Skin the Cat

by R Sean McGuirk

  “See?” I gave Mel a slap across the face and she jumped. “Now we are all squared away.”

  Giving off a low moan, she peered sluggishly at the camera, her head still lolling to the side. Then she tried to pull her hands free. She scanned me from my head to my feet, trying to talk, the sounds tumbling out, drunk and loose. The tranquilizer was wearing thin. Her eyelids stretched open, real confusion setting in. She thrust forward and back, once, then twice, and again, trying to get up and run, jabbering loudly. I yanked the gag from my lab jacket, popped the ball into her mouth like a plum and fastened the collar tightly at the back of her neck. The ball in her mouth really woke her up. Her eyes jumped, nostrils flaring, chest pumping to catch her breath against the panic, hands writhing against the bindings. She checked the walls, the camera, me, the door, the window, but froze when she saw the black “x” taped on the floor at her feet.

  “Yep, that’s where you go,” I snarled, feeling the power come. He ruined everything. I rolled her into place, snapped off the bed sheet to expose the bindings, and got behind the laptop. The camera came alive with a blinking green light. “Okay Melanie, remember what they say about first impressions. You have to be authentic. I need genuine terror. So, keep it real. Hold nothing back. Bring our boy home.”

  I reflected that in a matter of hours I would board a plane. An aerial view emerged in my mind: A moon shaped pool sparkling liquid blue, beside a long row of yellow painted stucco villas, white sand beaches shooting sideways against a turquoise ocean, palm trees rustling in war, salty wind. They would hunt me to the far corners of the world. But with some plastic surgery and new identification, I would start over again…from scratch. I was going to pull this off. I grinned, feeling my gut go all fluttery. I’d been waiting for this day since he ruined everything.

  I swung the rolling table right up to Mel’s face. Her eyes widened, a muted scream blubbering against the gag. I picked up the phone and dialed the detective’s number. With a university landline in every room throughout the administration building, it would take forever for the authorities to find us. The phone rang, and a female voice picked up.

  41

  Four Minutes

  Wadsworth, Luke and I went to the hospital to see Debbie. The nurses weren’t helpful at all, shaking their heads no, that they could lose their jobs and licenses for sharing any medical information on any patient. Debbie’s parents and brothers had visited earlier in the morning. And strangely, the door to Debbie’s hospital room swung open, and a tearful younger woman I’d never seen before rushed out. Before I could ask staff who the woman was, she was gone. After some argument, and a bit of sweet-talking from Wadsworth, a young intern opened the blinds to a glass window allowing us to peer into the room. Debbie looked rough, and my throat tightened. Through the glass we all agreed her color looked good, the false reassurances exchanged like scared boys whistling in the dark. She looked bad. With little to say we headed straight back for the precinct. After hustling through a fast-food drive-thru, we made it back to headquarters midmorning. A little before ten, I was able to finally get my fingers on my left hand to stop dancing. The phone rang on my desk and I looked at the light. Then the phone speaker crackled. Denise from downstairs.

  “Detective Bardane?” she said. “You have an incoming call.”

  “Thanks Denise,” I sighed, slouching down into my office chair. “Put them through.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Denise?”

  “The caller…” she paused.

  “Yes?” I said tapping my desk with my pen.

  “Well, she called me a bitch and dropped the f-bomb.”

  I sat bolt upright in my chair. My skin went electrical, all pins and needles, the left-handed fingers coming back to life, and me shouting, “Put the call through right away.”

  The line clicked open. “Detective Bardane here.”

  “Hello,” Carlina said.

  “I’m going to catch you.”

  “You should have done it before now.”

  I ignored her. “But we can get your time reduced, allow for visitors, things like that.”

  “You should have caught me before now detective.”

  “You know, you’re on borrowed time,” I signaled for Luke. “But I can help you. I want to help you. Don’t you understand?”

  “Stalling to trace me huh?” she laughed. “You talk at me like you’re the one with control. I’m doing this all for you.” Her voice went dark and she shouted. “You ruined everything, motherfucker!” A brief pause and she came back with an easy relaxed voice. “And now it’s time to pay.”

