by Kirk Alex
As if that weren’t bothersome enough, a voice, in the distance (sounding a great deal like John Joseph) yelled something about him being a no-good half-a-whore’s son; something about spending way too much time at that “pervert Bullturd’s” place. Then he’d say: “How much the clown give ya this time?” Snatch the money before Cecil had even had a chance to take it out of his pocket. Backhanded him, hard. Of course there was that other thing. Words were clear now. Too clear.
“Pissed your panties again! Lookit what you done to the bed, Pissy! No good little son of a bitch! Lookit the mattress! Soaked through and through! Stained! Another brand new rebuilt mattress shot! Ruined! You think rebuilt mattresses grow on trees? Is that what you think? You must, because you keep doin’ it! Can’t piss in the latrine like everybody else! What makes you so special that you can’t get out of bed to do your pissin’ in the latrine like the rest of us? Is the clown fuckin’ you? What’s causing it, ain’t it? Gotta be. Is he? If he is, we need to see more money from him!”
Juicer Joe. Surely. The sound of the buzzing flies not that far off, either. Juicer couldn’t wait to punish him for every infraction: imagined or real. Instead of talking to him like a human being. No way to explain the reason he continued to wet the bed is because he lived in perpetual fear of being beaten.
Forget it. How are you going to reason with a dogcatcher who brought dogs home and molested them? Forced him to do the same. Assaulted him if he didn’t. Reason with someone like that? I don’t think so.
Juicer Joe was inside his skull. Always—and forever. Would never be able to shake that warped billy motherfucker. Shouting, raging, waving the liquor bottle. Threatening to turn one of the hounds on him for what he “done” to the bed. Whipped Cecil’s face with the dog leash. “Another mattress what ain’t no good now! I’ll kill you one of these days, Pissy! Beat you to death! I will! You and that old heifer, both! For not scooping you out of that smelly twat of hers when I told her to!” Enjoyed shoving Cecil’s face in it.
Biggs did his best to tune the voice out. Was not able.
He climbed out of the tub. Carried the still breathing, whimpering victim to the chopping block, and reached for the Black & Decker once again. That’s how you dealt with all of it: with a hard and heavy whack of the saw.
CHAPTER 126
“No use trying to sleep.” Harold got up. “Noise is too damn much. Dude just don’t care about nobody. He don’t care if people ain’t gettin’ no sleep because of all that racket he’s makin’ over there. What the hell is he doin’, anyway? Cuttin’ lumber this early in the mornin’? Man’s crazy. Gotta be. Playin’ that screamin’ motherfucker James Brown all the time.”
Harold Crust shook his head. Looked at his wristwatch. It was 5:00 a.m. Might as well stay up now. The tv evangelist in the front room continued to ask for money. It was times like this Harold felt like taking his gun and putting a bullet or two right into the screen, right into the idiot box. But he knew he could never do that to his wife. He only wished she would show him some mercy and keep the set turned down low. Would it ever happen? They’d argued over it over the years. Claimed she couldn’t hear unless the volume was turned up.
He walked to the living room. Saw that Fay was asleep in her recliner, as usual, and that damned Delonzo curled up and dozing on her lap. Never cared for him. Big-ass gray with the nasty copper eyes. Fay had saved him from being put down at the animal shelter a couple of years back. Mean mother didn’t waste any time making himself right at home, either.
Harold had wanted him out. Didn’t care for him. Didn’t like cats, period. Tolerated him for Fay’s sake.
Cat had detected his presence and opened his eyes and gave him, what clearly appeared to be, a dirty look. Son of a bitch Delonzo been acting like he was the one paying the mortgage ever since Fay brung him home. And there was a lot to him, too. Weighed about twenty, twenty-five pounds. Built like a dog. Damned near. Had a massive head. Broad shoulders. About as big as Roscoe’s Boston terrier. Maybe bigger. Yeah. Gotta be. Made him nervous, too, sometime. Sheddin’ all that fur. Come spring and summer. Was a real job gettin’ all that cat hair off the carpet and furniture. Then you had the odor, cat shit, puke. And Fay went and got attached. “To be and live like a true Christian, you have to be kind now and then, Harold. Delonzo been abandoned. Lookin’ for love and affection.”
Not to mention all that tuna he could never get enough of and was costing them both more than he cared to think about.
Well, you did for your spouse. You did things to get along and because you loved your woman.
Delonzo annoyed him about as much as the tv still going, even though Fay was dozing. TV preachers maybe spent thirty minutes preaching, then would spend twice or three times as long pleading for donations, asking people to dig into their billfolds and make the preaching possible.
Only what was the point if she couldn’t hear it and was not even awake? She always liked to do that. Why you got to leave the tee-vee on if you gonna fall asleep, woman? Harold felt like saying to her, but didn’t. Wouldn’t. Stopped himself in time. She put up with my crap all these years, he thought, it’s time I put up with some of hers.
He stood there, hardly aware that he was running the tips of his fingers down the center of his chest, feeling the open-heart surgery scar. His fingers drifted to the left of the area, doing the same over the mound about the shape and size of a large coin. Did it to ensure that the pacemaker was doing its job, not that running his fingertips along the various reminders of the two surgeries determined anything. It was habit, more than anything. Habit. Just like a good shot, or more, of Jack Daniels had been habit, just like a snort of some prime toot now and then had been habit. But all that was in the past, history: toot, ’ludes, booze, hustlin’ pool. Not only staying up at all hours of the night and then making it in to the shoeshine stand the next morning, but there were times, plenty of times, when he’d gone two or three days even, without sleep, and still worked the stand shining kicks like he was made of iron. Hell. You ain’t no party animal no more, man. You a fifty-two-year-old dude what’s gonna be takin’ it easy from now on and forever. Remember that.
