaping platters of spaghetti with meat sauce, two orders of garlic bread (for four people) and three bottles of Heineken as a little extravagance to celebrate the end of my day and my “scooping” the opposition press.

Duffy’s was just what I needed: a quiet place for locals; piano bar for those who wanted it; a fair amount of darkness and privacy for those who didn’t; prices even a newsman can afford; and, in this writer’s humble opinion, the best spaghetti in Las Vegas.

CHAPTER 6

THURSDAY MAY 14, 1970

MORNING AND AFTERNOON

I checked into the newsroom at 9:10 A.M and ran headlong into Janie Carlson, our labor editor-columnist. She was just checking out the Thursday labor column, and planning to take part of the day off to get her aged dog snipped, clipped and prettified, something he regarded with dread and disgust.

If you ever saw Mercedes McCambridge as Luz in the movie classic “Giant,” just add another eighty pounds and you have Janie Carlson. She’s a big gal with a big temper to match. When she’s in a good mood and “with” you, she’s great. But don’t ever cross her, specially if she is in a hurry. Vincenzo did it a lot when she first came to work on the News and then, as in everything he does, he did it once too often, attempting to usurp her authority over a new assistant he was breaking in. She picked Vincenzo up by his shirtfront and carried him across the newsroom, dumping him unceremoniously into an oversized trash can. When she threatened to jam his typewriter in with him, he relented and has avoided her as much as possible ever since that time. Never a word of protest about her copy now.

Janie had some pithy comments to offer on the killings, the gist of which was, “I’m just a helpless little woman, but I’d love to get that sonofabitch alone in a small room for about five minutes.”

And I would put my money on Janie. She ain’t scared of nothin’. Threats from angry labor bosses never fazed her. When the cab wars were on and “riding shotgun” meant carrying one, she was right out there getting the daily dirt.

She wanted to cover the story from “the woman’s angle” but Cairncross overruled her.

“That darlin’ one-eyed man said he didn’t have the time or energy to replace me with another picket-chaser if I got hurt. But wait till you see my Sunday column. It ought to turn Lew’s black patch snow white!”

I could wait. I had other things on my mind.

She left and I slipped into the nearest empty desk and dialed Jenks at the sheriff’s office. “Kolchak here, Bill. What have you got for me?”

“DMV came through with sixteen white Chevys in this area that are two-door hardtops, years ’61 through ’67. We’ve had some luck. So far eliminated all but one. Guy named Martin Lubin. Gave an apartment listing over on Spring Mountain Road but we checked and it turned out to be a phony. No one with that name or description ever lived there.”

“I wouldn’t bet this guy lives in an apartment. He needs some place more private. A house, or even a place with some acreage around it.”

“We’re checking all rental listings and real-estate offices for recent sales. But that’s going to take a while. However, as I said, we’ve had some luck. Record of sale on this Lubin character is from ‘Vegas Vic Auto,’ thirteen-hundred block on East Charleston. We’re checking on that now. Call back in thirty minutes or thereabouts and maybe we’ll have something.”

I took off on a one-block hike down Main Street to a greasy spoon named Billy’s and had some warmed-over cherry pie. I nibbled at it (Helen O’Brien’s pies were much better), reading our “home” edition’s rehash of Wednesday’s killing.

When I got back to the newsroom and called Jenks he had confirmation of the sale.

“Positive ID. Took one look at the sketch and told the PD people, “There’s your man.” Said he was a real creepy type with some kind of foreign accent, English or something. Said he bought the car on Friday, April 17 at about 8:30 or 9:00 P.M. Cash. You want to come by for the report?”

I told him no. Meyer would be handling the general routine today.

“I think I’ll go talk to the manager. What’s his name?”

“Fred Hurley.”

“Ten-Four,” I said. I learned that watching Broderick Crawford on “Highway Patrol”. It’s supposed to sound very official.

On my way down to the car lot it occurred to me that perhaps the law was having good luck in that the suspect had bought from a reputable dealer instead of stealing a car or series of cars or buying from a private party.

The chamber of commerce calls Las Vegas “The City of Schools and Churches.” In a way they’re right. There are roughly one hundred and fifty churches, or one for every three hundred persons in the county, and about seventy-five schools (elementary through high school, including the four-year university). Double the number if you count “professional” schools for secretaries, beauticians and dealers.

They could also call it “The City of Used Car Lots.” There are more car dealers than schools and fifty handle only used cars. As Corbett Monica says, “A lot of guys come to Vegas in $4,000 cars and leave in $40,000 Greyhound Buses.”

“Vegas Vic’s” was typical of the small, sleazy fifteen-car operation that still managed to pop up in the midst of normal shopping areas. It was situated to one side and somewhat behind a sporting goods store at the corner of Fourteenth and Charleston. Hurley turned out to be a stubby, barrel of a man about two inches shorter and twenty pounds heavier than me. A sort of midget Tony Galento.

He was all talk.

“You bet your ass I seen him. Creepy sonofabitch. Looked just like the drawin’ the cops showed me. Maybe thinner.

“Always stay open late on Friday and Saturday. Get trade from high-school kids that drag their old men out looking for transportation cars they can hop up. I’m sittin’ at my desk goin’ over the day’s sales when all of a sudden I gets a whiff of something… like a dead cow and I look up and bang! There he is inna doorway.

“He says in this real deep voice, “How much money do you require for the white automobile?’

“I look out the window at this white, ’63 Chevy. Real hard car to unload. Used hard. Got a souped-up 327 ‘vette mill in it and every time some kid’s old man gets a wink of what’s under its hood he sees traffic tickets and cancelled insurance policies and says, ‘No dice.’

“Well, this guy’s dressed up in black, see. Like coming from a funeral. Wearin’ a hat, too. One of the them homburgs like Ike wore… but black, too. I figured the guy was dumb to want some kid’s car or something’ but that was his business. I guess there’s one born every minute, if you get what I mean.

“So I sets him a price an’ he stands there and don’t say a word. Then he looks at me… scared me half to death, that look. He reaches into his coat pocket real slow and I figure he’s gonna pull out a gun and rob me.

“But, no, he just takes out this big wallet and starts peelin’ off hunnert dollar bills and now I figure I’ve got him dead to rights. He’s either a high roller who likes hot-rods or an imported gun here on a job and lookin’ for a fast set of wheels to bug out in.

“He looks at me an’ says, ‘You’re price is too high. Three hundred dollars too high. I will pay cash. You will cut your price by three hundred dollars.’

“Well, damn! He’s not only cuttin’ my profit to the bone, but he’s just about knocking me over with his breath. Jesus! I ain’t never smelled anythin’ so bad in my life. Not even the stockyards in Chicago.

“I figure, the hell with it! I can still make a $200 profit on that piece of iron so I starts writin’. I asks him his name an’ he says ‘Martin Lubin.’ He gives me an address on Spring Mountain Road. I asks him for his driver’s license, ‘cause I don’t want no trouble with the fuzz. I’m–you keep this quiet, see–I’m a registered ex-con. Haven’t had a lick of trouble in my twenty years but I gotta be careful.

“He just looks at me and makes me feel like an icicle all over. ‘My license will not be necessary,’ he says. I start to tell him it will so be necessary but somethin’ inside tells me, don’t mess wit’ this guy, he’d as soon slit yer throat as look at ya, so I tells him OK and will he sign the bill of sale. He pulls out one of those old-fashioned fountain pens, the big fat kind, and scribbles out his name so’s I can hardly read it.

“I tell him about registerin’ the car with the DMV an’ he says can I do it for him. I tell him OK and ask does he want the papers delivered out to his home? He gives me a look and sort of hisses back,’ No. Have the papers sent here. I’ll come by next Friday for them.’

“Christ! I already seen enough of this guy with his tiny red eyes and his halitosis to last me a lifetime. I tell him OK, he hands me the money an’ I give him the bill of sale an’ tell him to paste it on his windshield until he gets his registration slip. He don’ say nothing’. He just shoves it in his wallet an’ heads out the door.

“An’ let me tell you I made damn sure my assistant was on hand to take care of him when he showed up a week later for his stuff, which he did, and my assistant swears he won’t work nights anymore.

“I forgot all about him until today when the cops come by askin’ questions an’ they show me his mug in the drawin’. Then I see the mornin’ paper. Killer? Hah! Coulda told ya he was a killer alla time. But I’da figgered he was workin’ for the mob, know what I mean?”

I left Hurley with his dreams of Chicago’s “good old days” and went back to the office. I’d barely got back to my desk when I heard the squawk box report a missing person. That in itself was nothing too unusual. People–mostly students out too late–get reported missing in Las Vegas quite often. Sometimes, though, it can become a tragedy. In my years on the News at least seven youngsters from four to seventeen had disappeared without a trace. It seemed some teen-aged girl named Shelley Katz, a student at UNLV, had gone to some university function on Wednesday night and had still not reported home. What with the murders, I could well imagine her parents were frantic.

I was just about to head for the PD because the girl lived in the city when Meyer rushed out of Cairncross’ office (He’s got receivers in there) and yelled at Vincenzo, “I’ve got it!” grabbed the slip of paper I’d been noting down particulars on right out of my hand, and scampered out the door.

That was fine by me. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it. I’d rather sit than walk. If he wanted to run down the routine stuff, OK. It was a good thing that I did let him get away with it. It saved me much needless exercise.

When I had arrived at the Daily News back in ’63, Meyer and I had not hit it off too well. He was suspicious as hell of anybody who looked like a threat to his personal bailiwick. As far as he was concerned, he was the police reporter on the Daily News and that was that. For a couple of years, before I became chiefly a crime reporter, I only covered a few of the more interesting cases. Meyer got the big ones. Then he quit the paper to take a job as a flack at one of the big hotels so he could make more money and move with a “higher class” of women. After a year of this, he disappeared back east, and when he returned to Vegas and applied for his old job he found me sitting at his desk. For a year after that he “stole” stories from me and I let him, saving the really big ones for myself. Finally, one night, over several bottles of wine at the Tower of Pizza on the Strip, we managed to have at an armed truce based on the old adage, “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Meyer and I never became friends but luck was usually with us and we were never drunk at the same time. So I ended up covering for him on his binges and he covered for me when I got polluted.

Thinking these pointless thoughts with one part of mind, I occupied another part with condensing Hurley’s ramblings into something resembling a decent sidebar and around noon dropped it on Vincenzo’s desk.

He regarded it in silence. “OK. So the guy’s a creep. He won’t be loose for long now and the whole town knows that he looks like. Ten to one that when they catch him, he’ll get off with life and be paroled in seven years flat.”

“Or,” I countered, “he’ll get a smart attorney like Hobart Creighton and plead insanity. That way he’ll only spend five years up at Sparks.”

Vincenzo marked the copy for page one, indicating it as a two-column story with a three-deck headline in forty-two-point Futura Bold Condensed.

I asked if he wanted a picture of Hurley and he said he’d think about it.

“Enjoy it while you can, Kolchak. This guy’ll be in the can before the Sunday edition goes to press, and Monday you’ll be covering federal court again.”

Federal Court is Vincenzo’s idea of Siberia. I find it a good place to catch some sleep.

It was just about noon, and things looked quiet. Another phone check with the PD and sheriff’s office brought me nothing new, so I took a hike down the street to the SPD Office Equipment Co. on Charleston and bought some map pins. On the way back to the office I stopped at a gas station and picked up a map of Las Vegas. On the way back into the newsroom I dropped them in my car.

Meyer was back and typing in his fast, awkward two-finger style. I peeked over his shoulder and couldn’t resist taking shorthand notes on what he had. After all, he’d swiped the assignment from me. Now that he’d done the leg work, at least to the extent of picking up a printed police report, I was willing to give it my somewhat divided attention.

He wrote: “Shelley Katz, nineteen, a part-time student at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas was reported missing from her home at 1597 South Chapman shortly before 11:00 A.M. Thursday.

“She was last seen wearing bell-bottomed Levis, a fringed leather shirt and moccasins on Wednesday night when she left her home to attend a play at the university.

“Her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Sidney J. Katz, assumed she would be staying out late to attend one of the cast and crew pizza parties that are part of the normal activities of the Student Creative Theatre group at the university.

“Mrs. Katz told police that Shelley often stayed out late but usually was home by 2:00 A.M. on these occasions. She said Shelley had ‘never got around to registering as a regular student even though she has a high IQ. I guess she still hasn’t found herself or what she wants to do with her life.’

“When Mrs. Katz discovered Thursday morning that Shelley’s bed had not been disturbed, she became worried and began calling some of Shelley’s friends and their parents.

“One of the girl’s friends, Janie McLoughlin, told Shelley’s mother she had last seen the girl talking with some of the cast members of the play, ‘Heads Up–Here’s Henry,’ in the breezeway at Grant Hall around 11:15 Wednesday night but that Shelley had not attended the gathering hosted at one of the student’s homes out on Maryland Parkway near Russell Road. Shelley’s red Sprite sports car was found on the university’s parking lot in front of Grant Mall by sheriff’s deputies at 11:30 Thursday morning with a parking ticket from the university police patrol stuck under its one windshield wiper.

“Mrs. Katz, unable to locate her daughter, finally notified her husband, a well-known Las Vegas dental surgeon, and he in turn called the police.

“Shelley is described as five feet two inches tall, weighs about one hundred and fifteen pounds and has reddish hair, blue eyes and freckles.

“Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts is urged to contact the Las Vegas Police Department–385-1122.”

“We might be rushing this thing a little,” said Meyer, “but what with all these killings, I think we ought to play this big. It may be nothing at all; she may have shacked up with some boyfriend. She might even be asleep now and not even know what a ruckus she’s stirred up at home. But–better safe than sorry.”

He turned to Vincenzo and I finished my notes and stuffed them into my coat pocket.

“Want some art just in case?”

Vincenzo nibbled on his pica pole for a few seconds and told Meyer to go to the girl’s home and see the mother about a photograph.

“Get it back here and pick up a sandwich on the way. I’ll have it zinc’d and ready in case she doesn’t turn up by five. I don’t like it when a kid disappears at a time like this.”

Well, I never said Vincenzo was heartless. He’s human, like all of us. He even has his good points though he keeps them well hidden under a thick layer of cynicism and disinterest.

I headed back to my apartment. By 1:00 P.M. I had the closet door across from my ancient Underwood covered with my own “war map” with all the little yellow and red pins in their proper places. I stuck a blue pin in the map at the car lot’s location to indicate an “eyewitness report without violence” and an orange pin at UNLV, playing a hunch, to indicate Shelley Katz’s disappearance.

The doorbell rang and I loped downstairs to find Pete Harper.

“Just thought I’d drop in to say good-bye. I’m catching a 3:30 flight back to New York. My vacation’s just about over and there’s some news going ‘round that Hemingway’s widow is going to release one of his unpublished works. I talked to my editor and they’re going to let me dig up some stuff in advance of the publication date. Might even get a trip to Miami out of it.”

“No more scampi?” I asked, thinking of my losing a gourmet chef.

“Not for at least a year, buddy. Gotta beef up the old bank account. Besides, there are two beautiful women back east who’ve been pining away ever since I came out here.”

I told him not to bet on it, wished him well, and offered to drive him to McCarran Airport. He accepted and we made it there by 1:20. He checked in and then we headed for the lounge where we hoisted a few and killed the time until his flight was called.

After we parted company, I lit up a stogie and headed for home. But Shelley Katz’s untimely disappearance kept niggling at me and I decided to follow up a hunch and check her out at UNLV so I turned down Harmon and entered the campus via the “back door.” Several drinks made the three-story climb to the office of the dean seem like ten.

I was out of breath by the time I got to the secretary, and efficient and energetic young pixie named Sharon Reynolds. I asked her about Shelley in an off-handed way and she flipped through her index of students and came up with the fact that Shelley had registered as a non-matriculated student who was just auditing some art and drama classes. She said she’d seen Shelley at some of the drama offerings but didn’t know her very well. It was getting a little late in the day to talk to any of Shelley’s instructors, she told me, but her husband was probably over at the Little Theatre and he might know her.

She called over to Grant Hall and got her husband, Al Reynolds, a teaching assistant, on the phone. She told him who I was and he said to come on over. I was feeling so punk by the time I got back to ground level I decided to drive.

When I pulled up to a lawn-side space in front of Grant Hall, I noticed Shelley’s car was gone. I figured the sheriff’s boys had dusted it for prints (and probably searched it for marijuana as well) and then returned it to her mother. They can move pretty fast when they want to.

UNLV’s Little Theatre is the center for Las Vegas’ theater-hungry students and adults. Whatever else may be said about the town, it is definitely not a hotbed of culture, and UNLV is currently the sole oasis in what some critics have called a wasteland of high-priced café entertainment. There is no hard core of intellectuals here and the tourists who flock to the bright lights and casinos don’t hanker for serious music or serious theater with its messages and social comments. People come here to forget their worries and have fun, not to gain a better understanding of their fellow man.

Since 1955, UNLV has managed to struggle along with a stopgap theatre arrangement in a multipurpose room on the ground floor of Grant Hall which seats just over 100 on metal folding chairs which have an excellent view of a postage-stamp sized stage. But the university if growing and there are plans for a multi-million dollar legitimate theater seating 600 with all the facilities to put on full-scale, professional productions, a tribute to the grit and drive of UNLV’s hard-put speech and drama department and some very loyal students. It won’t be long, maybe a dozen years or so, when UNLV will outstrip its big brother to the north and have 25,000 students or more. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see it.

[Note: The six-hundred-seat theater Kolchak described is now a reality. J.R.]

In the midst of a clutter of props and flats, I found several young girls and two or three shaggy males sweeping and hammering away. Presiding over this feverish activity was a great bear of a man who looked vaguely like Henry the Eighth but was wearing a beige, double-breasted coat opened to the waist, no shirt, rumpled brown whipcord bell-bottoms and scuffed brown boots. This, I assumed, was Alonzo Reynolds as the card his wife had given me listed him. Alonzo! Well, one of the girls, carrying a canvas flat out the doorway I was standing in, bumped into me and I asked her.

“Yeah! That’s him. Alonzo J. Typhoon,” she said, shaking her tawny, waist-length hair.

I approached him.

“Mr. Reynolds?” I said, tentatively.

“Yeah. That’s me. Can I help you?”

I introduced myself and we shook hands, mine disappearing in his huge paw like a small animal devoured by a big one. The grip was strong but not painful. Obviously, Reynolds didn’t feel the need to impress people with his grip. He was about six-two or six-three and looked to weigh about 260 pounds. About the right size for what I originally had guessed the killer would look like. He looked like the late English actor, Laird Cregar.

“Yeh, I know Shelley. Quiet little broad. Sort of a part-time ‘groupie.’ She hangs around with the crew sometimes and helps out. Never did any acting since I’ve been here but sews costumes and sometimes paints flats. I think she’s auditing some of the drama courses here. Why?”

I told him she’d been reported missing earlier that day and asked if he knew anything that might be helpful.

“Well, let’s see…” He sat down in an oversized throne chair on stage and proffered a peasant’s chair for me.

“Last time I saw here was about 11:00-11:15 last night. She saw the show–I’m in it as Henry–and she came around back to the dressing rooms in the art gallery on the other side of the building and we talked for a few minutes. She said she had come to see a friend… uh… Janis McLoughlin.

“Well, anyhow, we wrapped up around here by 11:30 and most of us went on down the road to a friend’s place for pizza. But…no, I don’t think she made that scene. She’s not really a regular. Doesn’t belong to SCT. Sort of shy and hung up. What can I tell you? You say she’s missing. Don’t’ make too much of that. There are a lot of kids like her. They’re OK but just sort of drift from one group out here to another. No regular hours outside of class. You check her apartment?”

I told him she lived with her parents.

“Oh, yeah. I can dig that. She’s probably with some guy. Happens all the time with these little foxes who are so straight at home with their folks around.”

We stood up and he came over to me, throwing a bear-like arm around my shoulders. I felt like a midget.

“We’ve been extended a week. Saturday’s sold out but I can get you a seat for tomorrow night.”

It occurred to me that he might know more than he was letting on so I tentatively accepted his invitation but added that I was making no promises.

“Hell man, do your thing! But try to make it. You’ll enjoy yourself. Get the smell of the Strip out of your nose. On the house. Say! If you can’t make it, drop by The Kitchen later on. Up at the back of the Student Union ballroom. We do a lot of experimental stuff up there that’s pretty good.”

I prodded him once again on the Shelley Katz thing, asking if he knew of any steady boyfriends but he couldn’t offer anything further. He held a quick conference with his students and told me that they didn’t think she had anyone steady. A later check by Meyer confirmed this. I thanked him for his time and he boomed out as I reached the door, “Take care, buddy!” and threw me the V-fingered peace sign.

Looking back at him I thought of a line I’d read in a book somewhere that seemed to fit him like a glove: “The great hall roared with laughter.”

UNLV looked very quiet in the darkening light. It’s a peaceful campus populated mostly by serious students who’ve never had a riot. They had one peaceful demonstration full of singing and chanting the week before as an observance for the slain students at Kent State. While they quietly and effectively closed the campus down for the day, one of the state’s major candidates for U.S. senator was openly advocating using troops to keep the students on both campuses “in line” and asking for laws making it possible to conduct periodic no-knock-no-warrant searches of student dorms in search of… what? Guitar strings and protest poems?

From a pay phone just opposite the theatre’s entrance I called Meyer at the News and gave him what I’d picked up, telling him I’d be home if I was needed. I was beginning to feel the start of a prize-winning migraine.

I stopped off at a McDonald’s for a Big Mac and hustled on back to my place in anticipation of a quick, quiet meal and some time to unwind. The stairs there seemed even higher than at the university. By the time I’d shucked off my coat and tie and poured the beer, my head was throbbing and the Big Mac didn’t look too good to me. I tried the beer and poured the rest down the drain. The hamburger went into the refrigerator and I headed upstairs. I took another look at my map and checked the time, deciding I’d better lie down for a while as it was getting hard for me to focus my eyes.

By seven I was ready for my second dose of aspirin and my nose was running like Niagara Falls. Penance for my sins. On Wednesday I had planned to fake the flu and goldbrick. Today I had a beauty of a cold. I flipped on the TV and caught the news coverage of Shelley’s disappearance. She was still missing and no one had seen her. On all channels, the word was the same. Where’s Shelley Katz?

I got up and looked at the map. I still had a queasy feeling about the Katz girl. Even a second-rate hack can develop good instincts. Playing the hunch for what it was worth, I called Bernie Fain at home and interrupted his dinner long enough to ask if he’d heard about the Katz girl (which was, of course, stupid of me; he does run the FBI office) and he repeated it was not his department’s concern until and unless either a ransom demand was received or a special request was made for Bureau help from the local officials. Obviously, from his gravelly tone I should have waited a few days. Interrupting his mean hadn’t improved his disposition towards me. When I asked him if there’d been any follow-up of his inquiries with the other FBI offices on similar murders he snarled “No!” and hung up.