  I gave her a very even and measured tone, like I might be reading from a notecard. “Don’t do anything you might regret. Okay? Just let me talk with you. I want to understand you better.”

  A sudden pop in the background, like she hit something. “Go to your work email on your network detective. Click the link.”

  I stood, signaling everyone I could see, motioning everyone over. I always kept court and the DA in my mind’s eye. Whatever I was about to see, I needed as many law enforcement witnesses a possible.

  “Come on,” I spoke soothingly. “I mean, you’ve been alone for a long time now, on the run. You have to be tired. Am I wrong?”

  “If you keep this up,” she sighed, acting bored. “I might just break her neck.”

  “Her?” I swallowed. Everyone around my desk heard Carlina say it. We fell silent. “Who her?”

  “You know who,” she sang it like a jingle on a commercial.

  I was confused. My fingers on the left hand were hopping. “What do you mean her?” The line was clear. Nothing.

  “Hello?” I repeated.

  More silence.

  “Are you still there?” I tried to stay calm.

  “Don’t make me regret this call Detective.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said with full relief that Carlina was still with us. “The link. I’m trying to open it.”

  I waited a beat. Then two.

  “See it yet?” she laughed.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to hold off raw panic, clicking and typing, then opening the link. I was startled. Nothing. An empty screen. “The link is open but it’s blank.”

  “Count to five.” Then Carlina hung up the phone. After a moment, the hyperlink connected. Streaks of black mascara ran down Mel’s face as she screamed from behind the ball-gag, the slobber and straining against the chair until her eyes fluttered and she folded forward sobbing. I stood up, breathless, and fell back into my seat. Luke gasped and Wadsworth went blank, not being able to accept he was staring at his own bound granddaughter. Carlina leaned into the camera frame, shaking her head like a maniacal demon. “Well detective, that was close. I almost sawed off her fucking head.”

  “Jesus!” I stood and screamed at the screen, knowing the link was two-way, that she could see us. “Don’t you touch her you psycho fuck!”

  Carina slung open the leather roll on the desk and the surgical supply belt revealed a row of various shaped of metallic metal blades. She took one out. Melanie was hysterical. I felt my heart drop to my feet, not being able to process that what I was seeing was actually real. Carlina came in close and wrenched Melanie’s head back by her hair, and took the blade and pressed a drop of blood from her cheek. Melanie went stiff as a board. None of us watching dared to breathe. This was real. And it was happening right now. “Unless you do exactly as I say asshole,” Carlina growled. “Your girlfriend here gets a face lift.” She gave the blade a little tug and a trickle of blood came down Melanie’s face. “I’m only going to say this one time, so you better listen up...”

  We were all listening. We were frozen in our tracks. I sank back into my chair and nodded obediently. “We’ll do anything, please don’t’ hurt her.”

  “There’s a payphone a mile west of you on Exodus and Cumberland, insid
e the laundromat,” Carlina smiled, holding Melanie’s head back, throat exposed, keeping the blade pressed against her cheek. “There’s security cameras front and back. Shade, if you don’t come alone, and I can see what the cameras see, I will kill this woman. Now get going. You have four minutes.”

  The screen went black. Wadsworth was pale with total disbelief, a patina of sweat dusting his brow. Luke, grabbed me by the shirt from behind. “I’m coming with you brother.”

  I pushed him off. “No, you’re not,” I pulled out my keys, holstered my gun and pointed at the dead monitor. “Did you not hear what she said? Stay here with the Chief.” I looked at the old man, his eyes staring back, tight, pleading, and defenseless. I grabbed Luke by the shoulder, “If he looks like this after I leave,” I whispered, the floor shifting under my feet and me ignoring it. “Call 911.”

