PREVIOUSLY - NEXT - DIRECTORY - BEGIN ANEW - SQUARE ONE
The Invisible Killer
EPISODE FOUR
By Jackson Tel
Copyright Curtis Kaltsukis 2026 All Rights Reserved
PART 11: West End Stroll
In contrast to the misery inflicted upon the Soho butcher and his family by the previous night’s storm, the weather was absolutely gorgeous that following day, proving the adage that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
When Gerald awoke, he was in fine fettle. The world was his oyster. The only thing he needed to accomplish that day was deciding which course of action he would take to strangle the corporate executive’s naughty college-aged niece...in her apartment elevator, which would be easy, or during his older half-brother Travis Mann’s debut concert at Hyde Park that Saturday night, a complicated challenge that he would have to begin scripting immediately.
But first, he wanted his new accomplice, Bud, the newsboy who sold his papers on the corner opposite Whistler’s Alley, to go on an errand for him. So Gerald dandied himself up in a wide-collared suit with a carnation in the lapel, a brand-new broad-brimmed felt hat, and a large, brown, fake facial mole and took a leisurely stroll from the Thames View Hotel, where he was staying, to Soho.
Before speaking with Bud, Gerald wanted to check out Whistler’s Alley during the daytime. He would have investigated the storied lane in the small hours after midnight, but was forced back to his hotel early because of the alarming straight-line storm that tore through the West End.
He decided to enter the alley from its east entrance after studying a street map he had purchased at a cute little bookshop run by a Lesbian couple, whose contented Tuxedo cat was curled up asleep amid the storefront window display. While the manly half of the proprietorship was stocking shelves, the matronly half rang up Gerald’s purchase with a motherly smile at the antique brass cash register. She had no idea the dapper man standing before her was The Invisible Killer..
Just how many homicidal sociopaths had she unwittingly served over the years at the book shop, or stood behind in line behind at the market, or accidentally bumped into while navigating through a crowd? One never knows, does one?
Gerald decided that by walking through the alley from east to west, he would then exit directly across from the street corner occupied by his impish new associate, Bub, the newspaper boy. The morning’s itinerary was set.
However, Gerald wasn’t clairvoyant, so he did not foresee what would happen next. He was pooped on by a pigeon flying overhead. A big, slimy, nasty, runny, gob of bird shit had despoiled his expensive, hand-tailored suit coat.
Out of character for a man whose heart was devoid of empathy and whose veins ran with ice-water, diabolical Gerald Blackburn became flustered. That was because, to him, appearance was everything.
Blackburn quickly ducked into a Chinese laundry three doors away from the bird poop incident, only to find himself face-to-face with the wrinkled owner, who looked as if he had been born a thousand years before. The man took one startled look at Gerald and ran from the customer service area through an embroidered curtain into the back. Moments later, the man’s equally ancient wife peered out through the curtain at Gerald with one eye, then disappeared.
A faint whispering came from the back room. Gerald, left unattended in the shop holding his sullied suitcoat, was confused. He made out the word, “Devil,” and then the phrase, “Get the knife.”
Then, suddenly, the wiry old Chinaman came charging through the curtain, brandishing an antique Dao saber with a glinting blade that was razor sharp. He hissed, “I kill Devil. I kill Devil!”
Gerald felt like a vicious guard dog was attacking him to tear his throat out, which would definitely put a damper on the lovely day he had been enjoying, thus far. So Gerald flung his soiled suitcoat onto the check-in counter and assumed a defensive Aikido pose.
But The Invisible Killer, who was feeling quite the opposite at that particular moment, had met his match. Moments later, he was immobilized on the floor with the long blade of the Doa at his neck. The laundry man’s breath smelled of seaweed. His wife hurried out of the back room with a length of rope, screaming through her red betel nut-stained teeth, “I tie Devil. I tie Devil.”
Gerald’s agenda for the morning was going to all hell.
....
To pass the time while tied up to a chair in the midst of the washers and dryers in the production area of the Chinese laundry, Gerald re-contemplated the issues involved with executing his young, lovely, murder-hire-victim at the Travis Mann Band concert rather than in the elevator of her apartment building, which were considerable.
That, and how he could escape from his current predicament without having to do away with his captors, for whom he had great respect. He was confident they would not go to the police afterward. The “we captured the Devil, but he got away,” story would be too far-fetched for anyone to take seriously.
That was everyone on the force, except for a recently promoted rookie detective at the Charing Cross Homicide Department, who, as it would turn out, had a sixth sense about such things.
That was neither here nor there at the moment because Gerald was not yet aware that Assistant Detective Theresa Chandler even existed, much less that she was about to become a thorn in his side and a real pain in the butt to boot.
....
To pass the time while tied up to a chair in the midst of the washers and dryers in the production area of the Chinese laundry, Gerald contemplated how he could escape from his current predicament without having to do away with his captors, for whom he had great respect. He was confident they would not go to the police afterward. The “we captured the Devil, but he got away,” story would be too far-fetched for anyone to take seriously.
That was everyone on the force, except for a recently promoted rookie detective at the Charing Cross Homicide Department, who, as it would turn out, had a sixth sense about such things.
That was neither here nor there at the moment because Gerald was not yet aware that Assistant Detective Theresa Chandler even existed, much less that she was about to become a thorn in his side and a real pain in the butt to boot.
****
PART 12: The Hijacked Lorry
Travis and his bandmates could sleep off their hangovers and the jitters left over from their prayerful near-death experience high in the furious skies over the Channel in a private jet from Bremerhaven, Germany, to London to begin their Great Britain tour.
“How exciting, now fuck off and let me get some sleep.”
