Read Online Dirty Harry 06 - City of Blood by Dane Hartman - Free Book Online Page B

asked Owens if he’d done something like this before.
    “Well, not with a murderer, no, but I’ve worked as a decoy on cases involving muggers, pickpockets, prostitutes, that sort of thing.”
    “So you’ve worked in this area before?”
    “Oh yeah, sure. I could give guided tours, though who’d want to take a guided tour in this district I don’t know.”
    Harry gave him a pocket radio. “There may be times we’ll be out of eye contact. Anybody gives you any trouble, even if you just sense some son of a bitch is going to give you trouble, signal me. We don’t know what we’re looking for. I suspect we’ll catch a lot of fish and have to throw most of them back in before we find our man.”
    Though Owens took what he said at face value—that it was the Mission Street Knifer he was referring to—Harry actually meant not him so much as the murderer from the Tocador Hotel. Still, ridding the streets of the Mission Street Knifer would not be the least accomplishment of his career.
    To complement the butt-end of a cigarette that dangled from his lips, Owens added a pint bottle of Wild Turkey. “It helps to look as vulnerable as you can,” he said. He swallowed a bit of it so that his mouth would smell of the alcohol, spilled out another half to make it seem as if he’d been drinking for a while, then slipped it back into his jacket pocket. His jacket was as torn and frayed and stained as what he wore underneath it.
    Harry drove him to a spot on the corner of Geary and Market. Then unfolding a map of the city he indicated the area that he wanted covered, which comprised approximately four square blocks.
    “Don’t wander farther afield, I want to be able to get to you fast if necessary.”
    Owens nodded, then when no one was nearby, quickly got out of the car and began his shuffling walk in the direction of Third.
    Harry watched him until he was out of sight. Then he, too, emerged from his car, lackadaisically proceeding the same way. He wanted Owens to get the feel of the place without being distracted. His was a role for an audience other than his partner.
    While the Mission Street Knifer generally kept late hours, timing his attacks for when there were few people on the streets save the derelicts who had no home to go to, it was not unknown for him to perform his gruesome business earlier in the evening, just so long as it was dark, just so long as his victims were alone.
    Owens had the actor’s knack of becoming what he was playing. One part of him, of course, remained the undercover police officer, cautious, constantly scrutinizing those he passed in the streets, ever prepared to react to danger if it should present itself, but the other part was a bum, drunk and stumbling, looking for a handout. No question that Owens had mastered his role. From time to time he muttered under his breath, cursing mindlessly, jettisoning great gobs of phlegm from his mouth.
    There were others doing the same thing, but they were doing it for real. They were so lost in their own beleaguered worlds that they scarcely gave him a glance. He obviously had no money to give them. Once or twice, however, one would come up to him and entreat him for some of his bourbon.
    Owens willingly would have given them some—his heart went out to these people whose bleak lives he was attempting to duplicate for a few hours—but that might mean becoming trapped in a conversation. These derelicts were often as hungry for talk, for any sort of companionship, as they were for booze or money. So he refused them all, acting like a cantankerous, embittered man too far gone on alcohol to endure the society of his fellow man.
    He had to keep himself isolated. The Mission Street Knifer would not risk taking on more than one at a time, at least that was what his M.O. had thus far revealed.
    “Hey, daddy,” someone called to him.
    He grumbled, kept right on going.
    The man who’d just addressed him was a strapping fellow, maybe nineteen or in his early