I muttered something obscene and went back to the TV, not shivering, sniffling and sweating like a pig. While I sat watching, the chief suspect, tentatively identified as Martin Lubin, was spotted up on the Strip. Unfortunately, this fact did not come to light until Monday. Had I been up and making my rounds I might have seen him myself.

As I later discovered, the confrontation took place between the mysterious Mr. Lubin and a Las Vegas show producer, one Henry St. Claire.

CHAPTER 7

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1970

EVENING

[Note: The following was written by me after reading Kolchak’s complete file and rechecking the incidents and facts on the location, the physical plant and the people involved. JR]

Since there were no conventions or gambling junkets “in residence” at the Dunes Hotel that evening, the casino was only moderately active during the late evening hours. All those who showed up for the Casino de Paris extravaganza, even without reservations, were accommodated without the necessity of resorting to “juice.”

At 10:45 P.M., the coffee shop had only a few scattered customers seated in the tables nearest the entrance, and a few pit bosses taking quick snacks in the blue section. Farther back, at a separate counter section, dealers were coming and going, huddled over coffee and talking quietly. In the Dome of the Sea Restaurant, there were perhaps a dozen diners listening to the strains of “Lara’s Theme” from the motion picture Dr. Zhivago, as played lightly on a golden harp by a lovely young “mermaid” named Kippy Lou as she floated on a motorized seashell around a central pool. Electronically-projected fish swam past the peripheral “windows” and the overhead, multicolored, stained-glass lighting arrangement added to the dream-like, aquatic atmosphere.

Waiters clad in sea-green jackets moved like ghosts through the room, silently tending to their guests as the maitre d’, Frederick Ashton, a personable Cockney, glanced from his watch to the reservation book and shook his head thinking of how he’d have to juggle reservations for the weekend when the Dome would be filled beyond normal capacity by the vacationing hordes that swarm into the Dunes every five days.

Seated at the second booth to the left of the Dome’s inner archway with his latest “protégé” was FrancoAmerican show producer Henry St. Claire. Just back from a scouting trip in Europe, St. Claire had chosen the Dome precisely because Freddie had informed him that it would not be crowded that night. St. Claire wanted to get better acquainted with his new find, and perhaps unwind before the evening’s end, which he intended to make quite soon, by 1:00 A.M., at the latest. He anticipated a busy weekend.

As producer of “Paris Extraordinaire!” at the Deauville, just down the street, as well as two lounge shows at other hotels, St. Claire was rarely fortunate enough to have an evening free from some kind of negotiation or other interruption. He was determined not to allow anything to mar his evening. His eyes were fixed with singular intensity on his lovely companion and, in his mind, he was contemplating how he would “audition” her within the next few hours. She would, no doubt, be in a receptive mood. She wanted to work in Las Vegas. And she had been wined and dined with an excellence rare even for Las Vegas’ best efforts.

They had begun with an aperitif and proceeded through succeeding courses that included escargots de Bourgogne, Green Turtle Amantillo, Hearts of Palm Salad, and Curry of South Seas Lobster Industan. For dessert, naturally, it had been Crepes Suzette. Two varieties of excellent white wines had accompanied the meal which had been personally directed by Ashton as it was each time St. Claire made one of his infrequent visits to the Dome.

St. Claire glanced at the bill which came to about fifty dollars. He smiled when he saw the expected “COMPLIMENTS OF” stamped across the back of the check and the familiar name signed along side. One a line just below it he signed “St. Claire” with a flourish.

His companion murmured something about wishing to “freshen up” and he nodded, rose, and extended his hand to her. As they left the restaurant he handed the maitre d’ a twice-folded twenty-dollar bill. Then the couple walked down the outer aisle of the casino past the Persian Room where “Vive Les Girls” was just beginning its first show of the evening. St. Claire paused to greet Gino, the maitre d’, before continuing his walk past the crap tables and around to his right.

At the poker pit he parted company with his companion as she turned to enter the ladies’ room and he strolled toward the magazine stand. Once there, he waited in line between a young couple, obviously newlyweds, and a tall, thin man in a well-tailored black suit. The couple made their purchases and moved on as the tall man picked up a Daily News and turned to pay the cashier. St. Claire was for some reason arrested by the man’s appearance and paused in his pursuit of a magazine to look at the man who collected his change and disappeared around the tiled corner of a hallway leading to the shop section of the hotel’s tower.

Some unknown thing compelled St. Claire to walk down the hallway in search of the tall man and he spotted him in the Dunes drug and sundry store just paying for a handful of Binaca breath spray tubes and several packages of Chlorettes.

At the door they came face to face and St. Claire, who felt so certain now that he knew, or at least should know the man–he met so many in the course of a day, or a year–that he said, “Good evening, ah, Monsieur…” The man hesitated as if on the verge of a reply and then said in a particularly precise way, in English, “I beg your pardon?”

Feeling uneasy now, as if something were definitely out of tune, St. Claire repeated his greeting, this time in French. “Good evening, Monsieur. Don’t I…”

“Yes,” came the reply in lightly accented French. “It is a… good… evening. The evenings are always most exhilarating,” and with that the tall man turned and headed down the hallway past the men’s shop and around a slight bend in the rough marble wall, disappearing from sight.

St. Claire started to follow him and then remembered his companion and returned to the casino to find her waiting for him by the giant slot machine, “Big Bertha.” They headed for the hotel entrance and by the time his Mark III Continental had been brought around, St. Claire was certain he knew the man he’d just seen but still couldn’t place him. Perhaps from Europe. From before the war? But where? Paris? Vienna? The Sorbonne?

Before he had eschewed the academic training offered at the Sorbonne?… Could it have been one of his old professors? No, they’d all be dead and this man couldn’t have been much more than forty. Maybe it was some theatrical manager he’d met when he had been the male half of an adagio act, something he’d given up in his late thirties to become an entrepreneur.

“Well, no matter,” he told himself as he headed for his Rancho Circle home. He looked at his companion who was leaning back against the heavily padded seat, eyes half-closed and an enigmatic smile on her lips. He thought to himself, “I have more important and pleasant things to attend to.” Yet somehow, for a reason he could not explain, the brief encounter seemed to put a damper on his evening.

While St. Claire was speeding down the freeway, the tall man was walking across the courtyard toward the Dunes’ Olympic Wing. He circled the pool’s high-diving board, paused briefly to look at the pool lights change from red to yellow to blue, and then turned into the nearest entrance. In the hallway he paused, looked both ways, then walked a few paces to a rear exit and found it locked.

Once again he looked around. Then he took the tubes of breath spray and distributed them in his pockets, carefully folding the paper bag and putting it, too, in a pocket. With a single smooth motion, he braced himself against the door and easily forced the lock. Ahead lay a slowly rising footbridge over the rear parking lot. Quickly he padded across the bridge and down to its base in front of the Emerald Green clubhouse, a white and gold circular building nearly three stories high with two kidney-shaped wings on each side. The interior, seen from the tall windows on its east face, was dark.

He started to descend into the parking lot when there came a low growl from his left, and then a sharp bark. The tall man stiffened, hissed sharply and headed straight for the guard dog, a huge German Shepard chained in front of the clubhouse’s south wing, just off the footpath that paralleled the gold course’s east perimeter. The dog snarled viciously once, then fell silent and began to whimper. As the man neared the animal it cowered back as far as its chain would allow and then turned to face the man, now barely five feet away. The dog laid back its ears, bared its fangs and snarled again.

The man hissed again and in one incredibly swift movement lunged at the dog and struck it a sharp blow across the snout with the edge of his right hand. The stunned animal fell to its left side and the man grabbed it from behind its neck with his left hand and hoisted it, with no apparent effort, into the air with sufficient force to snap the chain. He wrapped his long, thin arms around the dog and gave a sudden squeeze. The animal gave a compulsive shudder, grunted once, and went limp as blood spurted from its mouth and nostrils. Then the man dropped the dog and stared fixedly at the blood. He knelt beside the dog and buried his face in the fur below the animal’s right ear.

CHAPTER 8

FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1970

MORNING

When I got up the next morning I was feeling very shaky but the headache was gone and the runny nose had dried up. I checked with the PD and the sheriff’s office by phone and was rewarded with the information that a beige ’69 Ford LTD hardtop had been reported stolen from the Dunes parking lot at around 8:00 A.M. There was nothing new about the Katz girl and there had been no incidents of violence during the night. It seemed the “vampire” had gone underground.

The deputy I talked to told me that they had also heard that one of the guard dogs at the Dunes had been found dead on the grass near the Dunes clubhouse. It had been discovered by a patrolling security guard around 6:00 A.M. when he’d come out to put the dog away for the day. The dog was dead, with a small amount of blood on the fur of its neck and it was assumed that some vandal had shot it with a small caliber weapon.

Well, that didn’t seem too terribly interesting so I filed it away under miscellaneous and phoned the office. A few of my associates had been in briefly but there was no one in the newsroom right then, and Vincenzo hadn’t arrived yet. I told the switchboard operator I was feeling a little under the weather and would check in at around noon. Meanwhile, I told her what I’d gotten from the PD and sheriff’s office and asked her to give it to Vincenzo when he came in.

I didn’t really like going to work, but I didn’t feel all that sick after my third cup of coffee. So, while trying to decide whether or not to go to the office, I shaved, showered and dressed.

Then an idea came to me and I called the university asking for the humanities department and then for Dr. Kirsten Helms. She finally answered with a gruff “Yes?” and I told her who I was and asked for an appointment. A short pause followed and then she said, “11:30 sharp!” and hung up. That gave me thirty minutes to kill so I stripped down my bedding, grabbed up my laundry and headed for the car and the nearest cleaners I could afford.

Although I hadn’t seen Dr. Helms in nearly five years, and perhaps spoken on the phone with her all of a half-dozen times since I’d taken some adult education courses from her shortly after my arrival in Las Vegas, I still felt somewhat uneasy and awed in her presence. I wasn’t exactly sure what my reception would be.

The administration had banished the humanities section to an outbuilding Harmon, away from the main campus in lieu of projected plans for a new building. But Dr. Helms, through persuasive oratory and general obstinacy, had managed to keep her old office on the ground floor of the original office building.

[Humanities now has its own high rise on Maryland Parkway. J.R. ]

A placard in crudely drawn Old English script on her door proclaimed: Beware --- Der Troll’s Cave. Some disgruntled student had pinned it there five years before, after reading his code number on the term grade sheet beside the letter “F” for failed.

At the moment of our reunion she said, “You’re two minutes late. You’re losing your hair, you are overweight, you drink too much and sleep too little, and while the scope of your writing has increased an infinitesimal degree your writing style is still sloppy and your grammar atrocious.”

I had been right to be apprehensive. She hadn’t changed. She looked a feisty fifty although she admitted to almost seventy and was probably closer to eighty. Beside being unredeemedly autocratic and, in her own way, unorthodox, she was still possessed of the ability to observe the world around her, add two and two together and come to the right conclusion. She had a mind like the proverbial steel trap and, through voracious reading, a staggering knowledge of odd subjects. She spent a major portion of her small amount of free time railing against the administration’s present tendency toward “new” methods of teaching while they, in turn, tried in vain to force her into retirement. I knew, in the end, that they would have their way because (her fine record notwithstanding) time was simply against her. She knew it, too. And it made her more irascible than ever. The administration might have many reasons for trying to unseat her. She had virtually run her department when it had first been formed even though she’d never held the chairmanship, but they could hardly claim seniority as a legitimate cause for retiring her.

I let her sharpen her verbal claws on me for a few minutes and when she paused to pour some coffee from a thermos I seized the opportunity.

“I came here to ask you for some reference material on folk tales, legends, myths, anything at all, as long as it has information on… vampires.”

“Vampires?”

“Yes. I know you’ll probably think I’ve slipped a cog up here,” I said, pointing to my head, “but I think these murders were caused by a lunatic who thinks he’s a vampire. I want to know exactly how the legendary vampire would act under whatever would be normal circumstances for him.”

Well, she had read the papers. “You have convinced yourself that the murder now loose in Las Vegas is a vampire? Since the papers haven’t said how the victims died I surmised they were drained of blood and that the police want it kept confidential until they can find a way of looking brilliant.”

“Uh-huh,” was all I managed to get out. She immediately began rummaging through the massive stacks of books that surrounded her in the tiny cubicle that UNLV instructors are given in accordance with their rand. Her stout figure bobbing, her wisps of spiky, iron-gray hair cutting the air from time to time just under my nose. She began dumping all kinds of volumes, thin ones, fat ones, huge leather-bounds and paperbacks all into a handy cardboard carton.

“Here!” she rasped, depositing the forty pounds of books in my lap. “Everything you need. If there’s anyone in this town who knows mythology, demonology, witchcraft and the like, it is I. Furthermore, I’ll have you know I am something of an amateur criminologist… strictly in the historical sense. There are several good volumes on famous police cases in there. You’ll find them most useful.”

She paused and squinted at me like I was a lab specimen on a slide. “Do you remember your Homer?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she launched into the tale of the Cyclops, one of the few things I did remember from the Odyssey:

The cruel brute made no reply but instead jumped up and seized a couple of my men and dashed their heads against the floor as though they’d been puppies. Their brains ran out and soaked the earth. Limb by limb he shredded them to make his meal never pausing till entrails, flesh, marrow and bones were all consumed, while we could do nothing but weep and lift our hands to Zeus in horror at the ghastly sight, paralyzed by our helplessness.

Again she fixed me with the stare I still remembered from my days in her classroom. “Do you remember?” she intoned threateningly.

“Sure. The Cyclops tale from Homer’s Odyssey.”

“And how did Odysseus resolve the situation?”

“Uh… by… by… by using the Cyclops’ lusts against him… and turning his possessions into weapons. He… he had his men fix up a wooden stake to put out the Cyclops’ eye. Then they got him drunk, blinded him and finally, Ulyss… ahem, Odysseus tied his men under the Cyclops’ sheep and used them as escape vehicles out of the giant’s cave, saving the biggest ram for himself.”

“Very good. You haven’t forgotten everything you learned. Though, you’ll never be another Odysseus. A Telemachus, perhaps… with a little effort. I can see you are convinced you alone know how to unravel this little mystery of the four deaths. Oh, I’ve been keeping up with the news. Only decent excitement this dust bowl of inequity has seen in years!

“So go… Lock yourself up and read. Get them back here on Monday. Tuesday at the latest. Refresh your memory on the tales your grandfather told you when you were a boy. At least you’ll be… informed. You’ll probably make a fool of yourself and your efforts may well hinder the police. But if I gave you any advice, you’d be sure not to heed it.

“You are a lazy man, Kolchak, but still there is a part of you that longs for adventure. Well, here’s your chance. It may cost you what few friends you have and probably your job. But you have wasted what little talents you have in his town long enough. Follow it through to the end and then go and write a book.”

Then, as an afterthought, “Better make it a work of fiction. People wouldn’t believe what you seem to believe. Oh, yes, yes, I know. I talk too much. Too much, too loud, and too fast. But I’m an old woman and if I don’t get it said and said quickly, I may never have the chance. Now, I go. It’s almost noon and I have classes.”

As I lugged the books out to my car I ran headlong into Alonzo Reynolds. It was like crashing into a wall of dough. The box hit the ground and the books scattered all over the small stone walkway and onto the grass. I looked around quickly to see if Dr. Helms had seen my clumsiness, and then bent to pick them up. Reynolds began to help me.

“Glad to see you again, Mr. uh…”

“Kolchak.”

“Right on! Hey, are you going to come see the show tonight? We have a free ticket for you.”

“Well, I…” I never got the chance to finish.

“Great! I’ll tell the girls at the door to keep an eye out for you. Take a seat in the second or third row when you come in. And, uh… take off your coat before it starts. We don’t run the cooler during the show. Too much noise.”

He hefted the box and handed it to me, then bounded around the corner, I presumed, in search of his wife.

When I got back to my place I had my first cigar of the day, and checked in by phone with Vincenzo.

“Meyer’s already beat you to it; you’d better talk to him.”

Meyer came on the line. “Hah! Hah! Got you this time, buddy. Our blood-sucking friend struck again last night.”

I could already see the body of another young woman lying crumpled and pale somewhere in the night. Jesus Christ! Another victim?”

“Not one, pal. A whole bunch of them. But, he didn’t kill anyone.”

“He didn’t kill anyone?”

“Naw, but he sure smashed up a few people. He raided County General last night and got away with every goddamn pint of blood in the place. Also…” there was a rustle of paper on the other end of the line, “also he took some needles, intravenous tubes and most of their glucose-water supply. It’s used to give nourishment to those patients who can’t eat. I’ve got most of the information here if you don’t want to wait for the paper to come out. By the way, how’s your cold?”

“Fine, just fine. Give me what you’ve got.”

He started to read. “Violence struck at County General Hospital Friday morning shortly before 1:00 A.M., and in its wake left one registered nurse and two orderlies critically injured.

“Listed in critical condition are orderlies William Benson, with a broken arm, broken collarbone and skull fracture; Oscar Wilson, with a broken back and several internal injuries; and Harriet Wilson, a registered nurse with a concussion, broken ribs and facial lacerations. Nurse Wilson is not related to the orderly.

“The incident occurred during the successful theft of the hospital’s entire supply of blood, whole blood, plasma and nearly all of the available glucose-water supply at hand. Several intravenous needles and tubes were also taken.

“Eyewitness reports from the three injured parties added to a report from the ground-floor nurse at the admission’s desk build up a fairly complete picture.

“According to Las Vegas Police Captain of Detectives Edward Masterson, the assailant entered the hospital’s ground floor through the emergency entrance and proceeded to the admissions desk. There, according to Nurse Roberta Harris, the assailant–described as about six-three to six-four in height, weighing about from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy pounds, with a suntan and gray hair, and a brush moustache, wearing a dark blue or black single-breasted suit, old-fashioned fedora hat, and carrying a large medical bag–told Nurse Harris that he was a Dr. Hampden and that he had a patient en route to the emergency room by private car who had cut himself badly in a fall through a shower door.

“The assailant claimed he wished to check the hospital’s available blood supply in advance as the patient, he asserted, was a rare blood type. He said he wanted to arrange for blood from Parkway Hospital if more of the rare type was necessary.

“The nurse directed him to the nurse on duty in Hematology where the blood is stored and he left in that direction.

“A few minutes later, orderly Oscar Wilson, a former light-heavyweight boxer, discovered the ‘doctor’ busily loading his large bag and a smaller one beside it with containers of blood. He started to question the man who, according to Wilson, simply stood up, turned around, and shoved him against the wall. Wilson got up and tried to restrain the man who again pushed him away very hard this time, and turned back to the bags.

“Wilson then grabbed the man by his coat, spun him around and hit him as hard as he could with a right cross, which, he claims, ‘just bounced off him with no effect.’

“The man then picked up Wilson ‘like so much laundry’ and squeezed Wilson until he fell unconscious with what was later determined by X-rays to be a broken back. He was then thrown into a corner.

“Floor Nurse Harriet Wilson discovered Oscar Wilson slumped unconscious on the floor just as the man picked up the bags and started to leave. She screamed and he set the bags down and grabbed her by the neck. He slapped her face several times, and she says she fainted. Apparently, he threw her on top of the unconscious orderly.

“While this was happening, the other orderly, William Benson, came upon the trio and he, too, grabbed at the man. Benson, who weighs 220 pounds, wrestled the man to the floor and had him pinned momentarily. But the man pushed him off, grabbed Benson’s arm and threw him against the nearest wall. Then he rammed Benson’s head against the floor until he, too, was unconscious.

“After that, he apparently left the hospital unseen, by way of another exit. The admissions nurse does not recall seeing him again. The three injured parties were discovered a short time later.

“Clark County Sheriff Reese Lane has ordered that all roadblocks be tripled in strength and that checkpoints be stepped up at all bus terminals, at the Union Pacific Railroad Station and at McCarran Airport. All vehicles entering or leaving the area will be searched as will all persons and baggage at the airport.

“Persons with any information on the suspect’s whereabouts are urged to contact the Las Vegas Police Department or the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.

“Citizens are cautioned not to try to apprehend the suspect. He should be considered extremely dangerous. He is believed to be responsible for the killings of at least four persons in this area since April 25 and is definitely responsible for injuring seriously the three persons mentioned here.”

There wasn’t much for me to do so I thanked Meyer and checked with “Bat” Masterson at the PD and then with Jenks at the sheriff’s office.

Then I sat down to begin my research. There were nearly three dozen books in the carton. About twenty were paperbacks. There were books dealing with ancient myths, legends and folktales, books that dealt almost exclusively with vampirism and lycanthropy, and a hefty volume on witchcraft thrown in for good measure. There were also some books dealing with factual material: criminal cases of actual “human monsters” taken from police files starting way back in the early 1800s and running right through to the Sharon Tate murders.

It was easy to see I’d never get through the mass of material in one weekend, let alone collate, condense and classify it into something workable, for I had already half-formed in my mind a report I’d give to my publisher as the basis for a feature story, as well as to the lawdogs as the basis for some possible insights into the nature of the man they were hunting. (Obviously, it was not my place to do so, as Dr. Mokurji had pointed out indirectly at the May 12 inquest. Neither he nor I were “criminal psychologist” but, then, it didn’t seem to me at the time that anyone else would bother to attack the problem from this angle.)

So, I started going through my phone numbers. I called Ella Paul, one of our paper’s “librarians” who was home on her day off. I explained the situation and told her if she couldn’t get overtime for her work for me that I’d pay her out of my own pocket. After some hesitation, she agreed, and I told her to come on over and bring enough food for five people in the form of cold cuts, beer and a couple of loaves of bread. Also a large can of coffee. I promised to pay her on arrival.

Next, I called Lester Jansen, at his apartment two doors down from me. Jansen was a refugee from a newspaper strike in L.A. and had come here to work for the competition down the street. He was taking some vacation time and just laying around watching old movies on TV and drinking. He said he couldn’t care less about vampires and the like but a promise of all the booze he could drink brought him on up with a half-ream of paper and his Olivetti portable.

Then I called Sam’s answering service and left a message for her to get back to me as soon as possible.

A call to the university brought two young, third-year students name Hooper and Curtis who agreed to work for ten dollars a day plus sandwiches and beer. They promised to show up at 5:00 sharp.

Ella got to my place an hour later, then Hooper and Curtis (I never did learn their first names) who worked hard and each earned a five dollar bonus.

We were well into it by 6:00 P.M. when Sam called. I left the crowd in the living room and took the call upstairs in my den. After I explained what I wanted she asked me if I was nuts. Did I know how much money she would be turning down on a Friday night to read some old books? And why did I think she would be interested anyway?

I told her I could never hope to justify the effort on a monetary basis, adding that she’d be giving up at least $400 and possibly more to help a friend something like “Are you that hard up for a piece of tail that you’d cook up a crazy story like this just to deprive a poor working girl of her hard-earned dollars?” With that, she hung up without waiting for a reply. But at 7:30 she showed up with a friend and fellow worker and both agreed to work on it until midnight if they could use the place to change clothes in so that they could catch their prospective “johns” after the late shows on the Strip.

