The uniform is a mask. I looked right through him: an imposter, like every other rancid womanizer in this cesspool.

The paycheck is just an illusion, a shield from poor reality.
No matter, life’s glacier erases the tablet.

Where is this going? Take a deep breath. Hold it. Maybe he didn’t mean it that way. Exhale. Wait. Count to ten. Breathe. Calm.

I replied, “No, I don’t want fries with that, but give me a large Coke to go.”

Tina attempted to shield her eyes, trying to see what he was sketching. “Which one, ice bitch with the glacier hair, or skeezy cesspool strung out on coke, or the womanizer staring at my tits?”

Sam huffed a cross between a chuckle and a sigh of exasperation. “None of the above.  The rancid-looking beggar over there; he’s an imposter. I saw him walking into a high-rise last week. I think it’s a scam, and I’m going to bust his ass.”

His girlfriend snorted. “Whatever gets you that paycheck, hoss.”

This wasn’t the home of high-priced coke dealers. Their clientele was up the coast, closer to where Brett worked as a homicide detective. It had been a long time since he had been to this part of San Diego, where cops were about as welcomed as a ship-bound glacier off the coast of Alaska. 

He had the Birdcage Bandit to thank for his tour of this sad, cesspool life the city had thrown away. The serial killer had terrorized the north beach community of Encinitas for over a year now. There had been 12 women murdered – their bodies dumped on the beaches of Encinitas, like left-over trash from the Over-the-Line tournament.

The media, with all their irreverence, coined the Birdcage nickname. Derived from the discovery of a birdcage ornament left with each victim, Brett seethed at its dehumanizing mockery.

The case had earned Brett the 15 minutes of fame he never wanted, much to the delight of the killer. The media christened him Maverick, from a paparazzi shot of Brett riding a horse. He didn’t know what he hated more, the incessant hounding of the media or the taunting notes the killer left at the crime scenes. It was the latest note that led Brett to this part of town.

Dear Detective Maverick:
I find it so entertaining to see how famous you have become. You should thank me, you know. Before me, you were a nobody – a worthless hack of a detective with all the appeal of an aging, balding womanizer. You are such a loser!

I am growing weary of our game. There is simply no challenge anymore. So, I’m upping my stakes. Take yourself south from the ocean shores. Travel to the rancid side of life, where the toxic is laid to rest. You know it, don’t you, Detective Maverick – the place where you can see the concrete underbelly of broken dreams, where many leap from their pathetic lives. Go to the place, sliced by 5 and forgotten by most. There you will find the answer. But, hurry. I will not be so generous again.

“Barrio Logan,” was what popped into Brett’s mind. He’d bet his meager paycheck on it.

Interstate 5 cuts off the industrial and low-income community that is a couple of miles from downtown San Diego. All the clues were there. Barrio Logan became a dumping site for toxic waste in the early 1990s, and the Coronado Bay Bridge split the community in two. More than a few suicide jumpers took their final dive off that bridge.

“But, why here? Is he playing us again?”

Brett vowed it would end today. He would expose the killer as the imposter he was. The killer’s tablet-sized notes of arrogance were really just an illusion. He was not the cunning, invincible portrait of evil. His overconfidence would blind him to his certain fate. It would end now, or Brett would abandon his shield for good.