But the road crewers, though equally exhausted, were entirely at wits’ end. They had all been awoken to the news that some shites had hijacked the rented lorry that was transporting all of the band’s musical and stage equipment shortly after it had left the airport to go to the venue.
One of the roadies, from Ohio, while rubbing the sleep from his eyes, asked, “What’s a shite?”
....
Because bad things, more often than not, happen in threes, after the hijacking of the band’s equipment, which was bad enough in itself, two more unfortunate events occurred to Travis Mann and his band in rapid succession.
****
PART 13: Nobody Noticed
Nobody noticed when the elderly Chinese couple wheeled Gerald, who was securely tied to a chair and gagged, out onto the modest loading dock at the back of the laundry shop, where a van being driven by the shop owner’s twin brother was waiting for them.
And no one noticed when the van ran the stoplight at the busy intersection while being driven by an elderly Chinese man, who was struggling for control of the wheel with a dandy wearing a broad-brim felt hat with a dark mole on his cheek, who was in the process of stabbing his finger into the man’s fatal death spot.
Bullshit.
Every driver who was navigating the intersection at that moment noticed. You can be sure of that, especially since time seemed to slow down for most of them while it was happening. Some said it was a miracle that no one was injured, or that not a single car was damaged, as the teetering van threaded its way through oncoming traffic from both directions and somehow made it to the other side unscathed.
Don’t even bother asking how Gerald managed to kill the fellow with one hand on the wheel because no one but him would ever know. Except that, if someone were dying to know, Gerald would gladly oblige; otherwise, he planned to stay mum on the subject for eternity.
But even that statement was not wholly accurate.
Gerald was scheming to recruit one particular writer to pen his memoir, and that person was the persnickety freelance crime reporter Marcus Dooley.
However, for Gerald, at that moment, the supreme question was how to deal with the body of the dead twin brother of the Chinese laundry shop owner rolling around among canvas bags of dirty laundry on the back bed of the van. Gerald slowed down to the speed limit and sat back smugly to enjoy the ride and formulate a plan. But first, he had a morning schedule to follow.
Where was he headed?
To Whistler’s Alley, of course. It was his first planned stop before talking to Bud about the errand.
And it was a beautiful day.
In the meantime:
Travis Mann’s longtime childhood girlfriend, Eleanor Schloss, from Reading, Pennsylvania, showed up unexpectedly at the band’s hotel to visit him. Coincidentally, she was in London with a movie crew, playing the leading lady in a high-budget blue movie. She had been given that gig as a real actress playing a real leading lady after the huge international success of her first film role as the uncredited double for the international movie star, Catherine Beaumont, in scenes that were either X-rated or too dangerous for the production company to insure adequately. The starring actress of that previously released A-List hit film, and many more before that, Miss Beaumont, was a stuck-up prude with a religious upbringing who would never, ever, appear in a scene naked, especially if it involved panting or screaming with delight.
So, Eleanor’s first job in the film industry was playing the double for the world-famous, multiple Academy Award-winning actress. And the talent agent who landed the gig for Eleanor did so specifically because she was Miss Beaumont’s previously undiscovered doppelganger. Whereupon, he renamed Eleanor Schloss to Ellie Best as her new stage name.
Note: Neither Travis nor Eleanor, at the time, knew that that first time movie gig would be her big break into the film industry...as the first wildly successful porn star to be nominated for an Oscar, two years later. An event that made Catherine Beaumont absolutely furious. Furious enough to want her dead.
....
Anyway, as a side note, four months later when the film was released, both the men and the women in the darkened audience loved to watch the leading lady falling down a set of stairs, seeing the look on her face when a bottle was broken over her head, spying on her naked, soapy figure in the shower, or catching a glimse of her undressing in her boudoir while changing into a glittering evening gown, or savoring the delicious, sensual way she made love with the male lead, playing the secret agent. That was because her contrasting sweetness and genuine innocence were absolutely believable. Surprisingly, the female audience members who watched the film liked it more than the men did. The woman not only identified with the stand-in actress as she struggled with danger, but the sex scenes made their panties get wet and gave them ideas that good girls should never have.
....
The second unfortunate incident involving The Travis Mann Band also occurred between the time they landed at Heathrow during the fierce storm and their performance fiasco at Hyde Park the following weekend. For starters, all hell broke loose when Travis discovered that his longtime childhood girlfriend, Eleanor Schloss, from Reading, Pennsylvania, had landed an acting role as the double for famous film icon Catherine Beaumont in a racy spy thriller, with many of the scenes being filmed in London.
That’s when Travis learned, in person, from Eleanor that she had changed her name to Ellie Best. And, her first acting job was to be the double for the world-famous actress, Catherine Beaumont, not only in all the shoot-’em-up chase scenes but also in two very racy, even for those days, sex scenes, which the real leading lady refused to play herself.
Because Travis Mann was a red-hot rock star on tour worldwide, he was given the royal treatment when he popped in on the studio film set the next day.
The scene the crew was currently shooting was the one set in the British Secret Agent’s master bedroom after he meets his nemesis, the Female Secret Service Agent from Washington, D.C., in the grand ballroom of the American Consulate in London.
And Travis became progressively more jealous as he watched the same sex scene being re-filmed from multiple directions and angles, amid numerous calls of “Cut!” to stop the cameras, during which the director chided the leading man for a flub or a misspoken line —but never Ellie, whom he seemed to adore.
And also, as everyone will eventually find out, jealousy can be a real mother fucker.
****
PREVIOUSLY - NEXT - DIRECTORY - BEGIN ANEW - SQUARE ONE