Sam is a little bit crazy sometimes. And very nice. I can’t explain why she helped out but I can say this: when her friend left just after midnight, Sam stayed. It probably sounds ridiculous, here in black and white, but it’s the God’s honest truth. My little hooker gave up one of her two busiest “working nights” of the week to help me sort through a bunch of old books.

At 7:50 or thereabout I remembered about the play at UNLV and decided to leave my eager crew to their labors. I mumbled something about going to check out a lead on a story and headed out to the university. I figured on taking one more crack at Reynolds after the show. It was only a hunch but, at the time, I was sure he knew something. When I got there I called the office and told them the number of the pay phone nearest the theatre entrance and asked that they call me if anything broke. Six rings would do it. If I sat nearest the door I’d hear it and call back.

I got inside when the doors were just closing and the houselights were already dimmed. I settled back to enjoy the antics of a caricatured Henry the Eighth as he loved and betrayed his first few wives.

CHAPTER 9

FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1970

EVENING

The call came just after intermission and, as I was just finishing a drink from the nearby fountain, I caught the phone on the third ring. It was a new man who was working in the composing room who’d gotten the call from the PD. The newsroom had emptied like a plagued city just ten minutes before. The switchboard operator had put him through to me.

“I don’t know what’s up,” he began, “but the police department reports a body in the ladies’ room of the Crown movie theater, downtown. The call here came from a Captain Masterson and he said if you could be reached you’d know what it was all about.”

I did and was on my way in thirty seconds flat, heading up Tropicana and down the freeway to Charleston Boulevard. It took me less than ten minutes to get downtown and another two to convince the uniformed police on hand that I was a legitimate reporter and please could I double park for a few minutes.

Masterson spotted me and nodded for me to come over. I followed him inside and on the way paused at the cashier’s window to call Stefan who was dining with his wife at the Moby Dick Restaurant, as was his Friday custom. I told him what was up and he agreed to hustle down and take a few shots.

The Crown is a twenty-hear-old Fremont Street movie house that was just recently sold to a large chain. The transition had been so recent that the only sign of change was the new name, Crown, above the marquee.

Directly off the thirty-by-forty-foot foyer were two curving stairways of about a half-dozen steps each that led to the restrooms. The ticket taker Georgia Atkins, had gone to the john only to find it occupied. When its occupant didn’t leave after nearly thirty minutes, Miss Atkins tried to find out if she was all right. When there was no answer, she forced open the door and found a young girl, who looked to be about eighteen, seated, leaning against the partition. She was very pale and very dead. She was also fully dressed and the ticket taker couldn’t figure out why she was sitting there “of all places.” She called the night manager who called the police.

The uniformed police had made the discovery of the two holes in the girl’s neck and they’d called for Masterson who was in charge of the PD’s half of the combined forces unit investigating those murders involving neck punctures. The police photographers arrived in tandem with the fingerprint people and soon after, Stefan pushed his way into the crowded area. Masterson took the girl’s purse and checked the ID as we headed back to the foyer.

I took down the information along with a warning not to talk about the neck punctures. But we were all in for a little surprise.

The “girl” turned out to be a man, one Stephen Hemphill, twenty-three, an unemployed hairdresser who, it later turned out, was something of a well-known drag queen in local police files. He had no record of sex offenses, but had been picked up twice in the past year “cruising” the downtown area and had been politely invited to leave town. He should have taken the invitation.

He was blond, five-nine, and weighed about 145. There was a small amount of blood at the base of his skull beneath his Dynel wig where he’d been struck into unconsciousness. Aside from this one trace, and the unusual fact that this appeared to be the “vampire’s” first male victim, I suspected that the coroner’s autopsy would be the same. And I knew that it would be withheld from the public.

As Masterson’s people turned back the few curious souls who’d left the movie in progress in search of popcorn and become interested in the police action in the foyer, I called Vincenzo at home and gave him the preliminary report adding that we’d have pictures and asking if it was worth another “extra.” He told me it might be, at least as far as trying to get an edition on the streets with a partially replated front page. But that was as far as he felt he would go. We did, in fact, kill the regular 10L30 edition which was already on the presses, and get out the new front page in time to catch the midnight patrons on the Strip. I told him I’d drop off my copy at the office and leave it on his desk and that Stefan would leave the photos with the copy.

Then I called home to check on my “crew” who were grumbling that the beer had run out. I told them that help was on the way and asked for Sam. I told her in strict confidence what had happened downtown and said I’d be back in an hour. She said she’d stick around and that everyone was hard at work and to get the hell back and do my share.

As I left the Crown for home I turned to look at the ambulance removing Hemphill’s body and noticed the marquee: “Dracula Returns.” It seemed an apt comment and would have made a great headline if we’d been allowed to print the whole truth. As it was, it was a fitting epitaph for Hemphill.

When the copy was duly deposited and Stefan had pulled the first contact prints out of the soup, I left and stopped off at the Mayfair Market across from Foxy’s to get the beer, a fifth of White Horse, and several varieties of Danish from Freed’s bakery. I got back and we divvied up the food while I explained what had happened to the rest of them, adding that it was the fifth murder and that police still didn’t know how it was done and hadn’t caught the guy who did it.

At midnight Sam’s friend left and so did Ella who has a small but growing family and had a baby-sitter to take home. Hooper and Curtis stuck it out until 4:00 and by sunrise Sam called “time” and pointed to the bedroom. I watched her undulate up the stairway, cursed my cold, and followed. By the time I got there she was already in bed. I lost no time in following suit and found her under the sheets to be very warm and very naked.

“Easy, Simon Legree,” she cautioned. “I’ll think about catching your cold after we’ve had some sleep.”

As I said before, Sam and I had an understanding, a friendship. When we were both in the mood we brightened each other’s lives a bit. When the occasion wasn’t just right, as it seemed to me then, neither of us forced the issue. It’s a good way to lose friends. So I kissed her lightly on the forehead, hoping my germs would be gone by “morning,” then rolled over and set the alarm for 1:30 and killed the light.

We both woke up around noon. She had slept well and I felt like a new man. She snuggled up close to me and we found ways of occupying the time until the alarm went off, after which she joined me in the shower and then made me one hell of a good breakfast, the first homemade one I’d had in that apartment since she’d helped me celebrate Christmas morning in ’69. A quick swim and another shower followed, and then we spent an hour or so sorting the notes left by my “research fellows.” Then Sam said good-by and I called Jensen who had disappeared around 2:00 AM unnoticed by anyone. He came up looking like death warmed over with a hangover that wouldn’t quit. I brewed him a fresh pot of coffee, stuffed some toast into him, and we spent a couple of hours together sorting what was left and beginning to type up my report.

I now had a fairly good idea of how close legend and fact could come. I’m including some of what I pieced together to show you that what followed over the next few days was not entirely unexpected.

CHAPTER 10

[What follows here is an extremely condensed version of nearly 300 pages of typewritten notes on the several volumes researched by Kolchak and his “staff.” I have included the most basic information on vampirism, and only the most famous of the criminal cases involving “bloodlust.” JR]

Since the beginnings of man’s existence there have been “creatures of the night” who have been accorded supernatural powers. Cavemen probably sat around their fires and conjured up great man-beasts that thirsted for human blood.

These “campfire stories” and the unrecorded acts of certain demented individuals in the days of prehistory, pre-police and pre-psychology gave way and gave rise to the folktales that abound with vampires, werewolves and witches. These legends have, today, grown into a sizeable body of fiction which, in turn, has for some years supported an entire segment of the motion picture industry which at times, in cycles like the moon, has rivaled even the production of westerns.

Of the blood-crazed monsters that have tracked their bloody prints through the pages of fiction, the vampires and werewolves are the best known. There is, however, a basic difference between the vampire and the werewolf. The werewolf changes from human into animal form. The vampire always remains “human.” The werewolf is almost exclusively a person who becomes one either voluntarily or through the bite of another werewolf. But in either case, he has never been dead. On the other hand, a vampire, who becomes such from the bite of another vampire but not the complete draining of his (or her) blood, first “dies” and is reborn into an “undead” state. And, with the exception of psychological paralysis induced by fear or by hypnotism, a person never becomes a vampire voluntarily.

Legend has it that St. Patrick himself once changed a Welsh king into a werewolf for reasons that are lost to modern historians. Although there are several versions of the modus operandi of werewolves, most authorities agree that they kill out of lust, not just the need to drink blood. They don’t need blood to survive. And, in many cases, they are totally unconscious of their animalistic acts. They are universally recognized as being unaccountably brutal. Moreover, the activities of werewolves are somewhat predictable as they are “activated” by the full moon. At other times they lead relatively normal lives thus supposedly making them harder to find and destroy. Various methods have been mentioned as being effective means of disposing of them. With the invention of firearms, the most popular device is a pistol or rifle loaded with silver bullets and aimed at the heart.

The vampire, however, is an altogether different proposition. He or she becomes a vampire involuntarily and dies only to arise each and every night to drink the blood necessary to maintain the human “body” in its “undead” state during daylight hours. (Interestingly enough, female vampires seem to dominate much of vampiric literature to the extent of giving rise to the once-popular slang expression “vampire” or “vamp,” indicating a female “bloodsucker” who literally drains men (sexually and financially) of their substance.).

At night the vampire is almost virtually omnipotent, fearing only, according to most accounts of the last two millennia, the sight of the cross, i.e., a crucifix. During the day, they lie dormant and are almost totally helpless. In this sleeping state they can be easily disposed of by hammering a stake made of wood through their “human” hearts and (according to some) cutting off their heads afterwards. They can also die if sprinkled heavily with Holy Water or if exposed for any length of time to the direct rays of the sun. The loss of their native soil, with which their “coffins” are lined, can cause them no end of misery, and, if they are far from home, will eventually lead to their wandering about in the daytime and dying. According to legend, the soul of the vampire cannot go to heaven (or hell) until the vampire’s body has been properly destroyed.

Virtually every culture in every section of the world has its vampire legends. The vampire’s genesis appears in the times of the ancient Hebrews who called her Lillith and even farther back in pre-Hebraic Babylon where she was known as Lilitu. The ancient Greeks called her Lamia and she had the upper torso and head of a woman and the lower half of a snake, wings, and flew through the night to suck the blood of children. (A variation of the winged-serpent concept may be found in the Quetzalcoatl of the ancient Aztecs.) The Romans called the vampire Strix. In plural it was Strigae which evolved into the modern Italian Strega for witch. Vampire legends have been recorded in great variety in India, Malaysia and Arabia. In the tales of the Arabian Nights there is the account of Sinbad the Sailor who encountered “one-eyed monsters” like Odysseus’ Cyclops, Polyphemus, but these one-eyed creatures roasted their victims before eating them. The Chinese, too, have vampire legends, all filled with blood and terror.

And, of course, there are the legends of Central Europe.

“Dracula,” it turns out, was indeed a real man. Actually, a whole line of “royalty” in the region known as Wallachia (now Rumania) existed in the 1400s. It seems that Vlad III of Wallachia, a sort of warlord, was elevated to the rank of Voivode (a “count” or local king) in the year 1431 by King Sigismund, later the Holy Roman Emperor. In becoming Voivode, Vlad automatically joined Sigismund’s Order of the Dragon, a special coterie of knights, and served as the head of Wallachia’s puppet government. Information about Vlad III mentions him as being extremely vicious and bloodthirsty. His subjects came to believe he was possessed of the devil and considered the dragon symbol on his tunic as a sign of this.

When the Turks conquered Wallachia in the 1450s they set up his son, Vlad IV, as their puppet ruler. He was even more cruel; so brutal in fact, that he became a legend in his own time. Vlad IV became the Hitler of his day. When he wasn’t impaling people on stakes (his favorite pastime from all accounts) he had his unlucky victims ground live into hamburger, chopped up in to “sausage” and literally “shot from guns.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica says he is reported to “have feasted amongst his impaled victims.” All reports of his activities make Nero look like a truant from a nursery school by comparison.

As talk of his bloodlust grew, and the connection between the dragon on his tunic and the talk of his allegiance with the devil spread, a new name was given to him stemming from the Hungarian word for dragon–Dracula! The word has its root in the Latin draco, and can be found in Italian as gradulia, and in German as trakle.

However, after years of his bloodletting, Voivode Vlad IV (Dracula) went too far and stuck a stake through an ambassador and his ruler, Sultan Majomet of Turkey, became so enraged at the news that he personally led the army that deposed Dracula and the “vampire” was thought to have died in exile. However Mahomet reckoned without Dracula’s powers of recuperation and Dracula returned in 1475 to reclaim his throne, giving further rise to the idea of a vampire returning from the dead. When Dracula was again deposed a year later, he died one final time.

Most of the legends built up in the general area of Hungary and Rumania finally congealed into the familiar version of the vampire as seen by author Bram Stoker in his famous Dracula of the 1890’s. This vampire is almost always a nobleman, tall, thin, pale, with red-rimmed eyes, a mouth full of fangs, blood-red lips and total power during the hours of darkness. Such a creature inevitably gives off a foul stench, particularly from his mouth. (That certainly fit our suspect.) He has the power to paralyze with fright, to create others of his kind by merely biting them, or by hypnotizing victims, unbitten, to create slaves.

Although I found this information very interesting, I still wondered whether I was on the right track. On the one hand, no one has ever scientifically proven vampires to be nonexistent. But then no one has ever gotten one in the lab to study.

Still, if the legends seem to some people too insubstantial to be believed, the factual cases from police files seem hardly less bloodthirsty and, in many cases, a whole lot more disgusting. While there is no account (among those we researched so hastily) of a documented case of any of those I will mention here as having fangs or a coffin for a resting place, the people I am about to list disposed of all manner of victims–small animals, men, women and children–often drinking their blood, or eating them, or selling pieces of their bodies as meatcutter’s products. Sometimes sex offenses were involved. The late Dr. Ernest Jones, of the Freudian school of psychiatry, felt the vampire belief contained portions of most sexual deviations but stemmed from infancy when the sex drive has not yet been centralized at the sexual organs and satisfaction is obtained largely through sucking and biting. He contended such people who acted like vampires were expressing sex drives of an infantile nature.

Sometimes witchcraft and Satan worship was involved. But always, blood was spilled in copious amounts.

“Jack the Ripper” is probably the most famous of the documented police cases. He is the archetypical fiend; the slayer of helpless women in the dead of night. While legends have grown up around this bloody figure to indicate he may have been responsible for as many as twenty vicious slayings in as many years, the police reports and newspaper accounts of the day would put the more likely number at seven, all dying in the year 1888.

London also had a “vampire” appear shortly after World War II in South Kensington. He was a mild-looking man named John George Haigh, and before he was through on February 18, 1949, he had shot a Mrs. Durand-Deacon with a .38, sliced open her neck, filled a drinking glass with her blood, downed it and dumped her body in a tank filled with thirty gallons of sulphuric acid. Afterward, according to his own testimony, he went out to tea. He also took her jewelry which he pawned and which led the police to arrest him, at which time he admitted his crime saying, “No trace of her can ever be found. I did the same with the Hendersons and the McSwans.”

Without going into lengthy detail, let it be enough to say that the police amassed enough evidence to have Haigh hanged because according to British law, he could not plead insanity as long as he knew the nature and quality of his deed. He admitted that he did know, and that he had gained financially as a result of his murderous activities. The rope finished him as surely as a stake through the heart.

In Hanover, Germany, in 1925, Fritz Haarmann went on trial for his life and before it was over, the one-time soldier and ex-police stooge admitted to killing between thirty and forty victims, mostly teen-aged boys whom he raped and while doing so, tore out their throats with his teeth. His death at the hands of a sword-wielding executioner was well within the bounds of tradition in the disposal of vampires. His head was cut off.

And then there was the infamous Peter Kurten, known variously as “The Dusseldorf Vampire” and “The Dusseldorf Child Killer.” Kurten was basically a sneak thief and petty burglar who got his sexual release from murdering young children, especially girls, by strangulation or by the knife, often drinking their blood. He started as a child on small animals like squirrels after he discovered he felt intense pleasure when he saw animals slaughtered. Soon he graduated to bigger game, killing two of his male playmates at age nine by pushing them off a raft into the Rhine River and holding them under until they drowned.

The greatest sexual thrill of his early life was an unsuccessful strangling attempt on a young girl. After his bungling of the job in the Grafenburg Woods, he followed her for days until he was arrested and sent to prison for four years. He had been active from 1889 until 1908. After his release and until May of 1930, he killed no less than twenty-three times!

He was fascinated by the act of stabbing and could achieve an orgasm only when engaged in the act. He once stabbed a child he had already strangled to death–stabbed her 36 times. He was even more fascinated by dripping or spurting blood and would often drink it. Yet he was described as “fastidious,” a very clean man who was so careful in his crimes that laboratory analysis of his clothing was necessary to detect evidence of his handiwork. And he was “a good Catholic” who said his prayers regularly and thought abortion a “sin.”

While awaiting execution he received many letters from women confessing their love for him and their desire for marriage. (While on trial for the Sharon Tate killings Charles Manson also received such letters.)

Like Haarmann, he was executed by beheading. And, in 1931, in a slightly disguised version of his “career,” Kurten was resurrected by film director Fritz Lang in the movie classic, M starring a little-known Hungarian Jew named Peter Lorre, one of the original vampires of Brecht and Weill’s The Three Penny Opera.

In the Paris of 1847-48, a large number of corpses, particularly those of young woman, were either stolen or dug up and mutilated on the spot by human teeth.

The teeth belonged to a demented army sergeant named Bertrand, who, when caught, confessed to the overwhelming desire to mutilate and devour corpses, chewing their flesh and entrails and then, according to some accounts, when covered with gore, rending and mutilating his handiwork. Before he was captured he managed to have sexual intercourse with at least one, mutilated, partially eaten body. He spent a year in jail and disappeared after his release.

There have been numerous jokes about the butcher who served up his victims as “choice cuts” to his morning customers. This, too, can be traced to actual fact. Between 1921 and 1924, some thirty persons disappeared without a trace in Munsterberg, Silesia, Germany, Eventually, the trail led to Herr Denke, a quiet religious man who pumped the bellows for the organ in the local church. In a time of general starvation and unbelievable inflation, when twelve-million German marks (often carted in wheelbarrows) might buy a loaf of stale, moldy bread, people were not at all adverse to chopping up horses, cats and dogs to survive. Denke went one step further to insure a steady supply of meat on the table. He chopped up thirty of his neighbors. After his arrest he decided not to await a trial and quietly hanged himself in his cell.

In the same vein was George Grossman of Berlin who was also slaughtered some of his acquaintances, specializing, like the “ripper,” in prostitutes. But unlike Denke, he kept his victim’s bodies around for decorations. He was noisy and his landlord decided one day to evict him. When the landlord forced open his door he discovered a nicely trussed-up corpse of a young girl, still warm, and a variety of fingers under Grossman’s bed which it is said he nibbled on for “midnight snacks.” He was credited with at least three murders in as many weeks and, like Denke, hanged himself in his cell before the executioner could swing his blade.

Cold-blooded killings in the present era include the tale of Perry Smith and Eugene Hickock who disposed of all four members of the Herber Clutter family in the lonely, windswept Kansas farmhouse where they resided on November 15, 1959. Their deeds were “immortalized” aptly enough in “In Cold Blood,” Truman Capote’s book.

Far worse than these two were an atypical British pair named Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who between them were credited with molesting, mutilating and then killing Edward Evans, seventeen, Lesley Ann Downey, ten, and John Kilbride, twelve, and possibly two more. In one instance, they took pornographic pictures of their victim, forcing her to pose “indecently and in every conceivable manner.” In another, they tape-recorded their victim’s final pitiable screams of fear and agony. Since this happened after capital punishment had been abolished in Great Britain, Brady and Hindley are now behind bars for life with no chance of parole.

The latest of these ghoulish escapades is, of course, the Sharon Tate killings, which involved five victims and included stabbing, shooting and strangulation by hanging. Miss Tate, a movie star and wife of film director Roman Polanski (himself famous for bloody and frightening films), was eight months pregnant when she died and she died slowly, pleading for the baby’s life. She was strangled, hung and stabbed countless times. Her baby died, untouched by the knife, still in her womb. It has been reported by at least one “eyewitness” at the trial (in progress at this writing) that some of the group led in absentia by Charles Manson “drank Sharon Tate’s blood” and found “it was groovy!” This last remark harks all the way back to 1888 when Jack the Ripper claimed in a note that he ate a victim’s “fried” kidney and found it “very nice.”

I was sure that when I presented these facts to the local law officials they would take me seriously when I suggested that the man they were looking for would not only conform to the general modus operandi of a vampire because he actually believed he was one, but that he would have to be stopped even if it meant telling the public the true facts because he might well be capable of worse crimes.

The more I read of the legends the more I was reminded of the old adage, “an ounce of prevention….” Etc. I decided that, just to be sure, the police should approach this problem as if this man were in fact a vampire and protect and prepare themselves accordingly.

How they actually received this suggestion and its result will be found in later pages. One thing for sure. The public never heard a word about it, testifying not only to the chicanery of the police, but to the lack of courage of the local news media. The papers of London, Berlin and Paris weren’t afraid to print the truth. But then, maybe what some people have said about Vegas is true: that Las Vegas isn’t really part of the real world and that once inside its boundaries, none of the normal rules apply.

Decide for yourself.

CHAPTER 11

[Once again, in order to fill in blank spots in Kolchak’s notes, I have had to compile the facts and reach what appears to be logical conclusions based on these facts. JR]

All through the weekend, while Kolchak pored over his books trying to find a sound basis in fact and fancy for his “vampire theory,” the unexpected meeting of Henri St. Claire and the tall man (still unknown to Kolchak) kept gnawing like a hungry rat at St. Claire’s memory. It distracted him. It spoiled his appetite. It gave him two sleepless nights. And it gave the tall man an opportunity to kill Mr. Hemphill and get away without a trace. Had St. Claire read the papers upon his return from Europe, he doubtless would have called the police when he spotted him in the Dunes. As it was, he only saw some back issues of the Daily News on his desk when he entered his office on Monday and these he did not read until late afternoon.

At first he couldn’t believe his eyes. He now remembered who the man was.

Janos Skorzeny!

Slowly the memories came back to him. Bucharest and Paris just before World War II. And London during the blitz. Skorzeny, a man who had moved like a ghost and with no one knowing much about him but everyone convinced he was… odd, and for some unknown reason, strange and possibly dangerous. Why the man hardly seemed a day older than he’d been in 1939!

Finally, at four o’clock he could ignore his conscience no longer. He called the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and was soon connected the Lieutenant Jenks.

CHAPTER 12

MONDAY, MAY 18, 1970

I got to the paper on the dot of nine on Monday and spent the next two hours typing furiously in triplicate what I had compiled over the weekend. I now felt ready to approach my editors and police “friends” with what I felt sure was solid stuff that would convince them we were dealing with a very special kind of maniac, just in case they weren’t already convinced.

Several calls to my usual resources revealed that nothing new had happened since young Mr. (“Miss”) Hemphill had been so ingloriously deposited on her “throne.” Nor had the Katz girl turned up. The police still hadn’t any concrete reasons to suspect a connection between her disappearance and the series of killings. But, with wealthy and prominent locals as parents, there was still the possibility of kidnapping, even though no ransom note or call had been made.