  Four minutes. I skipped the elevator, dashed down the steps, and burst through the back door of the precinct at a full clip. When the sweet outdoor air hit me and sunlight angled into my eyes, I caught a loud roar in my ears. Then a bomb went off. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t hear or see. Still sprinting for my car, my legs went rubbery and the pavement crashed up into my chin, head smacking hard. I rolled over onto my back facing the sun, feeling my face, staring at my blood soaked palms. Four minutes. People huddled around me in a circle, hands on knees, crouched over, sharing looks of horror.

  My voice staggered and stalled. “What’s happened?”

  “Detective Bardane?” Denise from the front counter, spoke, a gold tooth catching the sun. “I saw the whole thing. Your legs just gave out. Are you on any medications?”

  “He works with his brother-in-law upstairs,” a voice said. “Officer Luke Bodwell.”

  My hands began vibrating. Dread sank into my bones. I kicked my legs and twisted around. The orchestrated action required for any functional movement just wasn’t there. Four minutes. I tried to speak. I wanted to shout that Melanie might die. That I was staring at Emily’s face. That if I didn’t get in my car right fucking now, everything was over. Finished. But nothing came out. A dull, helium sensation inflated my head and suddenly I was drenched in a pure, shining terror, my breathing arrested.

  “Holy shit,” Denise said, grabbing my neck and looking all around frantically. “Somebody call an ambulance. Shade’s having a seizure or a stroke or something.”

  Caught spinning inside a vortex, down and down I went. I was no longer a part of the human race. I no longer shared any connection to the universe. I kept thinking of a trapped girl whose name I didn’t know. Then I couldn’t remember my name. Four minutes.

  I went straight to hell…

  and screamed.

  42

  A Spilled Bucket of Diamonds

  I was grateful to be in pain because maybe it meant I was alive. I could count my heartbeat in my tongue in the back of my throat, thudding against my brain. Flashes of a writhing earthworm came and went and finally didn’t come back. What in the hell? Eyes closed, paddling through the confusion, I pulled in deep breaths, running the sequence of events through my mind: Downstairs kitchen, coffee, a phone call to Shade, A delivery truck… then a bright light. Wait. An explosion? A bomb? Why would the FedEx man want to kill me? I found the right place. The right muscles. And opened my eyes. A camera sat on a tripod aimed directly at me. The room’s cinderblock walls were covered in chipped sunshine yellow paint, faded with grease and grime, handprints here and there. Machinery kicked on and chugged outside the walls. The scent of electrical motors and gas fumes filled the air. Fluorescent lighting flashed above. A small rectangular window just above wall-mounted heating unit glowed with daylight. I’m in a basement? My head was fuzzy and I imagined I might be at the dentist on laughing gas. A woman rolled up on a stool wearing a disposable surgeon’s cap and a crisp, white lab jacket. Why the camera pointing at me. I tried to sit up and talk. But I couldn’t. I was tied up. Fear hit me. I tried to scream, but something was jammed in my mouth. I faded in and out, the dentist showed me knives, counted them out loud, and talked about killing someone. She jumped on me and squeezed my neck and screamed into the camera. I screamed and screamed. And the nothing. Then I came back. I was still here.

  “Bad news,” the woman said shaking her head with a kind sort of sadness. “Your boyfriend didn’t bother to show up to rescue you.” The she tossed her head back and laughed. “But men can be real assholes, can’t they? Trust me, I’m saving you oceans of future heartache.”

  “Where are we?” I tried to say it but my words where caught behind the object in my mouth.

  “The sedative wore off quickly,” the woman said as she pushed two fingers into my neck, and glanced at the watch on her wrist. “But not fast enough. I mean it’s show time and you’re acting like some idiot sorority girl in the grips of a bad hangover. That will never have the raw effect I’m searching for. He ruined everything. Now he won’t come face me. So, I’ll just put all this pain into you. It’s nothing personal. It’s just the way it works. I didn’t invent it.”

  The dentist pulled a plastic snap-packet from her lab coat and cracked it open under my nose. The fumes hit me like a hammer and my head jerked back. “There, there,” she snorted, her voice and all the sounds flooding in nice and loud. “That’s it honey. It’s time to rise and shine. And my, how you will shine.”