While I worked we got a call from the Clark County Humane Society to apprise us that there had been an unusually large number of dogs reported missing or stolen during the last two weeks. Somehow, that rang a bell and I remembered the dead watchdog found at the Dunes’ Emerald Green Golf Course. I put in a call to the animal shelter but they told me the dog had already been destroyed so there’d be no clues from that quarter. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, but from what I’d read it didn’t seem impossible that there’d be a connection somewhere between our mysterious murderer and the increase in disappearing dogs.

I got in to see Cairncross around noon and he scanned my research.

“Nothing new here. Might be good background for a wrap-up piece when this thing’s over with. Why all the stuff on the legends? You don’t for one minute suggest that this guy…”

He looked at me.

“No,” I said tentatively. “But he may think so. And I think that may give us a clue to how he operates so we can predict his next move. If he is convinced he is a vampire, you’ll never see hide nor hair of him in daylight. So far, “I pointed out, “no one has.”

“I’m thrilled,” he said in a flat voice. “I suppose you’re going to present this to the boys downtown and start telling them how to run their show again.”

I didn’t answer.

“It’s your funeral,” he continued. “At any rate, we are trying to cooperate with them by…”

“By suppressing the news!” I bellowed. “By withholding information the public has a right to know how those girls died. The cops know. The D.A. knows. The coroner knows and every goddamn newsman in town knows, too. This whole thing stinks of cover-up from top to bottom. Don’t kid yourself, Lew. They’re not worried about starting a panic. They’re worried about their own skins, about looking stupid at election time. And this paper is just helping them get back into office for four more years of ineptitude.”

I was getting red in the face, and I knew it.

“Since when have we ever let something as serious as this situation go on for weeks without some kind of editorial demanding the cops get off their fat asses and do something?”

“Since now! Since Jake Herman gave us the word. The competition is cooperating. So are all the TV and radio stations. Even the girl at United Press is playing it cool.

“Remember, son. This is a tourist town. A gambling center. Gamblers, my boy, are a very suspicious breed of cat. Being proprietors of hotels and casinos makes them even worse. They don’t even like guys with thin, black moustaches. Bad for business. And, a lot of talk making this loony out to be superhuman wouldn’t help this town’s business at all. We have to remember priorities. If people don’t come here, they don’t spend money here. And we stop eating. It’s that simple.”

“So we’re going to forget all about it like we forgot all about those killings in that ex-mayor’s home in North Las Vegas?”

“Exactly.” He repeated himself. “It’s that simple.”

“Maybe for you,” I told him, and stormed out of his office.

Ella came over and informed me the front office would not OK her time spent at my place so I slipped here a ten-spot, added another two and asked her to order me a Chicken Delight and a can of Coors. I then checked out the weekend roundup of thefts, robberies, etc. Mostly it was routine, except for a massive narcotics raid by the sheriff’s office that netted $350,000 in dangerous drugs and three suspects. On Friday night, May 8, gunshot victim LeVeam Hardison, twenty-five, was buried at Sunset Memorial Gardens; Vern Gardner of Oakland had $3,244 in clothing and jewels stolen from his car in a downtown casino’s parking lot; and the Waller Lumber Company’s safe was relieved of $2,700. The Convention Center’s marquee collapsed Saturday morning. And Benito Albaro, seventy-three, of Delano, California was struck and killed by a dairy truck on US 93 south of Whitney Avenue in East Las Vegas. A routine weekend in Las Vegas.

The sheriff’s office had picked up the suspect’s car which they had found abandoned on First Street near Bridger, not four blocks from the courthouse. They had dusted it for prints and were now trying to get a match with the smudged ones found on the Hanochek girl’s kitchen door. I nibbled absent-mindedly at my chicken, reflecting sourly that the general publicity might have driven the s.o.b. into hiding.

At about 4:30 I got a call from Jenks at the sheriff’s office informing me that Henri St. Claire, one of Las Vegas’ big show producers, was on his way downtown to talk with Sheriff Lane. Apparently he felt he personally knew the suspect and had seen him on Friday night. I told him I was coming over.

Later, after St. Claire had had his say and explained why it had taken him so long to get in touch with the authorities, I got Bernie aside and asked him if he now had enough reason to check out the suspect, now under the various names of Martin Lubin, Dr. Hampden and Janos Skorzeny.

He nibbled his nails awhile and then told me, “Possibly. I think we might start with the Immigration and Justice department and see if they have a dossier on him. From there, assuming they do come up with something, we could contact Scotland Yard, Interpol and the Surete in Paris and see what they come up with. But I’d have to check with Washington first.”

“What about the Katz girl?”

“We’re keeping tabs on that… unofficially.”

I headed for the Daily News desk in the courthouse press room and Bernie followed me in.

“I think I’ll just finish out the day here and avoid going back to the office,” he said.

“Fine by me,” I answered as I dialed Vincenzo and gave him the dope on Lubin-Hampden-Skorzeny’s being spotted by St. Claire and the fact that his car had been found just to make sure he knew it all. When I finished I called the PD for one final check before quitting time and was rewarded with a bonus for the day. The desk Sergeant told me to hang on and switched me to Masterson’s special phone hookup at the courthouse.

“Thought you’d like to know we’ve got another missing person report that just came in about thirty minutes ago. We were processing it while the St. Claire gent was talking to Lane. I’ll give you the particulars.”

I told him to wait and phoned the paper to stand by for more news. Then I got Helen O’Brien to give us a three-way hookup and then told Masterson to go ahead.

“Carolyn Riegel, twenty, receptionist for Homer G. Rasmussen, a chiropractor on Maryland Parkway near Bridger. Didn’t show for work today. A call from the doctor to her mother, a widow, at 1137 E. Bracken revealed the girl hadn’t been seen since Sunday afternoon when she went, alone, to a movie.

“The girl has no steady boyfriend and the mother is understandably upset. Thought about calling the police last night but decided to wait until the wee hours of the morning, then fell asleep before she could call. When she woke up she was just about to call us when Mr. Rasmussen phoned her.

“Description follows: five-four, 120 pounds, ash blond, hazel eyes, is nearsighted.

“We checked all the local theaters and drive-ins and one, the Viking, out on Maryland Parkway near the Boulevard Mall, reports three pairs of glasses among their lost-and-found articles. One pair is a man’s type. The other two are women’s, both prescription. Her mother gave us the name of her eye doctor and we’re checking both pairs to see if one matches Carolyn’s prescription.

“The cashier at the Viking didn’t recall seeing anyone answering Carolyn’s description but that doesn’t mean very much. Most of the time they don’t really look at their customers; too busy counting change.

“That’s all we’ve got right now. Her car wasn’t found at the Viking lot, by the way, and we’re keeping an eye out for it as well.”

Masterson hung up and I told Vincenzo I could stop by the mother’s place for a photo of the girl. He said to forget it, that one of the copy boys could get it and told me my stuff would make the 10:30 paper and warned me to keep in touch by phone in case anything broke later on either of the two “disappearances” or the murders.

But that was the end of the day’s excitement.

If Monday had produced little in the way of progress, Tuesday proved more fruitful. The combined forces’ lab people were able to make an “almost positive” ID by comparison between the smudged print found on Carol Hanochek’s kitchen doorknob and one, very clear print discovered on the underlip of the Chevy’s trunk lid. These were turned over to Bernie’s people at the FBI for a crosscheck on the Bureau’s Washington files, and for investigation with the Immigration Department.

Miss Riegel’s eye doctor confirmed that one pair of glasses found at the Viking did, indeed, belong to Carolyn. From the extent of her nearsightedness, it was obvious she could not drive a car without them and it seemed unlikely she’d left them by accident. She must have been taken by force from the theater. This enabled Bernie to step into this end of the investigation in an official capacity and gave him a little more leeway in his inquiries into the murders on the basis of a later possible connection between the two.

“Jake” Herman’s editorial for the Wednesday paper, while not exactly chiding local law enforcement agencies for their apparent inability to cope with the rash of murders, did at least publicly speculate on the possibility that the killings, blood thefts and two missing girls might all be combined in some awful way. D.A. Paine was quoted as saying, “We are leaving no stone unturned in this all-out effort to rid Las Vegas of its present scourge. While there has been no evidence to the effect that the Mafia is in any way involved in these murders, we are not overlooking that possibility and the very murders themselves point up the growing lawlessness and violence both here and throughout the nation. We are not considering an official request to the FBI for assistance on the basis that the two missing young women may be, in some way, tied in with the recent murders of four innocents.” (Somehow, I guess, the D.A. either forgot all about the death of the drag queen, Hemphill, or didn’t consider him an “innocent.” But, then, he always maintained a public stance of wanting to rid Las Vegas of all “sexual perverts.”)

However, nowhere in any of these news stories was there a single mention of the fact that the police officials claimed the official cause of these deaths was “still to be medically determined.” I still couldn’t see why the Daily News would allow such blatant disregard of the public’s right to such information to go unchecked. But, when I asked Cairncross about it he told me, angrily, “That’s the way it is. Stop trying to change the whole world! Learn to live in it like everyone else.”

CHAPTER 13

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1970

NIGHT

Things really started happening today. I was doing double duty as a fill-in copy editor on the night shift at about 8:40 when the PD squawk box started making noises about “one helluva fight” going on at Old Town Hospital not more than five minutes away.

Police units, then more backup units were called and inside of five minutes Stefan (who was “moonlighting” in the darkroom on some fashion photos for a private client) and I were on the way in his Porsche, which is equipped with a two-way radio.

As we rolled up we got the first photos of the suspect in action as he came tearing out of the old building’s main entrance with white-clad orderlies hanging from each arm and one holding onto his throat. He was covered in blood and moving with incredible speed for a man hauling three large men all simultaneously dragging at him and slugging him. Before he reached the sidewalk he’d thrown the one on his right off balance with a shrugging gesture. When he reached the grass by Eighth Street sidewalk, he kicked the man hanging onto his left arm, twisted, then bent forward quickly and threw the man on his neck clean over him onto the grass. Then he swung a brutal right to the remaining orderly’s midsection and dropped him to the pavement.

The police closed in from both sides with their batons raised. As he reached the curb one of them struck him across the right temple and he staggered slightly, then plowed into that group of three officers and right on through them like they were tackling dummies on a playing field. A single officer detached himself from the other contingent and raced for his station wagon, loosing the police dog which reached the suspect as he hit the corner of Eighth and Ogden. The remaining officers formed a skirmish line with pistols leveled and were calling for him to halt.

By now, both Stefan and I had left the car and his motorized Nikon was whirring and clicking repeatedly, taking stop-action photos with a strobe-equipped roll of ultra-high speed film.

The suspect whirled around just as the dog leaped at him and he was knocked off his feet. The police started forward, spreading out to surround the struggling figures on the ground.

Stefan and I advanced from the opposite direction.

The man now wrapped his long arms and legs around the dog and rolled over on his side. Suddenly, the animal gave a terrified yelp and then a prolonged sort of screech, like a pig makes when frightened.

Somehow the man got back on his feet and was holding the now-limp animal as a sort of shield. The police opened fire and the man, plainly hit but to no effect, hissed like a basket full of snakes and hurled the dog at the nearest two cops, knocking them down like bowling pins. Then he was off down Eighth Street with the police in full chase. A few were kneeling, offering covering fire to the others and two were sprinting for their cars. The two cops on the ground were scrambling to their feet and one of them shouted, “The dog’s dead. That son of a bitch broke his neck!”

As the guns roared, one officer was calling for more backup units and doctors were coming out of the main entrance to tend to the injured orderlies. The suspect, now a block away and running like a decathlon sprinter, rounded the corner of Eighth and Fremont and the squad car was now less than a hundred yards behind. The other patrol car had stalled and its starter was grinding away.

I ran for Stefan’s Porsche as he stood snapping off shots of the orderlies. I made an illegal U-turn and picked him up just off the main entrance area, then we took off after the first police car with the other one on our tail. While I tried to pretend I was a road-racing professional, Stefan ducked into his cramped space and reloaded the Nikon.

We picked up the sound of the first car’s siren two blocks ahead, and screamed down an alley between Seventh and Sixth only to find our quarry and his pursuer nearly two blocks ahead of us. We were doing almost fifty when I hit the brakes. The cop car ahead of us had stopped and was backing up. We almost collided. As the patrol car headed up to Sixth and screeched around the corner I could see the alley up ahead was strewn with upended garbage cans. Our suspect had neatly led the cops into a hand-made “dead end.”

We rounded the corner on Sixth and Stefan radioed the paper and began a running commentary in his thick Hungarian accent, giving a blow-by-blow account of what had taken place and what we were up to. I hoped someone in the newsroom was taking it down because I was too busy just driving to give the facts much attention at the time.

The police car behind us was using both its sirens, the growler and their curious electronic “woop-woop” device. Its red lights were flashing angrily. We weren’t able to average more than forty on a block-to-block basis because of the dips at each corner and the cross-traffic that wouldn’t stop for the sirens ahead of us. A moving van turning down Sixth from Bonneville brought our parade to a halt and by the time it had cleared our path I could once again make out the scarecrow figure of our quarry about a block ahead. He was running, if anything, even faster than before.

The squad car behind us passed with a roar and a screech of tires. By the time we reached Gass, just behind the two patrol cars, they were again stopped, this time by a line of vehicles moving both ways, and when we got going again the frenzied figure of the suspect, let’s call him Skorzeny was far ahead and still running strong.

Two blocks ahead lay Charleston Boulevard which the city fathers, in their wisdom, some years back, had seen fit to divide at that corner with a traffic island preventing any through traffic on Sixth Street. Skorzeny had sucked us into another dead end and the two police cars were already stopped in their tracks as Skorzeny leaped and dodged the traffic, ran across the traffic island, and disappeared down the street. One of the cars ahead made a U-turn and started back the way we had come, heading back to the hospital, I figured. As we made our turn the other one was bellowing for backup units to head in north from Sahara Avenue.

We headed east on Hoover, cut across Charleston and took Eighth to Park Paseo following the curve back up to Sixth Street on the south side of the boulevard, but by the time we got there there was no Skorzeny in sight. Several minutes of cutting back and forth across the area of Sixth, Fifth Place, and Houssels all the way to Oakey produced nothing but other patrol cars doing the same.

Vincenzo called us to say the police had lost the man and were preparing to blanket the entire area. Inside of another fifteen minutes there must have been twenty police units scouring the entire section of town from Sahara to Charleston, and from Las Vegas Boulevard to Maryland Parkway. Periodically, the police copter, finally launched from the upper parking level at the courthouse, buzzed overhead.

Another hour passed and everyone had given up the chase. We had gone back to the hospital to learn that Skorzeny had somehow sneaked in past the police guard and was caught with his black bags, raiding the hematology section of the hospital. He had dropped and spilled several containers which accounted for his bloody appearance. But his raid had failed and he’d run off empty-handed.

The bags were retrieved and taken to the lab for dusting. The only injuries were to one orderly, with a possible skull fracture and to the police dog which was dead. And to the pride of the police force which was left with egg on its collective face and empty hands.

We had the news back in the office by 10:40 and through the heroic efforts of our composing-room staff, we managed to get a replated “early” edition on the streets by 11:30, a bare hour later than usual. Better than that, we scooped the opposition by several hours and, even then, their news came second hand. We had no restrictions about printing full details on the blood theft. And we had a fantastic set of photos with a few good if grainy blow-ups of the suspect in action. And these we did not share with the paper down the street. Our front page had a beauty of the suspect’s anger-contorted features, another of him knocking down the police officers with the dog’s body and still another of the police firing after his fleeing figure.

But the killer was still on the loose… whereabouts unknown.

CHAPTER 14

THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1970

Thursday started off with a bang as our morning edition hit the streets recapping what we’d gotten earlier. The TV boys, as usual, had missed out completely on live on-the-scene coverage and the radio stations were literally reading our copy on the air. Temcek’s photos again made the front page and there were several more shots on the jump page. Carolyn Riegel, who had also become newsworthy on Wednesday, was bumped back to the main local page and Pete Pryor ranted and raved in his column about the “appalling, shocking, terrifying chain of events that threaten to turn this town into a personal hunting preserve for a homicidal maniac who should be shot in his tracks.” Pryor had blown whatever cool he’d had with the law boys by castigating the police in straightforward terms for their “stupidity” and “lethargy” (one of the bigger words he knew).

On the other hand, even with my dwindling welcome, I could still get in to see the people downtown and I intended to present my little document to them, especially now, since Skorzeny had apparently proved bulletproof as well as tireless.

Vincenzo sent me over to the Sheriff’s Office to attend an 11:00 A.M. “postmortem” on the Wednesday operation that included Butcher, Paine, Lane, Masterson, Jenks and Bernie Fain whose stepped-up inquiries had borne fruit. Along with me I’d brought several eight-by-ten photos, all head shots of Skorzeny.

Since Fain had the only really new information on Skorzeny and no one was anxious to start examining the fiasco of the day before, he was allowed to lead off. He’d done his homework and been up all night, sitting by teletype and telephone. The results were all I’d hoped for.

Skorzeny turned out to be quite a character.

“Here’s a rundown on what we managed to dig up through Scotland Yard including everything they had from Interpol: ‘Subject: Janos Skorzeny (pronounced yanosh/score-zuh-nee). Born in Craesti, Rumania, a small village of about 30,000 people near the city of Cluj, in 1900. This fact was confirmed through Photostats of local records with the signatures of a physician named Szandof Gabel and a midwife who…”

Chief Butcher cut him off. “Wait just a goddamn minute! Are you tellin’ us this son of a bitch is seventy years old?” Without waiting for Bernie’s answer he continued. “Hell! Your people have come up with the wrong man.”

“Like hell we have! This stuff has been triple checked and confirmed. I’ve been up all night and I am pretty damn tired. Do you want this stuff or not?”

Sheriff Lane asked politely that he “get on with it.”

“He was privately educated, growing up during his first sixteen years without ever leaving his father’s ancestral estate except for a few infrequent visits to Craesti. His father, by the way, deceased since 1922, was a count, and his son inherited the title upon his death, a title now considered worthless since the communist takeover years ago. The money that went with the title is something else again.

“At sixteen, apparently having exhausted the local supply of tutors, the old count, Leo Vlad Skorzeny, sent his son bag and baggage to England to continue his education. How he got the youngster through the German and Allied lines is not known.

“There was, however, a record of his attending three years at a private school called Grimpen Academy in West Riding, England. It was located near the town of Green firth, some miles from Manchester. According to the report, the school was a cross between our universities and our junior colleges, embracing some facets of all the grades of instruction in between. A student could complete six years of study and obtain the equivalent of our country’s bachelor’s degree.

“Skorzeny completed nearly five years’ courses in three years. And, interestingly enough, during his stay at Grimpen, there were frequent mentions of cattle and sheep dying under mysterious circumstances, and disappearing, throughout the moor area for a radius of some tem miles. Also…” he paused, “there were five reported cases of young village girls disappearing and their bodies were never found. They are presumed to have stumbled into the quicksands of the moors and drowned. But that was never confirmed. The West Riding Constabulary had nothing further to offer on the subject.

“In 1919, Skorzeny returned home to help his father manage the family holdings and the old man soon fell ill. Skorzeny was rarely seen in the neighboring villages during his time in Rumania but there were a number of unexplained murders during 1919-1923… most that is, were assumed to be murders as the bodies were never found. Those that were found were found dead but there is no record of how they died.”

In view of how the police had quashed all mention of Skorzeny’s activities in Las Vegas, I wasn’t too surprised.

“After his father’s death–and there is no available medical report on the cause — Skorzeny inherited a fortune in jewels and cash estimated at between 75 million and 100 million dollars. He spent nearly a year in utmost total seclusion in his medieval castle, then closed it up and began to travel.

“His roamings took him throughout most of Eastern Europe and, though reports are very spotty here, he was known to be a lover of nightlife, making frequent appearances in some of the more seedy cafes of Budapest, Bucharest, Prague and the like. He was first reported seen in Berlin sometime in 1931, and was seen infrequently in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Bonn, and Munich, during the early 1930s.

“It is not recorded that he went on to any university to obtain a degree, which will prove interesting in light of his later activities. Nor is there any reason to believe he had any trade or business, not that he needed one with the money he had. He was free to go where and when he pleased from city to city, country to country. His passports always seemed in order and when they turned out to be false in some cases, no one brought prosecution against him as it was an old family name well known in Central Europe and a little more feared than respected.

“During his years in Germany there were a number of slayings of various individuals, who, through various misfortunes, came to violent ends without any apparent motive like robbery or sexual assault. Many of these cases were solved and ascribed to the likes of Peter Kurten, ‘Bloody George Grossman’ and the like. But many of the murders remain unsolved, and interestingly enough, there is very little information on most of them, especially on how the victims died. Do you think the police deliberately covered up the facts?”

Bernie smiled at the discomfort that filled the room. He seemed to slowly be taking over the meeting instead of merely delivering a report.

“Mr. St. Claire of our fair town has helped establish that Skorzeny was in Paris from 1937 through 1939 and a periodic patron of some of the clubs he (St. Claire) played in when he was half of a dance act.

“During these years there were a number of unexplained disappearances of young women in the Left Bank section of Paris. But this was not altogether an unusual occurrence and never at any time was there more than loose talk to the effect that Skorzeny might be involved. He was known in the area but he was never even picked up for questioning.

“With the outbreak of World War II, Skorzeny seems to have been prepared for flight well in advance for he escaped to England by private airplane and had taken up residence in a large townhouse in the Belgravia section of London just in time for the German blitz. As you might well imagine, bodies were in fresh supply in London just then and people disappeared under the rubble of bombed out buildings never to be seen again. In a moment you will understand why I stress this. And, Mr. Kolchak will find the following facts of interest, too, I’m sure.”

Such formality from a man who usually drank beer with me once a week!

“At his residence in Shafto Court, he seems to have installed several kinds of sumps, tubs, and an extremely large commercial walk-in meat freezer. Since the place survived the blitz, we were able to get a good look (through Scotland Yard’s investigators, of course) at its interiors. But more on that in a moment.”

He was really drawing it out for all it was worth.

“In 1945, he obtained British citizenship and listed his name as Dr. Paul Blasco, his occupation as a research specialist in pathology with a medical degree in Heidelberg dated 1927 and, it seems, no one checked this out because, of course, he has no degree and they never heard of him in Heidelberg.

“He set up some kind of small research lab in Pedelty Square but there is practically no information on that place except that he had conducted some kind of hematology research involving the use of freshly killed accident victims who died in emergency rooms around London.

“Around 1948 he visited Canada and acquired private residences in Ottawa, first, and later in Montreal and Vancouver, British Columbia. He has been seen infrequently during the past few years in all these cities and apparently still uses the name Dr. Paul Blasco. His papers, of course, are fakes, and the Canadian authorities are now on to him.

“In each of these cities there have been several unexplained disappearances and murders, but not so many as to cause more than a ripple of passing interest.

“Here is an interesting sidelight. In London, shortly before his first trip to Canada, there was a theft of large amounts of blood from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. And there have been records of similar thefts in Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver.

“He is believed to have left Vancouver, B.C., on or around April 10 of this year under the name of Detective Constable Alan Hensley, and under the guise of official emergency police business. There is a record of a man named Hensley boarding a Western Airlines Flight 761 on a first-class priority ticket at Vancouver International Airport on April 10, a Friday. This plane flew directly to Las Vegas with a scheduled arrival time of 9:48. Quite naturally, at that time of night on a Friday in Las Vegas, no one knew that he was at the airport because no one was looking for him, and the traffic flow is quite heavy.

“In my opinion, he chose Las Vegas for two reasons. First, it was a long jump but a quick one from Canada. Second, for a man who seems to go out only at night–and from all reports this seems true–this is the perfect town. Everybody’s up at night. And, most people are strictly interested in having a good time. No one notices strangers because Las Vegas lives on strangers.

“Another reason comes to mind. The fact that he paid cash for that car on the 18th. He could flash a lot of cash and no one would be suspicious. It’s common practice here. Some hotel bosses have been known to carry bankrolls of up to $25,000 in bills round in their pants pockets.

“Thus far, he has no criminal record either in Great Britain or in Canada, but the police officials of both countries would like to question him on several accounts, his forged documents being just a few of these.

“In Ottawa, he identified himself as a British subject from London. In Montreal he said he was the same, but also a registered alien in the U.S. awaiting citizenship and citing file number 17-447-B3 at the U.S. Department of Justice. We haven’t heard any confirmation or denial on that from them yet but our search reveals his presence in New York, Chicago, and Detroit during the rioting there, in fact, any place in the past few years along the U.S. Canadian border where there has been violence, confusion and a number of dead bodies. The information on his movements in this country is still far from complete and we have still got to circulate his picture to those who claim to have seen him.

“We can’t actually claim that violence and murder follow in his wake, at least not until now, but we feel certain that if we have enough time to dig far enough into his past, we will come up with all sorts of skeletons in his closet… and much more.

“A wire photo of his passport picture should be coming through from Ottawa by way of Washington at around 5:00 P.M. tonight if we’re lucky. By tomorrow at the latest. Meanwhile, in view of the recent local violence and the two missing person reports I have asked for and received permission from Washington to act officially as if the two disappearances are definite kidnappings and the director says to view them as having direct bearing on your problems until further notice.

“Because of Skorzeny’s British citizenship, he is now an international fugitive from justice with a federal warrant on his head and he comes under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, hence the FBI is now vitally interested in the final disposition of this case. It is no longer strictly a local matter. The police organization of several countries on two continents are watching and waiting for developments.”

“Fine,” said Sheriff Lane. “Now, how do you propose we catch him?”

“Before we move to that area,” Bernie cut him off, “I’d like to tell you all what was found at Skorzeny’s Shafto Court residence.”

Again he read from the thick stack of papers in his Manila folder.

“I…uh…did mention the sumps, tubs, and refrigerators, right? Ah, yes. Well, Scotland Yard’s CID found the refrigerator to contain large metal tables of the kind used in pathology work and on the floor, minute scrapings of what developed to be human blood. In this refrigerator they also found large metal hooks suspended from the ceiling, the kind butchers use to hang meat on. Minute pieces of skin removed from the points of these hooks proved to be pieces of human skin.

“The tanks were filled variously with lime and sulphuric acid. There is practically no way to determine what was in them, but in view of one other finding in the cellar furnace, that of a small lump of dentists’ gold, it is believed that Skorzeny was regularly using not only corpses obtained under legal means and otherwise, but that he may well be responsible for any number of unsolved disappearances and murders in the London area.

“If Skorzeny is not the ‘vampire’ of Mr. Kolchak’s theory, he is at the very least a likely suspect of multiple homicides extending back at least thirty years. According to the picture built up in these reports, he combines the bloodlust of Dusseldorf’s Peter Kurten with the subtlety and discretion of Paris’ Landru and the infamous Dr. Cream.

“Like Kurten, he seems to have been very active for some years, and may well have killed over one hundred people if his activities in Las Vegas are any indication. I believe that Kurten is credited with about thirty murders. While he has the money and ability to move from place to place at will, I think that time is running out for this ‘gentleman.’ There are just too many police officials, and communications and interagency cooperation too instantaneous for him to remain on the loose forever.”

“He seems to have done pretty well, so far,” I piped up.

Lane looked at me and then at Bernie. He was getting impatient even though he should have been glad to get this information. It supported what I’d been saying all along (to some extent, at least) and maybe that’s what set his teeth on edge.

“Have you got anything else, Bernie?”

“Well, I’d just like you all to reconsider the possibilities we have here. A man of extreme wealth and cunning, burning with some strange compulsion for blood and apparently, from his work here, having no scruples about how he obtains it. A man capable of buying ‘paid assistants’ whenever and wherever needed. A man who has used forgery successfully. A man who has used bribery repeatedly. A man who has used the potential embarrassment of various police agencies to his advantage. You know, there has never been a manhunt for him, that he’s never even been brought in for questioning once?

“Through all of this he appears to have moved through the past fifty years like some kind of phantom. Several people have claimed to have known him yet not one of these ‘knew’ him well enough to join him for dinner. None have ever visited any of his residences. Most didn’t even know where he lived.”

I interrupted Bernie at this point, fingering my report nervously.

“Bernie, you seem to be running this show. Can I have just five minutes to say something?”

He looked around the room and then at me. “Make it short, Kolchak.”

I hauled out my papers and gave a brief run-down to the assembled law officials on what I’d managed to dig up. When I concluded what was a very brief summation of all that reading I added a final plea.

“I know that everyone in this room, Bernie Fain included, thinks I’m some kind of a nut with my so-called fixation on this vampire thing. OK, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he only thinks he is. But there are things here that can’t be explained away by so-called common sense. Not even Bernie’s report can explain some of them.

“I was at the hospital yesterday.” I looked directly at Butcher. “Your own people fired maybe fifty or sixty rounds at him, some at point-blank range. How come this man never even slowed down? How come a man seventy years old can outrun police cars for more than fifteen blocks? How come when he gets clubbed on the head he doesn’t bleed like other people? Look at these photos! There’s a gash on his forehead… and whatever is trickling down from the cut is clear… it isn’t blood.

“How come three great, big, burly hospital orderlies weighing an estimated total of nearly 750 pounds couldn’t bring one, skinny 160 pound man to his knees? How come an ex-boxer, a light-heavyweight not long out of the ring, couldn’t even faze him with his best punch, a right hook that should have broken his jaw?

“Face it. Whether its science, witchcraft or black magic, this character has got something going for him you don’t know anything about. He doesn’t seem to feel pain. Or get winded. And he doesn’t seem to be very frightened by guns, or discouraged by your efforts to trap him.

“Look at these photos! Look at that face! That isn’t fear there. It’s hate. Pure hate! This man is evil incarnate. He is insane and he may be something even worse although you’d laugh at me because I have no scientific documentation to back me up. Hell, even Regenhaus and Mokurji have all but confirmed that he sucks blood.

“Whatever he is, he’s been around a long time and this seems to be the closest any police force has come to putting the finger on him. If you want to go on operating the way you’ve been doing by treating him like an ordinary man, go ahead. But, I’ll bet you any amount of money you come up empty handed again. If you try to catch him at night he’ll get away just like he did last night. He’ll…”

“Jesus Christ!” bellowed Butcher. “This son of a bitch has diarrhea of the mouth. Can’t one of you people shut him up? Bernie! For Chri…”

Paine cut him off. “No, I think we should let him talk. Let him hang himself with his own words. Then we’ll finally be rid of him.”

“I agree,” added Sheriff Lane. Then he turned to me.

“Kolchak, for most of your time here in Las Vegas you’ve been a pretty regular guy. You’ve reported things straight, and even when you found things that made us look a little silly, you’ve never pulled any cute moves. How come all of a sudden you’ve got this bug up your tail about this one particular guy? Why is it that you think you’re the only one who knows how to handle this thing?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m not afraid to consider the possibilities beyond the normal range of police experience. My God. Think of the things that have been believed impossible that proved otherwise. Man couldn’t fly. Couldn’t leave the earth. Couldn’t be revived after death. Hell, in the field of organ transplants alone doctors are doing what Mary Shelley wrote about a hundred and fifty years ago in Frankenstein, they’re giving people new kidneys, new eyes, new hearts. There are lower animals that regenerate broken and lost pieces of their bodies. Scientists don’t know how.

“On a large scale we’ve harnessed the power of the sun… and created an almost limitless source of energy. A few decades ago, that was thought impossible. On a man to man basis… uh… well, take unarmed combat for instance. Any fool knows a brick is harder than a man’s hand. Well, practitioners of Karate have proved that wrong. Your parents never heard of Judo. When you were young, if someone’d told you you could bust bricks with your hands you’d have through he was nuts. Today, any ten-year-old kid knows this is true.

“So how come you don’t admit you’re up against something that doesn’t conform to all your precious rules and concepts? Or is it that you’re already beginning to believe I’m right? That maybe there is such a thing as a vampire? Is that why you’re all so scared that the public might find out about how those people died? Are you so afraid of looking stupid that you’d ignore a possible way of nailing this guy?

“You guys muffed it yesterday and the whole story is in the papers today. Your time is running out and you’d better get this Skorzeny fella pretty soon or someone’s going to start screaming for a grand jury investigation. You can’t stop the rumors. They’re all over the place.

“I wasn’t even in on the first killing but one little guy at County General talked about the lack of blood. That led me to the Willows and the fang marks. Dr. Mokurji’s report made the rumor a fact.

“This guy drinks human blood!”

D.A. Paine finally held up his hand in a “stop” motion and I ran out of breath long enough for him to cut me off.

“We have kept this thing from the public because we want to avoid a panic.”

“Bull,” I muttered.

“And, because we don’t want to look any more ineffectual than we already do.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I told him.

“What’s more, we like to handle our own affairs. Where crime syndicates are involved we are very happy to cooperate with the federal authorities as Bernie here can testify. Everyone here knows where I stand on crime.”

I was sure he was about to launch into another campaign speech, but he surprised me.

“But,” he went on, “if the public ever thinks we can’t handle our own local problems… commonplace stuff like murder and robbery…”

I could see he had ignored everything that had been said.

“Commonplace!” I was becoming slightly hysterical now. “Commonplace! You call these murders commonplace? You call a bulletproof man who can outrun an automobile at low speeds commonplace? You call what you’ve been doing handling the situation?”

He let me rant until I finally ran down and fell silent. I knew they were all sure I was crazy, now. Paine opened his big mouth, sucked in air loudly, and jumped right in.

“I repeat, if the public, which is already divided on whether or not police are the ‘good guys’ or club-wielding ‘pigs,’ if they ever lose confidence in our ability to handle this thing… and their finding out how these girls died might just supply the final ingredient for that… There’d be so goddamn many of them running around half-cocked and packing all kinds of weapons for ‘self-defense’ that our job of tracking this man down would be impossible, let alone attempting to prosecute him, they’d… they’d panic for sure. We might even get into such a fix we’d have to call for federal troops.”

And I thought I was hysterical. Federal troops, yet!

“And,” he droned on, “in all this confusion, this guy could give us the slip with no trouble at all.”

“Sure,” I told him. “That’s what Hitler said back in Munich in ’32. Law and order. Tell the people what’s good for them. So tell me, Mr. Paine, what lever are you using on my boss to get this story killed?”

Paine glowered at me.

“No, I don’t think I will explain that, as it is irrelevant. All you have to know is that we have and if we could have killed those stories altogether, we would have done so. Especially after we had those coroner’s reports. But, then, this is a free country [he didn’t sound exactly overjoyed that that prospect] and you can’t entirely muzzle the press.”

“You’ve done pretty well so far,” I told him.

“And we will continue to do so with voluntary cooperation from all parties until we get this man behind bars or until he is dead. After we get him you can write anything your little heart desires, Kolchak. But until then, the blackout stands. Now, if you have nothing further to offer, I will repeat for the final time: Keep your mouth shut, take notes and do your job or you will be thrown out permanently and replaced with some other representative of the Daily News.

“By God, Kolchak, if I have to, I will have your police press pass pulled and get Jake Herman to reassign you to covering the meetings of the Citizens for Decent Literature and the Humane Society. Do you read me?”

“Five by five, mein fuhrer. You have my word. I’ll be a good little boy. Just remember who’s got the answers when you blow it again. Oh…” and I gave him the V-sign, “peace.”

Lane stretched his legs and sighed. “Bernie, what are the 1969 averages for violent crimes in America?”

Bernie ticked them off by rote: “One violent crime every forty-eight seconds. One aggravated assault every two minutes. One theft every two minutes. One rape every fourteen minutes. And one murder every thirty-six minutes.”

“And the FBI contends that in many of the categories Las Vegas is significantly higher?”

“Correct.”

“For years,” Lane went on, “the federal government has been itching to close this town up, maintaining that the gambling causes a greater influx of criminal types into this area and implying we can’t handle our jobs. No disrespect intended, Bernie, or any lack of appreciation for what your people are now doing, but surely you can see how vital it is to this town and to each of us here personally to get this job done with a minimum of fuss and public interference.”

“Well, I can see,” answered Bernie, “that this Janos Skorzeny is creating his own set of statistics and that they’re staggering. He’s committed at least ten aggravated assaults, five murders, two thefts, and God knows what else in the past twenty-six days.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Bernie.” Lane looked around the room. “I don’t have to remind all of you that it is nearing election time. Tom Paine here and I are both up for re-election. If we botch this thing we could end up on the street. And,” he looked at Butcher, “so could you, Paul. Yours is an appointed office. You could be canned overnight. So let’s get on with business and turn this session over to Captain Masterson who is the operational head of the combined force. Let’s see what we’ve got so far and what changes have to be made.”

Masterson lugged a bunch of charts and maps to an easel being set up by a deputy in the front of the room. “Our two departments have a combined total of six hundred and fifty men and thirty-seven reservists on full-time duty plus another twenty-six trainees who could, in a pinch, man the desks to free that many more for field work. We’ve got the helicopter going from dusk to dawn, as many men as possible in patrol cars and we’ve beefed up our beat patrolmen on foot. All leaves have been cancelled, all personnel including the women field operators are on twelve-hour call. Most of the top people in both departments are putting in nearly sixteen hours a day.

“Today, we took the chopper to Nellis Air Force Base and it was fitted out with a Homans infrared multispex camera and a special, experimental radar unit they’re testing which can focus on an object one square foot in size up to a distance of almost ten miles. With this equipment, and continued night patrols, we can spot our suspect and if he tries to run, locate and lock onto him. If he takes to hiding in a building or goes underground we simply log the location and move in with ground units.

“We’ve taken this precaution because from his MO he is a night crawler and we’re going to need this stuff to spot him. So far, there have been no reports of any activity by him during the daytime.

“We’ve got his car, the white Chevy, but that’s no guarantee he hasn’t stolen another one. There have been several thefts in the past 48 hours. God knows if he’s responsible for any of them. We’ve got to assume the worst and that he’s got wheels and is still highly mobile.

“We’ve marked off certain areas, mostly around Casino Center and along the Strip and these are being patrolled at night by plainclothesmen in unmarked cars.”

“What about the roadblocks?” asked Lane.

“Well, we’ve asked for help from the highway patrol but, as you know, they’re desperately understaffed. The most they can muster on twelve-hour shifts is about twenty men for the whole county.”

“All right,” said Lane. “Have them block off all the main arteries–Interstate 15, the Tonopah Highway and the Boulder Highway. I’ll activate the jeep posse and get as many as possible armed and out on some of the bigger main roads in a radius of, say, three to three and a half miles from the center of town.” He got up and pointed to one of the maps.

“We can have them cover points on Craig and Sunset roads to the north and south, and on Rainbow and Nellis boulevards to the east and west. They have radios and can be used to close the net if this guy is spotted and gets through our primary police lines. And they’re good over rough terrain, even at night. They can follow tracks and go places in those jeeps he could only go on foot if he makes a break and runs off the regular roads somewhere along the line.

“I think that’s about as close as we can get, what with checking all incoming and outgoing travelers–as close as we can get to sealing off this town. I’d hate to resort to a general curfew but let’s start cracking down on the kids under eighteen. If necessary, we can cut the midnight curfew on Friday and Saturday back to ten o’clock.”

“Good,” said Butcher. “Let’s do it and give that news out to the media people now. Best the ranks of kids are thinned out after dark as much as possible. We’ve had two girls disappear in the past few days and both are under twenty-one. I’d hate to see any more drop from sight.”

Bernie spoke up. “Has anything turned up on those girls that our people missed?”

“Nothing,” came the answer. And there’d been no calls from anyone who’d reported seeing Carolyn Riegel since she’d disappeared. But the PD and the sheriff’s office were busy checking out all sorts of false reports as to the sightings of Skorzeny in every part of town from Charleston Heights to College Park.

They also knew by now, Lorna Frontiere, of the UP wire service, had produced nearly a month’s worth of stories on the “Mystery Murderer of Las Vegas” which went out to all parts of the country, and someone at the meeting, I forget exactly who, mentioned that the publicity was doing the town no good.

“Memorial Day weekend is just six days off,” Butcher observed, “counting Friday as the day they should really start rolling in here. All those tourists are just going to make this thing that much harder.”

“I would hope to hell that we’ll have him long before that!” Lane shot back. “We’ve already had one hell of a local recession since the stocks took that nosedive and if this goes on much longer, people are going to start staying away from here in droves. I haven’t heard too much about cancellations from the hotel people, but the big boys on the Strip are getting anxious and my phone has been ringing for three days. They want action and they want it now!

“The situation is bad enough, but if we can grab this nut before the big weekend and let the world know we’ve got him in custody–nailed to the jailhouse wall, so to speak–I think we’ll come out of this thing all right. But we’ve got to work fast, now that we’ve got all this stuff from Bernie to go on. Officially, to all outsiders, this guy’s still classified as an ordinary maniac,” he chuckled ruefully, “if any homicidal killer can be classified as ordinary.”

Then came out one of those slips of the tongue that every newsman worth his salt dreams about.

“What’s been done about the victims down at the morgue?” asked Butcher. (It was a euphemistic reference to The Willows because, as I pointed out earlier, Las Vegas doesn’t really have a morgue.)

Paine looked inordinately pleased with himself and by now everyone had shifted and paced about so much that I was off to one side and just out of sight.

“Everything’s been handled very nicely. The Hughes girl had no other relatives other than the ex-husband in Desplaines, so we had her cremated. The same goes for the Hanochek woman. As for Mrs. Reynolds, her husband flew out here two days ago. We had a little talk with him and persuaded him to hold a closed-casket funeral at The Willows and it went off quietly. Then she was cremated at our suggestion. No one’s turned up to claim Hemphill, so I think we can get rid of him tomorrow. We had some plastic work done on the Branden girl’s neck to make the punctures look like a bad slash that was sewed up by a doctor. We shipped her body to her old man in Florida.”

Well, there it was. All neat and tidy. Now, I thought, if only the two girls were found alive, everything would be just fine. The distraught parents could be “persuaded” not to ask too many questions and it would be certain that some believable explanation would be found if they were discovered dead in the same way as the first five; some explanation that would be readily accepted by the survivors, none of whom, I was certain, would be thinking about demanding a copy of the coroner’s report. (Not that it would have done them much good, since I later found out the reports had been altered.)

The county commissioners, whose function was, in part, to supervise these “dedicated lawmen,” would prove no problem. They were all pretty much of the same persuasion, punched out of the same cookie cutter. The D.A. had a brother on the commission, and the sheriff, a cousin. The same applied to the city commissioners. One of them was related by marriage to both the D.A. and the sheriff, and also a top-ranking state senator. Between Laine and Paine (Inc.) they had one relative and two other solid connections on County General’s board of trustees and they could be effective in silencing any comment from the pathology department should anyone down there decide to start blabbing. They had already quietly removed McManus and Netski and both had left town.

All in the name of what? Suppressing a panic? Saving the tourist industry of Las Vegas? Or just a little election time insurance and the sheer pleasure of exercising power?

It’s a well-known fact that periodically some columnist in a newspaper or some magazine writes a new expose on “Sin City USA: Las Vegas,” dredging up all the old Mafia stories and mixing in a little prostitution for spice–as if there weren’t Mafiosi and prostitutes operating everywhere else in the country. And every time this happens the hotel-casino operators get burned a little bit more. New scars over old, even though a number of them are as straight as doctors and as sober as judges. But through it all, they remain for the most part private citizens. What these exposes really do (when they’re done right) is hurt the local politicos. They can make them look very foolish, when, as Paine put it, they seem unable to “handle” their jobs.

Now, Paine, more than all the rest, knows the value of good publicity. He never misses and opportunity to be quoted on almost any issue that is in any way newsworthy, no matter how trivial, from the “intended vulgarity” at the end of the first act of “Hair” to the “drug-oriented advocacy of certain popular rock songs.” In fact, he manages to get quoted on something almost daily in the local press and almost four times a week on the air. And every time some well-known entertainer gets drunk and flies off the handle in public in Las Vegas, D.A. Paine is right on hand through the auspices of network television to express the desire to look into said entertainer’s connections with the “underworld.” And not that his malapropisms stop him from getting all this publicity. Oh, he gets his “tang tungled” in excess verbiage, but the media all over the country laps it up and it feeds his ever-expanding ego.

He will hold forth on how pornography drives “secret masturbators” to go out in the dead of night and rape helpless twelve-year-olds” even though almost the entire body of scientific evidence now available in this country contradicts him. And the papers carry it verbatim.

In the nearly eleven months of fiscal 1969-1970, Paine had made the Daily News 283 times, 250 of them on the front page. (I checked the files to make sure of this.) Only God and our “librarian” know how many times he has made the local columns on both papers. Why, his “Pot is ROT!” signs on all local bus stop benches actually made all three big national news magazines. Oh, no indeed! If for no other reason, as far as I could see, Paine (and his “associates”) would have to wrap this thing up in a neat little bundle for the sake of his own self-aggrandizement he had already started by (A) clamping down on the free press, and (B) getting rid of the bodies and (C) falsifying the coroner’s reports.

Why, he might even be governor someday.

While a crazed killer roamed the streets of Las Vegas at will, Paine actually found time to compose and distribute a campaign handbill that, among other things, informed the citizens of Clark County that he was “weary of paying taxes just to support flower children with social disease, college anarchists, welfare hoboes and long haired, bisexual love people.” And, in addition to all this, he kept up his activities as the president of the most exclusive stag film club in town while simultaneously ordering a crackdown on publicly patronized “adult entertainment” film houses.

I know, I know, It’s more digression. But there it was. A crazed killer on the loose. An election year in Las Vegas. And the Devil takes the hindmost.

CHAPTER 15

To make up for that last tirade, I’ll cut this part short by saying I left when the meeting broke up and made my report to Vincenzo.

Luck was running as usual and nothing turned up that night or on Friday night.