  This is not a dental office. Carlina Malhotra pushed a razor blade up close to my eye almost touching it, as I reared my head back, screaming at the top of my lungs, clawing the armrests, digging my nails deep into the vinyl upholstery. A creepy smile spread across her face each time I screamed and she stroked my hair, loving my pain with heavy eye contact. My eyes followed the length of my limbs, twist ties sticking out everywhere, the camera and some kind of belt strapped to my face. I screamed, kicked and contorted my body to escape this chair but it was useless. Carlina leaned forward, her breath hot in my ear, the flat side of the blade stroking my neck with some kind of lust filed with hate.

  “Bravo,” she whispered, her lips wet and touching my earlobe. “You are so talented. You see that camera? They’re watching you right now. Your poor grandfather. You’re giving your audience the ride of their lives. When I start cutting you up, I want you to really start fighting, okay? Really put on a show. I really need you to scream louder than you ever have before.”

  Suddenly she flicked off the camera, wrenched my head sideways and yanked the belt off my face, the ball attachment popping out of my mouth. I sat lungs heaving, breathing clear, drinking in gulps of air. Carlina sat in the rolling chair, legs crossed, going all casual like we might be at lunch catching up- if it weren’t for the hate in her eyes. She admired the scalpel in her hand, twisting it in the light, making the light play off the sharpened edges. “You know, I hated all of them,” she let her arm drop, the blade resting in her lap. “Men have always used me. My own husband got a court injunction signed by a judge. Mental incompetence or something- in order to cut me off from our bank accounts. Trust issues he said. That’s my money too motherfucker. Hey betrayed me. And how about Greymore and the elite husbands that pitched in, helping to rape me on that video? Well. You throw me away, you throw your own wives away. Blood. The great equalizer. I have faith in your blood Melanie. My blood. And faith without works is dead. Think of what I’m doing today as my version of worshipping the goodness in you.”

  She stopped and stared at me. All I could think was crazy motherfucker, there is now way in hell I’m going to let you chop me up today. I’m not your victim. I will not die today. She looked at me a moment longer, like she was waiting for me to say something. I sat motionless, giving her full eye contact, not blinking. She seemed satisfied.

  “It was the perfect plan. Get justice. Let my husband Svidi take the fall. And the 3.7 million in our account? All mine. Forfeited when Svidi got tossed in prison.” Her face darkened, eyes glaring. “Then your hero detective boyfriend showed up and
ruined everything. Threw him in jail. I had no idea Svidi was locked down. Right when I was out unpeeling Sherry. My final murder ended up ruling him out. So now we are all going to go to hell together.” She lifted the blade again, something sinister crossing her face with a smile.

  “Answer me this,” she said eyes tightening. “You seem like a smart, sassy girl, great looks, and a nice little flower shop. Why on earth would you take up with a lumbering jack-leg cop? You can do much better.”

  She saw the confusion in my eyes. “Oh come on,” she whispered. “I’ve followed you two. Your little dates. That silly church where you meet each week.”

  “We…” I stammered, looking around, trying to think of a way out of this place, my heart going wild in my chest. “We’re not romantic. We go to AA together.”

  Carlina’s eyes jumped. They went screwy and uneven. She pursed her lips and yanked the blade to my throat. “What?”

  My voice was shaking. “We do recovery meetings together.”

  “AA?” she whispered. I nodded. She reclined slowly away and started chuckling. This escalating to full laughter. Not stopping, caught in stitches, holding her gut with hilarity, cackling at the floor. Meanwhile, I scanned the room, the door, the window, searching for any way out. The laughter instantly stopped with sudden silence. Carlina grabbed my hair and jerked my head to the side, gently, studying me.

  “A couple of addicts, huh?” she sneered. “What in the hell do you know about getting fucked up little girl.” Then scooted in close to me on the rolling chair. “I’m going to enjoy this more than I ever imagined.” She wrestled me into a headlock and jammed the belt back into place, an object in my mouth, and flicked the camera back on.