During the entire weekend the only stories we could come up with were “POLICE REPORT PROGRESS IN TRACING KILLER” and a lot of copy detailing those efforts that weren’t censored. But this lack of news had the opposite effect from what our city-hall geniuses intended. There actually started to be a small rumble from the general public, and on a weekend no less! They were getting nervous. How long, they wanted to know, was this stupid manhunt going to continue?

By Monday, the twenty-fourth, there were piles of letters in our office with complaints, demands for a re-call and several sure-fire suggestions on how to trap the “fiendish slayer of innocents,” a phrase I lifted from one sweet (assumed) little old lady saloonkeeper and (confirmed) ex-cooch dancer of the preprohibition era. But it seemed the killer had either managed to sneak out of town or had gone underground to drink his stolen blood in peace and safety. And there was still no word on the two missing girls.

There were, however, frequent reports of the “tall man,” Skorzeny, being sighted in all parts of Las Vegas from Huntridge to the Stardust Golf Course. Every single report had to be checked out and all turned out to be false alarm–calls from frightened housewives and cranks and kids who thought they’d have some fun putting on the “fuzz.” These latter ones were dealt with severely.

Tuesday came and was fast waning with still no progress in sight. The jeep posse had been relieved of picket duty Monday morning and there was another briefing scheduled, this time in the combined-forces HQ in the sheriff’s office at 8:30 P.M.

CHAPTER 16

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1970

NIGHT

Bernie sat there looking glum. He may have had more authority now–a nominal leadership of sorts in the operation–but the meeting still appeared to be dominated by would-be politicians in perpetuity, no lawmen.

Paine started in. “I think the time has come, gentlemen, to decide whether or not to continue with this farce any longer. It’s my best guess our bird has flown the coop. There hasn’t been a ripple since Thursday night.

“I say let’s tell the press we have reason to believe he’s slipped through to California and throw it on Ev Younger’s shoulders. That way we’ll only look bad for missing his escape. Hell, Scotland Yard, the police forces of three cities in Canada and that fancy organization .. uh whatzit, Innerpol? Whatever. They all let him slip through their fingers. Let someone else get stuck with the bag.”

“And,” Butcher aped, “we would also be able to assure the people in town that Las Vegas is now free from danger and…”

“Don’t be such idiots,” Lane snapped. “It won’t wash and we all know it. We’ve still got our deal with the papers and we’re not exactly being crucified by the wire services.

“I say we continue the surveillance and hope he makes some kind of move in the next twenty-four hours so we can wrap this thing up once and for all. In fact, it’s our only hope. We can’t clamp a lid on this town just before one of our biggest holiday weekends.”

Why the sweat about the loss of a few frightened tourists? Hey, they’d stayed in town during our cab wars when shotguns were being fired out car windows and that was a helluva lot more dangerous to the average vacationer than this situation.

No, damnit! “The boys” were still playing politics. But suddenly their decision was made for them. Combined forces HQ got a radio report that the suspect had been spotted near an apartment building at Rexford and Ellen just south of Oakey. A patrol car was tracking him. About thirty seconds later came another report. ID confirmed. Positive visual contact. He was driving, of all things, a taxicab, heading across Oakey and north on Houssels. The cab, of course, was stolen and a later check revealed it has been snatched right off the company’s lot only the night before.

The prowl car reported the cab was just cruising. It had just pulled past him when he noticed the driver’s face and checked the eight-by-ten photo next to him on the seat. Apparently, Skorzeny hadn’t noticed the prowl care which was moving at about twenty miles an hour behind him about half a block away with its headlights out.

Orders were issued immediately. Two units were called up to seal off Rexford and Houssels at Oakey, another to close off Park Paseo at Las Vegas Boulevard and Sixth Street. More units were ordered to blockade Fifth Place and Sixth Street at Oakey, and Sweeney and Griffith at Sixth. This effectively closed off a four-by-six block area of upper-middle-class homes ranging in worth from $35,000 to $80,000 in a neighborhood built up mostly in the past twelve years. With variations in design caused by different builders in the course of the years, all but two of the homes were single level and most were stucco with gravel or rock roofs.

The chopper was launched and took little more than forty seconds to come buzzing like an angry dragonfly over the designated area. It arrived just as the cab turned east on Sweeney between Houssels and Fifth Place. It was now moving a bare five miles an hour and for all intents and purposes might have been a driver on call looking for an address.

As the cab turned onto Sweeney the car at Rexford was pulled off duty and told to stand by. The cars on Park Paseo at Las Vegas Boulevard and Sixth moved up to face each other at Fifth Place.

The car at Oakey and Fifth Place started to crawl north on an intercept course with the cab. Units at Sweeney and Griffith moved forward one block to Fifth Place and the spare car on Oakey was ordered to nip around Sixth Street and come up on Bracken to Fifth Place.

Skorzeny was now “contained” on Fifth Place in an area just under three blocks long with exits only on Sweeney and Park Paseo. He slowly turned north on Fifth Place.

The units converged with the Braken unit pulling onto Fifth Place and moving up to parallel the first unit which had followed Skorzeny down Houssels. Meanwhile, the Griffith unit raced around to Park Paseo to replace the car that had moved forward to Fifth Place. A backup unit on regular patrol on Las Vegas Boulevard was ordered to block Park Paseo at the boulevard intersection.

Skorzeny was almost directly in front of number 1313, a pink, stucco structure on the east side of the street. Like the others, it had a white-gravel roof. One bedroom window and one den window faced the street with a carport on its southwest corner and a circular driveway in front.

Skorzeny had now stopped. From the radio messages that crackled over our receiver it was obvious he’d spotted the patrol cars.

All this time the chopper hovered overhead, the thpthp-thp-thp of its rotors causing the curious residents in several homes to come to their windows. The patrol cars had edged to within 100 feet of the cab from both ends of the street

[What follows in this report was garnered “after the fact” by a lengthy debriefing near sunrise the following morning. J.R.]

Skorzeny turned off his engine and killed his headlights. Then he bolted out of the passenger side of the cab toward the carport of 1313, dodging between a two-door hardtop and a pickup truck. He came to the stucco-backed wall of the carport and ripped the knees of his trousers climbing over the truck’s bumper. He found a sturdy wooden gate set into a wood and fiberglass fence at the edge of the carport. He came upon the gate locked from the other side, backed off a few feet, and slammed into it with his shoulder just as the first police officers hit the driveway.

Skorzeny found himself in an area about seven-feet wide and eighteen feet long. To his right, garbage cans. To his left, the water tower to the house’s air conditioner. Ahead of him another wooden gate, locked from the other side. With a swipe of his hand he scattered the garbage cans and lunged at the second gate as the first two officers came within six feet of him, pistols drawn. The nearest one bellowed, “Police! Freeze, mister!” but Skorzeny, carried by the force of his leap, had plunged through the gate and stumbled on the single concrete step that led to the backyard, a bricked-over affair with a large, kidney-shaped pool.

He landed face down and started to rise as the first cop grabbed his legs. He kicked out and the second cop leaped over him and shoved his Highway Patrolman Magnum against Skorzeny’s temple.

“Just hold it right there, mister, or I’ll blow your head off.”

Later, the officer who confided that statement to me added, “The s.o.b. just stiffened and then relaxed. It put us off guard. We had him rolled over on his back and were just getting the cuffs out when he moved like a rattler striking. He grabbed my gun, which threw me off balance. He kicked my partner in the groin and grabbed my shirt, pulling me over him.

“My gun went off twice and I’d swear at least one slug hit him square in the chest. But he just hung on, like a vise, scrambled to his feet and dragged me along with him. Hell, I’m no midget. I weigh almost 220. Then he slammed me one across the side of the head open handed, and I went out like a light.”

Two other officers piled in at this point, the first tripping over the cop on the ground clutching his groin. The second jumped over both of them and made a running tackle at Skorzeny, knocking him head first over the diving board. When the uninjured cop got to his feet he ran over and piled on top of the two figures who were rolling on the rough brick surface of the yard. One cop was on his stomach with Skorzeny lying atop him ramming the cop’s head repeatedly into the bricks. The other cop was straddling Skorzeny and pistol-whipping him across the back of his skull.

Skorzeny made a half-successful leap to get free, but the last pistol-blow staggered him and he landed, twisting, in the pool, sinking straight to the bottom. By now the pool was surrounded with officers, two holding shotguns and several more with pistols trained on the pool. The only man still out of action was the one who was knocked unconscious, Stanley J. Wilson. He had been dragged to safety in the garbage-strewn passageway.

An unidentified cop leaped into the pool to drag Skorzeny out and the water started to splash over the edge. Although they couldn’t see clearly, the cops watched horrified as Skorzeny wrapped his spider-like arms and legs around the cop and calmly proceeded to drown him. They couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting one of their own men, so two more dropped their guns and jumped in. The water was now splashing over the pool coping and into the brick drainage holes.

While this was going on, the homeowner, a contractor named Ford, had come to his poolside sliding door armed with a shotgun and turned on the pool light and the patio lights. He slid open the door, saw what was going on and stood there with his mouth hanging open.

It was getting difficult to see exactly what was going on in the pool and a fourth officer jumped in as one came up with the unconscious form of the first cop. While others pulled the half-drowned man from the pool, three more wrestled Skorzeny to the surface and dragged him to the steps at the shallow end of the pool. He wasn’t struggling any longer. Nor was he breathing with any apparent difficulty. The biggest of the three cops later admitted to punching him as hard as he could in the stomach and Skorzeny doubled over. Another half-dragged him , still on his feet, shirt torn, jacket ripped, out of the pool and put a handcuff on his left wrist.

Skorzeny pulled his arm away from the cop and, suddenly straightening, elbow-jabbed him in the gut, sending him sprawling and rolling back into the pool. Skorzeny turned toward the back fence and was now between the pool and a small palm tree. Before him were two advancing officers, pistols leveled. Behind him two more circled the pool. Skorzeny lunged forward and all fired simultaneously. The noise was deafening. Lights in neighboring houses began to go on.

Skorzeny’s body twitched and bucked as the heavy slugs ripped through his body. His forward momentum carried him into the officers ahead of him and he half-crawled, half-staggered to the southeast corner of the yard where another gate was set into the fiberglass fencing. Two more officers, across the pool, cut loose with their pistols, emptying them into this writing body which danced like a puppet. Another cop fired two shots from his pump-action shotgun and Skorzeny was lifted clean off his feet and slammed against the gate, sagging to the ground.

En masse from both ends of the pool they advanced, when he gave out with a terrible hissing snarl and started to rise once more. All movement ceased as the cops, to a man, stood frozen in their tracks. Skorzeny stood there like some hideous caricature, his shredding clothing and skin hanging like limp rags from his scarecrow form. His flesh was ripped in several places and he was oozing something that looked like watered-down blood. It was pinkish and transparent. He stood there like a living nightmare. Then he straightened and raised the fist with the cuff still dangling from it like a charm bracelet.

“Fools!” he shrieked. “You can’t kill me. You can’t even hurt me.”

Overhead, the copter hovered, the copilot giving a blow-by-blow description of the fight over the radio. The police on the ground were paralyzed. Nearly thirty shots had been fired (the bullets later tallied in reports turned in by the participating officers) and their quarry was still as strong as ever. He’d been hit repeatedly in the head and legs, so a bulletproof vest wasn’t the answer. And at distances sometimes as little as five feet, they could hardly have missed. They’d seen him hit.

They stood frozen in an eerie tableau as the still roiling pool water threw weird reflections all over the yard.

Then Skorzeny did the most frightening thing of all. He smiled. A red-rimmed, hideous grin revealing fangs that “would have done justice to a Doberman Pinscher.”

He kicked the gate off its hinges and plunged out to the easement behind the fence, its three-foot high growth of weeks tangling in his legs. To his right was a low fence that gave onto an empty lot leading to Sixth Street. He vaulted over and headed out toward the street. He had already crossed the sidewalk and was heading north toward Franklin Avenue before the first officers reached the easement.

Since all the available patrol cars had been pulled into Fifth Place, and there was only one man who’d been able to think quickly enough to radio what was happening–the chopper’s copilot–there was a delay of almost a full minute before the ground units started to backtrack and head for Sixth and Franklin.

Meanwhile, the chopped, its infrared Homans camera continuing to record the unbelievable scene below, followed the scarecrow figure of Skorzeny as he dashed past on Franklin. The copilot aimed a bullhorn at him and shouted “Halt! Police! You are surrounded! You can’t get away!”

Skorzeny continued to move at an astounding pace, racing halfway past John S. Park Elementary School before the first patrol car caught sight of him as it tore down Franklin with its sirens shattering the once-peaceful night. He rounded the corner at Tenth and Franklin, jumped across a lawn and headed east again. Somewhere along the line he stopped and ducked behind a car or tree because the prowl car passed by him and reached the T-end at Eleventh Street without sighting him. The prowl car skidded to a halt sideways, effectively blocking that end of the street. The driver radioed his position, called for a backup unit to block off the other end. Then he and his partner left the car, his partner carrying the shotgun while he took the south side of the street, his Magnum drawn and ready. Slowly, working both sides of the sidewalkless street, they advanced and had reached perhaps 100 yards into the street when the backup unit careened to a tire-burning halt at the opposite end.

As the second patrol car came to a halt the officer with the shotgun passed by a tree and was silently yanked off his feet by an iron grip around his neck and arm. He was knocked down and relieved of his weapon. In the space of five seconds Skorzeny had managed to don the officer’s crash helmet and had begun paralleling the man’s partner across the street. When the cop asked, “See anything?” Skorzeny answered, “No,” and kept moving.

The unsuspecting officer said, “OK. Hold your position until more units get here.” Meanwhile the chopper pilots had somehow lost their fix on the suspect and were hovering placidly overhead radioing that the suspect had to still be in that one-block area. Ground units moved in to seal off Franklin.

Over the radios and walkie-talkies the order went out to start a house by house advance from Franklin and Bracken toward Wengert, through backyards and over fences. Sticking to the shadows, Skorzeny held his position while the noise of the advancing officers started to awaken the neighborhood residents and lights begin to flick on in homes along the three streets. Skorzeny, still wearing the fallen cop’s helmet and carrying his shotgun, started to slowly walk back toward the abandoned patrol car on Eleventh Street. He had almost reached it when his “partner” called out, “Where the hell are you going?”

He didn’t answer. He threw the helmet aside and leaped for the car, throwing the shotgun across the front seat and slamming the door. The other officer started back toward Eleventh at a dogtrot as the heavy Mercury cruiser roared off down the street. By the time he reached the corner, Skorzeny had turned left on Oakey and right again on Maryland Parkway and was racing toward the County Line at Sahara Avenue.

The men in the helicopter, still trying to figure out who was doing what down below, were still hovering over Wengert as Skorzeny roared across Sahara, turned down LaCanada and drove to Vegas Valley where he simply disappeared.

In all, the entire episode from the first reported contact until Skorzeny disappeared down Maryland Parkway took just twenty minutes.

The chopper circled the area in ever-widening circles while the hapless police officers milled around below giving and receiving conflicting orders. One of them tripped on a bulky object near a tree on the north side of Wengert that turned out to be the body of a rookie officer named Gordon Campbell, twenty-three. He had a broken neck and was quite dead.

One more victim for the killer. And another memorial picture for the Police Headquarters wall.

CHAPTER 17

TUESDAY, MAY 26–WEDNESDAY MAY 27

MIDNIGHT

Skorzeny, appropriately enough, had last been sighted at around midnight when he stole the patrol car. I had gotten this whole episode second hand by listening to the radio reports and filling two notebooks full of shorthand scribbles. I knew a de-briefing would be coming so I slipped into an adjoining office and got a line to the Daily News. Vincenzo had gone home but someone had caught Meyer before he could leave and told him there was a lot of noise on the PD squawk box. He’d sat there scribbling furiously and sent for the one remaining copyboy to get hold of Cairncross at home and have him call the office.

Cairncross did so about five minutes later and around the time Skorzeny fell in the pool at 1313 Fifth Place he told Meyer to keep on it and that I must still be down at the sheriff’s office. He said he was personally coming down to oversee the replating of the front page, and he cursed a blue streak that there were no photographs available. Meyer reminded him it was his order that sent them home at 10:00 P.M. They had just left barely twenty minutes before–the first one that is, a straggler named Lighter who had been fooling around with some shorts for a Sunday feature.

Smith was unavailable. So was Temcek. When I got hold of Meyer I gave him what information I had and told him I was sticking around to hear how the “brains” were going to explain what I had already mentally titled “Butcher’s Folly.” I swore to myself I’d put together a book on this if they killed my story another time and I guess this is the result.

After fifteen minutes, all the units were called in and others who were available were ordered to replace them on patrol. Every available officer who’d taken part in the operation was summoned to the sheriff’s office for a debriefing session. There were so many coming in with their clipboards that they held the meeting on the second floor in the county commission chambers. While the voices became more and more heated, I sat there smugly taking notes. I didn’t open my mouth once. And when it was all over (about 2:45 A.M.) I stood up and very quietly asked: “Now, does anybody want to listen to my ‘crazy ideas’? Are you ready to learn how to stop this unstoppable man?”

They looked at me through slitted eyes as if I was an Eichmann or a Bormann suddenly sprung up in their midst to remind them of their collective guilt and incompetence. Some of them had been following the chase. Some (Paine among them), I learned later, had glanced through my report and were mentally braced for what I had to say. The sheriff kicked off his cowboy boots and slumped back in the plush swivel chair to the right of the commission chairman’s seat.

“Why the hell not? C’mon boys, let’s hear what our ‘monster expert’ has to say. Maybe if he finally gets it off his chest he’ll let us all get back to work. Enlighten us, Kolchak. What do you know that we don’t know? You’ve got your chance. Go ahead.”

I was feeling good. I had them at last. “Have you got an opaque projector around here?”

One of the deputies nodded and pointed to the rear of the room.

“OK, set it up please.”

I approached the podium and switched on the microphone. “Sit down and take a load off your feet, gentlemen. This is going to take a while and when I’m through either you’ll lock me up and throw away the key or you’ll finally agree that I’m making some sense and you’ll try things my way.”

I inserted the first page of my report into the projector.

“Pay close attention now. There’ll be a quiz next period.” And I went into my spiel. They read every page while I used a little light-gun pointer to indicate the more important passages. There were a few grunts of disapproval but at the end of nearly an hour, after emphasizing the material on vampires, I knew I at least had them as long as I could keep talking. Right now they were glad to stop thinking even for a short while on how miserably the night had gone.

“Now,” I concluded the lecture grandly, “are you ready for some recommendations on how to stop this man the next time he strikes?”

“Why not?” Lane drawled again. “We’ve sat all through this. And, I think we’ve got to admit that tonight’s operation was not exactly a shining hour in police history.” He looked meaningfully at Butcher who burped and lit his twentieth cigarette of the evening. It occurred to me that lung cancer might finish him before the facts could ever be made public. And that would be a real pity.

I started in again. “Some of you may have read the report I left with Chief Butcher and Sheriff Lane. Now you’ve all had a chance to read it closely. And, as you’ve seen, according to legend, there are certain ways of dealing with vampires that are considered ‘traditional’ and effective. I am going to recommend these methods be used.

“But first I would like it understood that you will have to regard this man Skorzeny as a real vampire…”

Butcher started to interrupt but Lane cut him off.

“Go on, Kolchak.”

I felt great! I was on top of the situation at last.

“OK. First, every man on field duty must be armed with the following items: a cross blessed by a Catholic priest, another one similarly blessed to be worn around each officer’s neck, a small unbreakable vial of Holy Water from any Catholic church–an aluminum cigar tube will do…”

“What the hell is this junk?” Butcher putting in his two cents’ worth as usual.

Paine, too, who had been silent up till now, had to get into the act. “Oh, let him finish and then we can all go home. Tomorrow morning I’m going to call Jake Herman and have this creep fired.”

I shot him a look. “To continue: every man should also be armed with a wooden stake–a good hardwood, one that won’t shatter or splinter. It should be at least two inches thick at the butt end and taper to a nice sharp point. Also a broad-headed mallet. The kind of hammer used in bodyshops, the rubber-headed kind is good. Something handy enough to be carried around by hand. Not a sledge.”

“You aren’t suggesting by any chance that we pound a stake through his heart, are you?” Lane asked with a chuckle.

“That is exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“That would be premeditated murder, Mr. Kolchak. Highly illegal.”

Paine spoke up. “If we can catch him, Kolchak, we want to bring him to trial.” Political coin for the D.A.

“What makes you think you’ll ever take him alive?” I asked.

There was no answer.

“Well, any of you people have any better ideas?”

Again, silence.

God, I was feeling powerful.

“Look at what happened last night. You people surrounded him. Slugged him. Pistol-whipped him. Half-drowned him. Shot him all to hell. And what happened? Nothing. Aren’t you finally getting the message? He doesn’t feel pain and bullets don’t stop him. Neither does buckshot.” I also reminded them that he was supposed to be seventy years old. “He’s pretty spry for an old codger that should be on Medicare, isn’t he?”

Butcher spoke up again. “You’re tellin’ us we’ve got to go on a vampire hunt like in the movies?”

“You’re catching on, Chief.”

“I’m not just going to have you fired,” said Paine, “I’m going to have you committed.”

“Even if we went along with this crazy idea of yours, we’d be the laughing stock of the entire country if it ever got out,” said Butcher.

Lane spoke up. “Take it easy, Paul. We’ve kept the worst of this quiet so far. We can keep it quiet a little while longer. Just where are you headed with this idea of yours, Kolchak?”

“Look, Sheriff… your people have all the necessary gear to track this character. Sooner or later you’re going to get a break and find out where he’s hiding. Stake out the place and catch him off guard–in the daytime–it’s got to be in the daytime. Oh, one other thing. Bring hatchets. Every man should have one of these two.”

“Why?”

“So you can cut off his head after you kill him.”

Lane just stared at me for a full thirty seconds. “By Christ, you are serious, aren’t you?”

“You bet your sweet ass, I’m serious. Now, have you any better suggestions?”

“I didn’t know you were so bloodthirsty, Kolchak.”

I didn’t answer. Frankly, I didn’t know I was that bloodthirsty myself. I guess I was really caught up in my own oratory. Why not? If it can happen to politicians and actors who begin to believe their own press notices, why not to journalists?

“As soon as the hardware stores open, your people can start gathering your materials. There’s a furniture finishing shop over on Western, in the 1300 block. The man that runs it will shape the stakes for you with no questions asked. And do it fast for cash in advance. I don’t think Skorzeny will make any move during the daytime. If you can be ready by nightfall, all you have to do is wait until he makes his appearance and then track him back to where he lives. Then you just surround the place and keep hidden. As soon as it’s daybreak you move in and… finish the job.”

“You really think he’s scared of sunlight?”

“Just play it that way.”

“Is there anything else you’d like us to do, Kolchak?” Sheriff Lane asked a bit impatiently.

“First, I want him off my back, “ I said, pointing to Paine. “Second, I want the exclusive rights to the story, free from censorship as soon as the press blackout is lifted, which should be as soon as you’ve nailed him. It’ll be as big or bigger than if they captured the Loch Ness monster.”

They didn’t look too happy about that suggestion either.

“Hell, you’ll all be heroes and the publicity alone will be worth a million bucks. It’ll do you more good in the campaign than all that law and order stuff you people’ve been handing out.”

“Don’t get carried away with this scheme of yours, Kolchak,” Lane answered. “We haven’t agreed yet. You know we haven’t the slightest idea where your monster is hiding.”

“Oh, I have infinite faith in your prowess, in your powers of deduction. Come on you people. Make up your minds. You have nothing to lose. No risk. Unless you don’t believe your own eyes. Unless you’ve forgotten that one of your own men, Officer Williams, is dead because of Skorzeny. You know I’m on the right track.

“We’ve got to talk this over, Larry!” Lane shouted at the deputy nearest the hall entrance. “Escort Mr. Kolchak outside and see that he stays put until we call you.”

I was outside by the stairway for about twenty minutes and could hear the angry voices inside arguing back and forth. Finally the doors opened and it was Bernie who ushered me in. Lane was standing in front of his chair.

“We have had a long talk, Kolchak. None of us believe this man is a vampire. You’ve presented a lot of well-documented material on legends but that’s all they are… legends. However, because we cannot seem to come up with anything better in the way of a plan, we are going to go along with your suggestions to this extent: we will get the stakes, hammers, Holy Water and the rest of that stuff and see that every man on duty by tomorrow night has these things. And we’ll go along with your ideas on trapping him. However, we will still operate using standard police procedure, and if we can take him alive we will do it.”

“You won’t be able to take him alive and you might as well accept that fact now. Otherwise, you’re going to get more of your men killed.”

“I’m not through, Kolchak. Why don’t you learn to keep your mouth shut? You’ve been bucking us for almost three weeks trying to get us to listen to you. Now you’ve got us going along with you, at least in principle.

“Now, we’re going to try it your way… one time. And on the following conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“Oh, yes, Kolchak. You’re not the only who can make demands. We’re in a position to accept or reject your suggestions. You can’t do the same with ours. Do you agree?”

I thought about that one and nodded my assent.

“All right. We accept your suggestions. And your conditions. Now here are our conditions.

“First, you say nothing about tonight except that we shot and missed and Skorzeny got away. You stop making waves until this is all over.

“Second, you check with us before you write another word or talk about this matter to anyone else. We know what a loose mouth you have. And we know who you’ve talked to. They will hear from us presently.”

I should have paid closer attention to that one.

“Finally, if it turns out, for some reason I don’t see right now, as much as I’d like to, that you are wrong and this idea doesn’t work, you pack up and leave this town within forty-eight hours. And you do not return. Ever. Officially, persona non grata.

“Now, have we got a deal?”

I couldn’t see why he went to the trouble. He’d already muzzled me with the press, clamped the lid down on the whole media. As for talking to people, why the people I’d talked to couldn’t possibly give Lane and his friends any real trouble. Bernie? Nurse Staley? Dr. Helms? The kids from the university? And the bit about leaving town. Hell, he could have me locked up or run out of town any time he chose. I didn’t figure I was losing anything by agreeing to his demands. After all, he was agreeing to mine and that’s more than I ever expected.

“OK, you’ve got a deal.”

“Not one word to anyone.”

“OK.”

“Oh, one other thing. I want you up in my office by 10:00 A.M. tomorrow. Since this is your idea, I want you right where I can get my hands on you in case it fizzles. When and if we nail this guy, you’re going to be right there and see it for yourself. Then you can’t complain about us lying to you. And, you’ll get that as an exclusive privilege. The other newsmen won’t be in on it at all.”

It was all breaking my way. It was good. I would be with them like glue right up to the last minute. But it was too good. Too goddamn neat. But I couldn’t see it then. I was too cocksure. I was too pleased with my unexpected success.

I grabbed a quick bite in the Sahara’s coffee shop and then fell into bed, setting the alarm for 8:30 A.M. I smoked the last cigar and can remember now the feeling of pleasure, the stupid euphoria I had during those last few hours. I felt better than I had in years. If I’d had any real brains that night I’d have been packing my bags.

CHAPTER 18

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1970

When I got up I wasn’t feeling so damn cocky. I was feeling more like a used bar rag. But after I’d shaved and dressed and poured a half-pot of bad coffee into me I felt sufficiently fit to greet the coming day. I checked with the office by phone just before nine and told them I’d be going directly to the combined forces headquarters at the sheriff’s office. They already had my copy which I’d dropped off only a few hours before, en route to the Sahara. There was nothing more to add.

I made a couple of stops along the way. First, I went to see my friend Bill at his workshop on Western, where he was refinishing a harpsichord for some hotel owner’s wife. He gave me an odd look and handed me a nicely finished wooden stake from a pile near his lathe. I joined him in one cup of coffee and made distracted small talk, then left when the conversation petered out, and headed downtown.

My second stop was St. Luke’s, a small Catholic Church just a stone’s throw from the courthouse. It is one of ten Catholic churches in Las Vegas, a small, unpretentious, wood-frame structure left over from Vegas’ early days, and cannot compete for glamour with the likes of St. Anne’s, a great, pretentious, concrete tub, listed demurely on page 103 of the phone book’s yellow pages as “The Show Place of Show Town.”

There was a Father Mulcahy there and I asked for confession. I’m not a Catholic but I do know the proper routine and I was covering all bets at the time. I spilled my guts to him about the whole thing and about what was going to happen. He listened in stony silence. He was an old man and no doubt had seen a lot. From his later reaction when I asked him to fill two aluminum cigar tubes with Holy Water and give me two crucifixes–not even a raised eyebrow–I gathered I’d not been the first man to discuss the problem with him. I asked him to wait a moment while I fetched a small airline bag with the stake and hammer in it. I was taking no chances and asked him to bless these, too. He hesitated but I must have looked sufficiently distraught because he mumbled some words over the wooden weapons, sprinkled Holy Water on them, and bid me a curt good-day.

Thus, armed with one made-to-order stake and hammer combination, a crucifix in my pocket and a smaller one around my neck, I stopped by the courthouse switchboard of Helen O’Brien who gave me a message relayed from the paper to the effect that Dr. Helms wanted her books back. I’d forgotten them, stacked neatly in a carton in the trunk of my car. Well, tomorrow would do.

Then I checked in with Jenks and prepared for the “death watch” to come. Lane arrived at the command post around 10:15 to let us know he was on hand. He nodded at me to acknowledge my presence but said nothing.

For the rest of the day nothing happened. There were no more bodies discovered and nothing new on the two missing girls.

At around 3:30 we did get word that inquiries about Skorzeny’s flight into Las Vegas on April 10 had revealed another interesting piece of information. He had been spotted by a night man at Western’s air-freight office. Skorzeny had been mustached, well tanned… no that’s not what the air-freight man said. “An odd-looking tan,” he’d said. Skorzeny had on dark glasses, and of course, the bad breath.

The freight checker also said Skorzeny told him he was a doctor “specializing in research,” and that he’d sent a large crate of equipment on the flight. It was there, about seven feet by four by four labeled “Fragile–Lab Instruments–Handle With Extreme Care” and weighed about 200 pounds. The crate had been loaded into a car the “doctor” had rented from American Car Rentals at McCarran Airport upon arrival. It was too big to fit properly and the freight checker had attached a red rag to it where it stuck out of the car’s trunk. That was the last he’d seen of the “doctor.”

A quick check with American revealed a Dr. Julian Benes had rented a Ford LTD on April 19, at about the same time. He had paid in cash. That was the last anyone saw of Dr. Benes.

At 4:30 Lane called me into his office and informed me that every man on patrol in both departments had been equipped with crosses, Holy Water, hammers and stakes. As many hatchets as could be bought, begged and borrowed were also distributed. Around five we sent out for some hero sandwiches and Jenks, Masterson and I ate quietly together. Nothing further happened but then I didn’t expect much action until it got dark.

It was 9:15 when there finally was a break. A real break. A call came in and Masterson took it. He waved at the deputy and said, “Get Sheriff Lane on this line.” Then he punched another button and started to record. Through the recorder and over its small speaker we crowded around and were able to hear the voice on the other end of the line.

“My name is Aline Sedgewick–Sedgewick Realty at 637 South Sixth Street. I think I may have some information on the suspect you’re looking for. I… I believe I may have sold a house to him on… ah… April 14, a Tuesday. He called my office just before closing time and told me he’d seen one of our advertised properties out on Spencer and Viking and was interested in it if it could be purchased quickly. He gave the name Dr. Paul Laszlo and asked if he could meet me at the property around nine o’clock that night.

“It seemed an odd request but he said it was important and that it was the only time he’d have free. And he offered full payment immediately in cash. That seemed even more unusual but… well, a person doesn’t turn down $20,000 without at least seeing a client. So I agreed.

“I met him a little after nine that night and after catching up on my newspapers–I’ve been out of town for the past six weeks–I saw he somewhat resembled the man you’re all looking for, this mass murderer. So I’m calling now. The man had a well-trimmed gray beard and dark glasses. I showed him the place which isn’t much, really. Cinder-block house, one bedroom, living-dining area, kitchen and one bathroom. Very Spartan, really. Built mostly as property improvement by the former owner, all situated on a half-acre lot which is nothing but scrub and caliche.

“He told me he was in medical research, had overworked himself and developed a nervous condition causing him to break out in strong sunlight and that he needed peace and quiet with no neighbors to disturb his study. He said he’d come to Las Vegas because he could at leave have his choice of several places to get food and other sundries at odd hours during the night when he’d be up and working.

“I told him I’d draw up the papers in the morning and he could come down for them but he insisted in paying me right there and then. $20,000 in cash. And he asked me for --- and got, mind you–a receipt on the spot. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve made a cash sale like that, I don’t mind telling you. When he asked me for a key I was a little surprised, but after all, he’d bought the place, so I gave it to him.

“I sent him the papers by messenger the next day and they were left in his mailbox. I haven’t seen him since. The only other thing that seemed odd about him physically, except for his dark glasses–and of course I didn’t say anything because I assumed it was because he’d been sick–was his breath. Oh, my! It was simply awful. By the time I’d shown him the interior of the house, I was almost sick to my stomach. It seemed to fill the whole place. If you ask me that’s why he wants to live alone.

“Is that any help to you? I mean is he the man you’re looking for… the one who killed all those poor young girls?”

“Well, we don’t know that yet for sure, ma’am, but we are looking to question him. And thank you. Yes, you certainly have been helpful. We’re grateful for your cooperation,” Masterson answered.

“Think nothing of it. I’m glad I could help. And I hope you catch him soon, whoever he is.”

Well, progress. Now it appeared we not only had a possible location for the suspect’s hiding place but another eyewitness to identify him. I felt certain Paine would be pleased. The circumstantial evidence seemed to be mounting nicely. Several eyewitnesses to the blood thefts and assaults. Dozens of cops to testify in court to illegal flight. Olive Bowman who could place him as having physically held one victim who was already dead. And, of course, Skorzeny’s own fingerprints which matched those on the Hanochek girl’s doorknob. Yes, Paine would be thinking ahead to that spectacular trial. If there ever was a trial. If they ever took Skorzeny alive.

The next step would be to get a search warrant and check out the house. But before any action could be taken, we received a flash that the good “Dr. Laszlo” had been spotted by an alert parking attendant at the Deauville, who saw him park and go inside. The chopper was dispatched to the Deauville and everybody settled in once again.

I had other ideas. I could take men to Skorzeny’s hiding place, get a good look at it, and prepare a trap for him. Lane strolled in and OK’d it.

Lane called Judge Jack Donnelley and got him to swear out a warrant for search and/or seizure. So far, the only warrants on Skorzeny himself were for illegal entry. He hadn’t yet been charged with murder. But, if taken alive, that would be the next step.

A deputy on another phone talked to Deke Clausen at the Deauville and advised him how dangerous our friend Skorzeny was, since the papers had only revealed that he’d given the police the slip, twice, not how he’d done it. Clausen was to have his men bird-dog Skorzeny and maybe crowd him a bit if he went after any victims, but not to actually threaten him unless absolutely necessary.

Several unmarked sheriff’s cars were dispatched to the Deauville and positioned at every possible point of access to the street. Several more plainclothesmen were sent in various disguises–maintenance men, waiters and the like–to cover all possible exits at the Deauville.

By 10:25 the judge’s warrant was on Lane’s desk. He detailed a force of seven cars, fourteen men in all, to converge on the house at 3779 Spencer. Jenks and I rode out together and it amazed me to see it all happening at my instigation. By 10:40 the house had been quietly surrounded by the deputies armed with high-powered rifles equipped with infra-red sniper scopes loaned by Colonel Arville of the National Guard. The only neighboring house, a similar structure at the west end of Viking some 300 yards away, was occupied by a retired couple who were quickly roused and evacuated on the pretext of an area-wide gas leak. Then, under the cover of seven rifles, the remaining seven deputies, Jenks and I advanced on the house.

It was as ordinary a place as a house could be, squarish, painted a dull yellow with a grayish trim at the roofline. It had one large picture window facing east toward Spencer, another facing the back yard and one facing directly north, toward which we approached. There was a back door that opened to a yard of blow sand. The front door was situated between the picture window and smaller bedroom windows. All the drapes were drawn and there were no lights showing from inside. And, there was no car on the premises. Against the house’s west wall was a lean-to. Around back by the rear steps was a crude, cinder-block barbecue. Around the half-acre lot was a crude fence of wooden posts and chicken wire.

Using hand signals, Jenks and another deputy started the action. He and the deputy broke in the front door and I was hard on their heels. At the same time, a sergeant and another deputy kicked in the back door. Once inside, the stench was incredible. Jenks gagged and I nearly threw up. It was so awful we all retreated outside and groped for handkerchiefs to hold over our noses. Then we re-entered the house. The handkerchiefs hardly helped and it seemed to those present, none of whom had ever met Skorzeny (the two contacts being with the city police), that the smell was like what his breath had been described to be… but tem times worse.

We soon discovered that the house was divided into two interlocking L shapes, half of which comprised the living-dining area and kitchen, the other being the bedroom and bath. The furniture was Spartan: a green leather armchair shoved into one corner near a pole lamp, another chair of debatable color alongside it. There was a gray, formica-topped kitchen table and two more chairs. And a crude, cheap L-shaped couch in the corner. Everything had a dusty, ill-cared-for appearance and the place might well have appeared deserted had it not been for one arresting item.

In the center of the room was the large crate with the lid stacked neatly against its side. The smell seemed worse near the crate.

Inside the crate, the deputies got a little surprise, but it didn’t surprise me at all. It was what I half-expected to find… a coffin. Plain, white pine, lined in cheap rayon acetate and filled along the bottom with dried earth about a half-inch deep.

Jenks kicked in the door of the bedroom and the smell in there was almost as bad. He fumbled for but couldn’t find the light switch and had to use his flashlight. What he saw made him literally gasp and stiffen at the door until I pushed him forward into the room. Then I saw the figures on the bed. They were both there and it was so grotesque it was like a combination of all the “mad doctor” pictures and something out of Marquis de Sade.

On the rumpled bed, naked and emaciated and apparently comatose, lay Shelley Katz and Carolyn Riegel. They were chained to the cinder-block walls by their hands and their feet were bound securely together at the foot of the bed. But the most hideous thing of all was that taped to Shelley’s right arm (and Carolyn’s left) were rubber tubes extending to large bottles of glucose water solution slung from the overhead beams by ropes and hooks.

We moved closer and could barely detect the shallow, ragged breathing of the two girls. They were just barely alive. Jenks moved forward and checked their necks for bite marks, checked their wrists against his watch for pulses and prodded their eyelids, shining his flashlight against the pupils. Then he called four deputies by name to bring a hacksaw and some blankets. They came running in and set to work freeing the girls. Jenks ordered that they be loaded into one of the patrol cars and dispatched with just one deputy to rush them to Parkway Hospital. He wasn’t waiting for any ambulances. After that he ordered all the men back to their posts outside.

He looked in the bathroom. The mirror on the medicine cabinet had been shattered and removed with bits of the glass still lying on the floor. Inside the cabinet was a collection of every well-known mouthwash and breath spray on the market. Not that it seemed to have done much good.

On the floor behind the door was a large metal box which, when pried open, revealed a complete set of theatrical greasepaints, pancake makeup, pan-sticks, adhesives, hairsprays of various colors, several bottles of spirit gum and various small moustaches and beards of the kind sold now in barber supply houses. There were also two men’s stretch wigs and a collection of eyeglasses, clear and dark, all nonprescription. Jenks also found the two medical bags behind the door, one inside the other, while I was looking again at the now-empty bed.

The thought was sickening. Shelley Katz and Carolyn Riegel had been used as living hosts… blood factories for Skorzeny. He’d been feeding off their bodies slowly, keeping them just barely alive with the stolen glucose water solution. Why he had bothered and what other purposes he had kept them for, naked, I didn’t even want to consider.

Across from the bed was a crude six-drawer dresser with the mirror turned on its ancient swivel-hinges toward the wall. While Jenkins pulled out drawers one by one, I wrestled the dresser away from the wall and found that this mirror was also shattered. Inside the drawers were all sorts of documents (probably forged), several medical degrees, purportedly from Heidelberg and London, a police-constable’s ID papers from Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Western Airline envelope from his Vancouver-Las Vegas flight on April 10.

We moved back out to the living room and into the kitchen. There wasn’t one scrap of food to be found anywhere. But the refrigerator was filled from bottom to top with containers of blood. There were no more glucose water bottles on the premises and it would seem that when this blood supply was gone, Skorzeny would have to rob and kill again. Jenks was already closing up the back door and trying to hide any obvious traces of our uninvited entrance. He motioned for me to leave and I told him to hold it.

“The coffin,” I said. “His native soil. We’ve got to empty it.”

He regarded me for a moment and then opened the back door. Together we wrestled the crate to the doorway and ragged it down the stairs. We upended the crate and he grabbed at the coffin, tipping it out so that the dried dirt spilled onto the dusty ground. I stepped around and mixed it in with the native soil of Clark County. Then we put the coffin back into the crate and dragged it back inside, setting it up as we’d found it. I asked him for his Holy Water and poured both his tubes over the bottom of the coffin. Jenks just looked at me and said, “You really believe all this bull, don’t you?” I didn’t answer.

In a later investigation of the premises, deputies, digging in the backyard, discovered the bodies of some thirty-five dogs of various sizes, from a Doberman listed missing from McWilliams Street at the other side of town, to an ugly white Bull Terrier reported stolen from nearby Ottawa Street. They also found remnants of Skorzeny’s burned, blood-spattered shirts in the barbecue as well as some unburned buttons.

After we had set everything up as we’d found it, stuffing several blankets in the bed and covering them, hooking the tubes into their sides, we resumed our positions outside, across Viking Road. It was now about 12:45 A.M. We sat listening to scattered reports on Skorzeny as they came in. He had prowled around Deauville and then left on foot and entered the Aladdin, circled the casino twice and returned to the Deauville’s lot to retrieve his (stolen) Buick. Then he drove along the Strip heading toward downtown. He must have spotted the unmarked cars tailing him because he never stopped. He just drove to Casino Center and prowled up and down Fremont Street for about an hour before returning to the Strip and stopping at the gas station next to the Desert Inn to refuel.

Then he moved on to Caesars Palace and was followed in by two detectives, one of whom alerted the blue-uniformed security guards as to what was going on. Somewhere along the line, however, he gave them the slip. He was spotted fifteen minutes later by an alert security guard at the Dunes who had been briefed by Masterson when the detectives reported they’d lost their quarry.

He now knew for sure he was being watched and took an elevator to the fourteenth floor of the Dunes Tower with the guards in hot pursuit. It was later discovered (from the testimony of a maid) that he’d abandoned the elevator and taken one of the inside stairwells down to another floor. From there he took the service elevator to the basement, walked along the hallway to yet another stairwell, regained the ground level, and forced his way out a pair of doors at the Tower’s freight and receiving area at the front of the building, adjacent to the shopping mall.

All this did him little good because he was spotted by a guard as he departed the Dunes. The guard, following instructions, hung back and reported by phone that Skorzeny was headed back to Caesar’s Palace by way of the adjoining parking lot.

It was now 4:30 and Skorzeny was in obvious distress. Radio reports had him roaring up and down the Strip but officers were cautioned not to stop him. Finally, he turned down Sahara and drove to Maryland Parkway, then south to Flamingo Road. We assumed he was heading home. We were wrong. He just drove around the homes lining the Stardust Golf Course. Masterson ordered unmarked cars to cover as much of the area as possible from parked positions. This time, it seems Skorzeny didn’t spot them. It was obvious he was not exercising any caution. Finally, toward dawn, he approached the house, barreling down Viking at almost fifty miles an hour. His car came sliding to rest at the south end of the house and he leaped out, pausing to gaze toward Sunrise Mountain, directly to the east. A thin streak of light could just be seen lining the mountain ridges. In another few minutes the sun would be starting over the horizon.

Growling low in his throat like some ravening wolf, Skorzeny approached the front door. He discovered almost at once that it had been forced, looked around quickly, then ran inside. In seconds we heard his enraged scream. He came barrelling out the front door all the way to the middle of the road muttering in some strange language. His fists opened and closed convulsively. His entire body jerked. He looked on the brink of a grand mal epileptic seizure. Again he looked toward Sunrise Mountain and he hesitated, his body visibly stiffening. He was just starting to turn back to the house when he spotted one of the deputies who had jumped the gun and had broken cover in order to get a closer look.

Skorzeny’s lip curled back in a vicious, red-rimmed snarl. His fang-like teeth were plainly visible. He started toward the deputy and Jenks switched on the headlights and spotlight beam.

Skorzeny froze and whirled, facing our position, his features working into a grimace of pure hate. Other lights flashed on. He started toward us and the deputies began to move forward. Then he hesitated again, looking toward Sunrise Mountain. He swayed as if caught between the two desires–to kill us and to gaze at the slowly brightening dawn. Again he turned toward us and, with a gesture of supreme disgust, turned and strode back toward the house.

Jenks grabbed his bullhorn and bellowed, “Get those crosses handy! Get your stakes and Holy Water and move in… slow… take your time!”

He might not believe in my so-called “fairytale” but he wasn’t taking any chances either, I noticed. Slowly, all fifteen of us came out of our positions as the rapidly lightening eastern sky cast a pinkish gray pallor over the whole scene.

At the words “crosses, stakes and Holy Water” Skorzeny had actually flinched. He was beginning to get the message. He spun away from the door and snarled. Skorzeny saw the tiny crosses in our hands as he looked from one man to another, finally staring with wide, reddened eyes directly at me. Then he saw the stakes and hammers. His face resumed the same mask of fury that I’d seen at Old Town Hospital when he’d been deprived of blood. He started backing slowly toward the door, glancing first at us and then back at Sunrise Mountain. Then, slowly, his face began to change and took on the trapped look I’d seen on cornered animals in laboratories and on hunting trips. I saw it once on the face of a convict at a death house execution as the guards had closed the door on the gas chamber. His expression changed from hate to one of betrayal. Then it progressed to abject fear, very startling on him and very human.

We were within twenty feet of him when, with one final hiss, he spun around and ran inside, slamming the door which bounced back open, its lock already broken by our previous entrance. Jenks yelled to his man on the east side of the house to shotgun the windows while he opened fire with his Python on the window facing us. The explosions were deafening and in seconds the windows had all been demolished.

As we headed around to the house’s east face, we heard another shriek of agony and surprise and looked in to see him literally leap from his coffin as though shot in the can with buckshot. He screamed in pain and slapped at his seat and legs where he’d lain in the Holy-Water-soaked coffin.

I dug Jenks in the ribs and yelled, “You see! The Holy Water. It works like acid!”

Skorzeny stopped slapping at his clothing long enough to shoot one last look at the sun as it broke cover over Sunrise Mountain. He shrieked again, threw his hands up to shield his face and bolted for the bedroom.

We moved in, Jenks jumping up over the window sill with me right at his heels, followed by four more deputies. There must have been a dozen of us all crowded into the living room. Jenks and I rushed into the bedroom followed by two deputies. We found Skorzeny huddled in the closet just to the right of the bedroom door. He was writhing on the floor in a tangle of his dark suits and shoes, his face white as a sheet, his eyes blood red, his mouth working convulsively like a beached shark’s, full of guttural noises and fangs.

I looked away from this squirming thing at my feet and turned to Jenks who ordered the other deputies from the room and slammed the door. I looked back at Skorzeny. Even in his agony and apparent helplessness he still scared me silly. I was afraid he’d find some way to outsmart us no matter what we did.

Jenks and I stood there like statues watching him twitch, his eyes rolling up in his head. He clutched at his clothes pulling the wooden pole then hung from down on top of him. Slowly his right hand came scrambling out away from his body to clutch at my left leg. Without thinking I shoved my crucifix at him and he pulled his hand back with a hiss, shielding his face again. As quickly as I could, I dug my tubes of Holy Water out of my coat pocket and emptied them on his head. He shrieked again and clawed at his face. Jenks followed suit, pouring his two vials on Skorzeny’s body and legs. Skorzeny started to foam and bubble before our eyes.

I was paralyzed. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Those books hadn’t described any of this. I was feeling dizzy and sick. The shrieks turned to groans and a gurgling deep in his throat. He pulled his hands away from his face and it looked like the disintegrating Portrait of Dorian Gray.

I looked over to Jenks who had an odd expression on his face. He motioned to me and reached for my left hand which, I noticed, was still clutching the airline bag with the stake and hammer in it. I dropped it and he grabbed it off the floor, moving over to the smoking form still squirming in the closet which smelled even more foul than before, and oozing a greenish yellow puss from the crumpled clothing on his scarecrow frame.

Jenks looked back at me and handed me the stake and hammer. “Go ahead. This was your idea. Finish it.” I declined, turning away.

Jenks spun me around violently and thrust the stake into my left hand. He pushed me toward what was left of Skorzeny and forced me to my knees. He forced my hand toward Skorzeny, positioning the stake over the man’s chest. Then he stuck the hammer in my right hand.

“Do it, you gutless sonofabitch. Finish it… now!” And he stepped away.

I looked at him and back at Skorzeny. Then I gave one vicious swing and hit the stake dead center. The thing made a gurgling grunt, like a pig snuffling for food, and started to regurgitate a blackish fluid from its mouth. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and hit the stake three more times. Then I fell back and threw up.

When I looked back, Skorzeny’s hands, or what was left of them, clutched at the stake trying to pull it out. Suddenly, he emitted a kind of moaning, sucking sound, gagged and more bile-colored liquid flecked with black and red came coiling up in a viscous rope like some evil worm from his mouth. And he stopped moving, his hands still clutching the stake.

Then a sort of gaseous mist started to rise from his body and it was so much worse than the original smell that I pushed Jenks aside and ran from the house. I ran all the way to a patrol car where I slumped against the left front wheel as Jenks slowly strolled toward me. He walked past me, ignoring me, and opened his trunk, taking out a couple of small gas cans, and headed back to the house. I wasn’t paying much attention until he left the house again and I saw it was aflame. Then he came back and grabbed his radio mike, talking quietly with Masterson back at headquarters.

I got up and started wiping my mouth with a handkerchief. Finally, Jenks said “Ten-Four” and dropped the mike on the car seat. He came over to me and said, “The gentlemen downtown would like you to come back with me. They want to talk to you.”

That seemed rather unnecessary as I certainly wasn’t going to walk back to the courthouse. I got in the car and slouched down in the seat. I don’t even remember the ride back. I was just glad it was all over.

CHAPTER 19

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1970

MORNING

I was ushered into Sheriff Lane’s private office by Jenks who told me to wait and then disappeared. Soon he returned and told me to go up to the D.A.’s office. Once inside, I was told to sit in a chair facing Paine’s desk where he sat shuffling papers and looking grim and unshaven. To his left was Chief Butcher. To his right, Sheriff Lane, Jenks and Masterson positioned themselves behind me at the door, their arms folded over their chests. The only other “wheel” missing from the little scene was Bernie Fain.

Paine picked up some papers and began to read: “For release after 9:00 A.M. Thursday, May 28, 1970; from Thomas Paine, Jr., District Attorney, Clark County, Nevada–to all news media.

“This morning shortly before sunrise, Las Vegas sheriff’s deputies under the command of Lieutenant Williams A. Jenks, thirty-five, day-division commander of uniformed forces, surrounded the home of Janos Skorzeny, a fugitive from a federal warrant for entering the country under false papers, and, in a pitched gun-battle instigated by Skorzeny were forced to kill him by gunfire.

“Apparently, Skorzeny, wanted for questioning by local police in a series of recent murders done through the use of an unidentified poison, and also wanted by Canadian authorities in Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa as well as by the Metropolitan Police of London, had explosives and gasoline stored in his home at 3779 Spencer Road. There were two explosions and the house was gutted. Authorities are still trying to determine the cause of the fire and, at this writing, units of the Clark County Fire Department are battling the blaze which has been contained in the home.

“Skorzeny, a British citizen with forged Canadian papers, was sought by both British and Canadian authorities for questioning on several counts ranging from theft to forgery. Before he died he openly boasted of having killed four women and one man with what he claimed, according to officers present, was a highly efficient and ‘untraceable’ poison. He admitted that they were thrill killings and made him feel strong and superior to all authority.

“It is possible Skorzeny may have perished by his own hand as he boasted he would never be taken alive. Twice before he had eluded local authorities who were unable to trace his hiding place until last night.

“Bernard Fain, Special Agent-in-Charge of the local FBI office and the man in overall command of the manhunt for Skorzeny, feels that the man behind the recent and brutal murders of five local residents may be the same one responsible for several crimes of violence in Great Britain. Again Fain says that as far as the Bureau is concerned, the file on Janos Skorzeny is closed and he expressed the Bureau’s thanks for the fine job done by local law enforcement agencies and the cooperation of the Las Vegas District Attorney’s Office.”

“What kind of lousy deal is this?” I screamed as I leaped out of my chair. Jenks and Masterson firmly shoved me back into it.

“This,” began Paine, “is what is going out to the papers and the radio and TV people. It will go out under your exclusive byline with a comment on how you cooperated ‘closely with authorities’ and were in on the entire operation from start to finish.”

“The hell you say! What kind of goddamn snow-job is this? You promised…”

“Shut up, Kolchak. You’re in a lot of trouble so just pipe down and listen,” said Butcher.

Paine started in again. “No one is ever going to know about the stakes and Holy Water bit, Kolchak. Your friend at the furniture store only knows that he made up a large order of tent stakes for several gentlemen who paid cash and bought in bulk. None of the priests who were contacted are going to talk. All the loose ends are being gathered in.”

“And what’s to stop me from blabbing this story once I leave here?”

“You, Kolchak. You’re going to stop yourself. Because if you open your mouth, the press release will never be issued. And if you wait until it is, we’ll deny it and arrest you for murder. Murder, Kolchak!”

“What murder?” But I was already beginning to see what was going on.

“Why, Kolchak. You’ve got a very short memory. Lieutenant Jenks over there told me not more than an hour ago you pounded a wooden stake through the heart of a man who was wanted for questioning–questioning mind you–in a murder investigation. He had not been arrested or even charged. You didn’t give the officers time for that. You broke up their stakeout after we were kind enough to let you go along and you rushed in ahead of them and killed Janos Skorzeny before you could be stopped. You were out of your head ranting and raving something crazy about Skorzeny being a vampire and you had to save the world. You set fire to the house with flares and gasoline before you could be stopped. That, Mr. Kolchak, is Murder One. At the very least, you’ll have to plead insanity and I can assure you that you’ll win your case and be committed to Sparks for the remainder of your life. We’ll see to that.”

“You miserable sonofabitch. I helped pull your fat out of the fire and you’re setting me up for a public hanging! What about all the witnesses?”

“What witnesses? People who saw Skorzeny? Saw him do what? Walk through a hospital? Beat up some hospital employees? Run from some police officers? Buy a car? No one actually saw him kill anyone.”

“But one of your own people, a police officer, was killed by him!”

“Regrettable but explainable. It happens.”

“What about my paper?”

“Jake is cooperating with us all the way. This is his town and he has many investments here. He doesn’t want to ruin Las Vegas’ image by letting a ridiculous story like this get out.”

“Yeah? What about Bernie Fain?

“Bernie is going to have a recurrence of an old service injury and retire, shortly.”

“What about Mokurji? He works for another police department. You can’t scare them off or buy them out. I’ve go you there.”

“Uh… interdepartmental cooperation. Dr. Mokurji will be granted some money for private research… in Bombay. He should be leaving by the first of next week.”

Well, that stopped me. Stopped me cold.

“One other thing, Mister Kolchak,” Paine added, “you are going to leave town very shortly due to personal reasons… perhaps for your ‘health.’ It’s being arranged now. So, I hope for your sake you don’t decide to start crying ‘Wolf!’ It won’t do a bit of good.

“Just accept things for what they are. You’re a pretty smart man. You know where your bread is buttered. You can always find a job in another city. And, as long as you keep your mouth shut, you’ll get along just fine. Now do we hand out this press release and win you the crime coverage award of 1970? Or do you want to play it the hard way?”

I just sat there.

“Well?”

“OK,” I told him. “You win.”

CHAPTER 20

I went home alone, took off my coat, knocked the phone off the hook, and forgot about the world with the aid of two bottles of bourbon. The next night I called Sam and asked her to dinner, hinting very broadly at what had happened. She didn’t ask questions. She’d read Thursday’s “canned account” of the Spencer Road Shootout as it had been billed. She told me to come over to her place and we’d have a couple of steaks. She said she’d be sorry to see me go but she knew me better than anyone else and she knew I’d have to leave. You just can’t fight city hall.

By the following Monday, I was feeling a tiny bit better and showed up at the office to find I was back to a routine beat of covering petty thefts, robberies and helping compile the local death-on-the-highways report for the paper. Since I still seemed to have a job, I slipped out of the office around 1:00 P.M. and drove over to Parkway to see how the Misses Katz and Riegel were doing.

Dr. Welles coldly informed me that Miss Katz had been released by her parents’ request and that she’d been taken to a private sanitarium out of state. I was unable to trace her. Carolyn Riegel, I was informed, was dead, and had succumbed to “exhaustion complicated by malnutrition,” during the weekend. She’d had funeral services at the Willows early that morning and was, by now, cremated.

I returned to the Daily News and wrote an angry story which I shoved under Vincenzo’s nose and stalked out of the office. It purported that Carolyn Riegel was actually the final victim of Janos Skorzeny and if she hadn’t been killed outright at the hospital she was definitely a suicide. By me, it was murder. It just took a little longer than the others, is all.

Then I went looking for a movie to take my mind off all that had occurred. I found it at the Fremont Theatre, a block from where Hemphill’s body had been found: A Man Called Horse, starring Richard Harris. That’s all I remember. I sat, filled myself with cheap hotdogs and coke, and then went home to bed, reminding myself, “Ah, well, tomorrow’s another day.”

That observation proved only too accurate.

CHAPTER 21

TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1970

When I got my morning paper–from my neighbor’s doormat–I discovered my story hadn’t been printed at all. And I wasn’t too surprised. Then I went down and checked my mail. There were three envelopes, all addressed to me and none of them had stamps on them. The first one contained the following message from the law firm of Bregman, Whittle and Castellano:

Dear Mr. Kolchak:

I have been contacted by one of my clients concerning an impromptu investigation and intended article by you on the alleged suicide/murder of Miss Carolyn Riegel, and the alleged removal of her body from Parkway Hospital without proper death certificates.

This is to inform you that Dr. Stoddard Welles, the Chief Resident at Parkway Hospital and the physician in attendance to Miss Riegel, personally signed the death certificate and photostats are available upon request to any legitimate authority.

Further, the death certificate states the cause of Miss Riegel’s unfortunate and untimely demise was “nervous exhaustion and extreme malnutrition, complicated by bronchial pneumonia.”

Miss Riegel’s mother and our client have expressed the explicit desire that Miss Riegel’s reputation and her poor mother’s privacy be respected by a minimum of notoriety.

In the event that anything is published to the contrary in your newspaper under your by-line, or by you through any other source, concerning the circumstances of Miss Riegel’s death, it will leave us no alternative but to bring appropriate legal action against you. I certainly hope this will not be necessary.

Respectfully yours,

Louis R. Bregman

Envelope number two contained a check for my last two weeks’ work in May and another for the week of June 1 through June 5. Also inside was a short letter of recommendation personally signed by Llewellyn Cairncross, himself.

The final envelope contained a brief note from Jake Herman’s assistant, Bess Melvin:

Dear Carl

We are going to miss you around here quite a lot.

Things may be somewhat the same after you’re gone. You know, confusing, upsetting and frustrating, but that’s what keeps us all happy and trying, I guess.

If you ever decide to come back rest assured you have at least one friend in the front office. We could sure use you behind an editor’s desk. As things are now… well you know what the Daily’s newsroom is like… you can never tell what will come out of it.

Take good care of yourself and let us know where you are when you settle down.

Regards,

Bess

Well, there it was. The final knot. All the ends nicely tied up.

I decided prolonged good-byes were more than I’d be able to take right then so I threw what clothing I had in the car, started lugging my stereo and TV downstairs, and spent the rest of the day getting things straightened up around the apartment. I called Sam and asked her to meet me at the Dome of the Sea at seven. Might as well have one big, expensive meal to leave town on.

Over dinner I told her what had happened, and told her that I’d let her know where to send my scrapbooks, files and mementos. I added she could sell, give away or take whatever furniture she wanted and send me whatever money it brought in. My rent had been paid for the month so there was no great rush. I asked her to return Dr. Helms’ books to her at the university.

On our way out I gave Frederick, the maitre d’, a ten-dollar bill. Carl Kolchak. The last of the big-time spenders. Then I kissed Sam good-bye and got in my car, laying another dollar tip on the attendant. Before nine o’clock I was on the road to L.A. There wasn’t anything to look back for.

I just considered myself lucky to get out of Las Vegas alive.

EPILOGUE

On Wednesday, September 9, 1970, Bernie Fain, fifty-seven, was found dead in a tool shed behind his nine-room frame house on West Ironsides, a privately owned island in the Thousand Islands in upper New York State. It is reported that he died of an “overdose of sleeping pills” and arrangements were made by some of his former associates for his funeral and subsequent cremation at the Ridgefield Mortuary in Clayton, New York on Friday, September 11, 1970.

• • •

On Thursday, October 15, 1970, Miss Amanda Staley, fifty-nine, a retired nurse residing in Glendale, California, was found dead of an apparent heart attack on the kitchen floor of her apartment at 11472 East Broadway. No funeral services were held and she was cremated at the Eagle Vista Mortuary in Eagle Rock, California, on Saturday, October 17 at about 11:00 A.M. She left no survivors and the arrangements were made by “friends and former associates” in Las Vegas.

• • •

Las Vegas show producer Henri St. Claire reportedly died in the much-publicized crash of an Aeroflot (Soviet) Antonov 24 turboprop airliner during the unsuccessful hijack attempt by two Rumanian nationals on October 19, 1970. St. Claire had been in Rumania negotiating with the manager of the Rumanian National Folk Dancing Company and certain government officials, pursuant to bringing the troupe to Las Vegas for a premiere appearance at the Deauville Hotel in January, 1971. Due to the international complications which have arisen in this matter, there is no further information available at this time and his body has not been recovered.

• • •

On Friday, November 13, Carl Kolchak, forty-eight, former Las Vegas newsman was reported missing from his bachelor apartment in the 1700 block of North Vermont Avenue. His landlady claimed he disappeared owing two months rent. Apparently he left everything behind except the clothes on his back.

I questioned her a few days later and she told me he’d had a visit from one Rupert Koster who claimed to be Kolchak’s close friend. Kolchak was out and Koster left no message but the landlady told Kolchak of the visit. I imagine that is when he took off. Rupert Koster is an assistant district attorney in Las Vegas, and, from what I can gather, is very definitely no friend of Carl Kolchak’s.

I have not seen Kolchak since those meetings we had in his apartment. I don’t even know if he is alive. Nor do I intend to try finding out. If he is alive, I hope he reads this. And I hope he likes it… wherever he is.

Jeff Rice

Hollywood, Calif.

APPENDIX

JACK THE RIPPER

[Next to Janos Skorzeny, I think Jack the Ripper is one of history’s most fascinating villains. Kolchak appears to have been particularly fascinated by the stories of this killer. The material he amassed was far to lengthy to include in a book this size, and he indicated he had hopes, some day, of doing such a book from the viewpoint of a Victorian-era reporter “on the scene.”

I felt that, while interesting, the material that follows had little to do with the events in Las Vegas, so it is included here for readers with a taste for the ghoulish–JR]

Jack the Ripper’s stomping grounds were the areas of Whitechapel and Spitalfields in London’s East End, an area of abject poverty and great violence, regarded by many of the time as one of the most dangerous places, foot for foot, on earth.

On Easter Monday, 1888, a whore named Emma Smith was found on Osborne Street in Whitechapel “hideously mutilated” by a knife. There were no clues.

On the first Tuesday in August, victim number two was discovered at Whitechapel’s Grove-Yard buildings, dead about three hours with no less than thirty-nine stab wounds in her body (much like the New York slaying of Kitty Genovese who was stabbed to death while thirty-nine witnesses did nothing to help her). The London Times called the murderer a “perfect savage.” The victim: a Whitechapel harlot.

On September 1, at about 4:00 A.M., Police Constable Neil (also identified as Neill, O’Neil, and O’Neill) discovered the third victim in a Bucks Row, Whitechapel doorway, her throat slit from ear to ear, the blood still pulsing from her neck. Mary Ann Nichols, streetwalker, dead but still warm.

On September 8, a Spitalfields strumpet named Annie Chapman of Hanbury Street was killed in similar fashion and the September 10 Times said, “her head was almost severed from her body and [the corpse] was completely disemboweled.”

Soon after the killer sent a letter to Scotland Yard: ‘This is the fourth. I will murder sixteen more and then give myself up.” It was signed “Jack the Ripper.”

While the police worked themselves into a frenzy trying everything from using paid informants to disguising themselves as streetwalkers, the “Ripper” sent them letters written (it was later determined by laboratory analysis) in blood, assuring them that “all decent women are perfectly safe.”

He struck again in a double killing on September 30, first cutting the throat of a harlot named Elizabeth Strade in a factory gateway on Berner Street in Whitechapel. Then he swiftly moved on as if interrupted before he could also disembowel her. This was his fifth victim.

On the sixth murder, to again quote The London Times, “She was found lying on her back with her head inclined to the left side. Her left leg was extended. The throat was terribly cut; there was a large gash across the face from the nose to the right angle of the cheek, and part of the right ear had been cut off. There were also other indescribable mutilations. It is stated that some anatomical skills seem to have been displayed in the way in which the lower part of the body was mutilated.” The victim: Catherine Eddowes, whore. From this it was assumed the killer might be a medical student or even a doctor. Or simply, a mad butcher.

On October 2, the Times received a letter from “Jack the Ripper” in which he promised to cut off the ears of his next victim to send to Scotland Yard. On the same day Scotland Yard received a note stating, “I was not coddling, dear old Boss, when I gave you the tip. You’ll next hear about Saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number on squealed a bit. Couldn’t finish it straight off. Had not time to get ears for the police.” Actually, it seems the card was late and the “double event” promised had actually taken place on September 30.

The citizens rose up in arms and vigilance committees were formed. George Lusk headed up the Whitechapel one and in mid-October, he received this message from the “Ripper”: “I write you in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland Yard with your bloodhounds, as I will who you tomorrow night. I am going to do a double event [the September 30 murders], but not in Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there. Had to shift. No more till you hear from me again. Jack the Ripper.”

Some seven days later Lusk received a cardboard box containing a bloody piece of meat along with the following note: “From Hell. Mr. Lusk. Sir, I send you have a Kidne [sic] I took from one woman, prasarved [sic] it for you, tother [sic] piece I fried and ate it; it was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that ook it out if only you will wate [sic] while longer.” It was signed: “CATCH ME WHEN YOU CAN, Mr. Lusk”

The “Ripper’s” worst and final murder was a classic that even latecomers have been hard pressed to equal for sheer ghoulish brutality. On November 9, at 26 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, he carved up Mary Jane Kelley, also a whore, but the only one who died in her own lodgings, leading some to contend she knew the “Ripper” personally or at least intended to service him as a “client.” To quote the Times once more: “The poor woman lay on her back on the bed, entirely naked. Her throat was cut from ear to ear right down to the spinal column. The ears and once had been cut clean off. The breasts had also been cut cleanly off and placed upon a table which was by the side of the bed. The stomach and abdomen had been ripped open while the face was slashed about so that the features of the poor creature were beyond all recognition. The kidneys and heart had also been removed from the body and placed on the table by the side of the breasts. The liver had likewise been removed and laid on the right thigh. The lower portion of the body and the uterus had been cut out, and these appeared to be missing. A more horrible or sickening sight could not be imagined.”

After that “Jack the Ripper” disappeared as quietly and suddenly as he had appeared and, though there are reports from several “eyewitnesses” who claimed to have seen him in ensuing weeks, Jack the Ripper was never found and the cases never solved.

[Kolchak once expressed the theory that “Jack the Ripper” might actually have been a woman, “possibly a whore or even an abortionist.” As far as I know at this writing, he is the only one who has ever taken this tack, but that, too, is typical of him. From reading his notes and checking several volumes on the subject, I think “Jack the Ripper” may well have been a member of London’s Scotland Yard, or even the royal family itself. Perhaps, because of my association with Kolchak, and the experiences I had in Las Vegas, I may have become somewhat sensitive to the smell of a cover-up, but I theorize that the “Ripper” was caught, and that he (or she) was someone very prominent, and that it was all hushed up, the killer being quietly “put away” forever.–JR]

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