He noticed that his wife’s blanket had slid off and was at her feet. He picked the blanket up, fanned it out. Harold made a psst sound in order to get Delonzo to move off. He did so, but not before he’d given him the nastiest of looks with those deep copper eyes and bared his fangs. Acting like he owned the place and was head of the household.
Harold preferred dogs any day to cats, but what were you going to do? Animals were a nuisance, pretty much. Ate and crapped and left your home a mess. Leave it. You did things for your better half; you did things to get along. He owed her, owed her a whole lot.
Harold draped the blanket over his missus so that it covered her up to about the collar bone. He clicked the remote to shut the television off and stepped into the kitchen. Fought the old craving.
“Sure could use a shot of Jack right now.”
Noticed Fay’s reproving eyes open. She had the remote in her hand and was clicking the tee-vee back on.
“You know what the doctor said, Harold. You ain’t got liquor hid in this here house?”
“Yeah, I know what all them quacks said. No, I ain’t got nothin’ stashed no place. Wish I did.” He reached in the refrigerator for the pitcher of ice water and poured some into a tumbler. Drank it down. Hating the taste of it.
“Don’t you ever get tired of hearing them lies, Fay? Don’t you ever get tired of them phony Bible-thumpers asking for money all the time?”
Fay had closed her eyes. Said nothing.
“They live in mansions like kings and queens, while the rest of us struggle to get by.”
“Be grateful for what you have.”
“Oh, I am—grateful we live in this rat-trap, can hardly make mortgage, eatin’ franks and beans. I love it. Sure do. Can nobody claim I ain’t grateful.”
Harold wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Pulled his
boxers up. Looked down at the bony legs.
“I used to have some great legs, didn’t I? Used to have strong legs. Lookit me now: Toothpicks. Skinny legs and a big belly. Seems all my weight shifted from my ass to my belly. Muscle gone from my arms and shoulders and just settled down into my belly—and I don’t eat like I used to; used to eat like a horse, too.” Then he said: “Sorry SOB is at it again.”
“Say what, Harold?”
“You can’t hear it ’cause you got the tv on. I’m tired of calling the Man on him, tired of the Man not wantin’ to do nothin’ about it.”
“Get your rest, Harold. Go to bed.”
“What I been trying to do all night: Go to bed. Hell, it’s time to go to work—will be in an hour or so.”
“You need your rest, Harold.”
“Coming with, or you gonna spend your entire life in that chair?”
“I want to hear this.”
“You heard it all a million times by now, Fay.” Harold shook his head. “Them con men ain’t gonna tell you nothin’ you ain’t heard before. They ain’t gettin’ no more of my money. I work hard for every dollar I make. Let them grifters go out there and shine shoes for a livin’, see how they like it.”
He walked back to the bedroom.
CHAPTER 127
Biggs lifted the buzzing chainsaw. Carefully laid the blade down across Terri Denise Klopp’s neck without cutting into it, then raised it again. He would have to pay heed to caution here, or else risk doing serious damage to the butcher’s block. He lowered the spinning blade down to within one inch of the victim’s neck, held it there, without so much as touching skin. The erection he experienced was the ready-made bonus. Might cum a third time if things went well enough. You just had to draw it out and make them suffer. This one hadn’t suffered enough. None of them knew what true suffering was. How could they, when they were the cause? You had to prolong it, keep it going for as long as possible—without them opting for the death rattle as a way out, and depriving you of your pleasure and lust for blood.
Sweat poured down his face. Little by little, bit by bit, he applied enough pressure, guided the blade down, a spot above the strip of duct tape, watched it sink inside her neck, cutting the flesh open. He took his time. No need to rush. Savor it. Draw it out. Make the bitches pay. The blade sank deeper, parting the cut, slicing through the carotid and other veins, and the blood began to gush and spray in perfect unison with his orgasm below.
He continued to cut into the neck, ever mindful not to do anything to the table, perhaps only scratching the top; felt the teeth touch it, nibble at it, and the head was severed and rolled off and landed onto the floor below. The teeth inside her bloody jaw continued to chatter even then, the eyes blinking. Hens did it. Blood poured from her upper torso where her head used to be. He held the chainsaw vertically, started in at about the middle of her torso and began the slow, gradual cutting down the center of it, between the tits, on down through where the belly button was, below it, toward the lifeless vic’s pelvis. The blade sliced into her vagina. Cleared it. He released the trigger. Shut the chainsaw off. Picked up a circular saw and attempted to cut her down into smaller pieces. Chunks of flesh, skin, and whatnot got caught up inside the upper blade guard and elsewhere and sprayed him as well to the extent that it made it nearly impossible a task. These things were made for cutting wood, not gristle and flesh.
He lowered the circular saw, stepped into the tub and washed himself off with the hand shower. Held it above his head, rinsing the blood and bits of flesh and bone shards out of his hair, armpits and groin region. He tended to his asshole and scrotum. Dried off. Dressed. Slipped into the slicker, and picked up the cleaver. He beckoned Marvin Muck back into the room, and proceeded to do the rest of his chopping with the cleaver, taking every opportunity here to separate the meaty parts from bone; did the same with the legs and buttocks, and had the deacon toss them accordingly into four galvanized buckets on the floor.
It didn’t take long for Marvin and his way-too-sensitive nose to start botching things up by tossing meat in with the bones; and then, too, he was dumping entrails in there with the good meat.
Biggs had to remind him to pay a little more attention to what he was doing, not that it always worked. The room had turned into something resembling a gruesome nightmare: blood and viscera, arms, legs, feet—not to mention excreta. It was too much for Free Base. He’d been in it for the tang, pussy, gettin’ over; pimping out bitches for dope and dough. He didn’t mind rapin’ them hoe’, neither, taking that bush or cornhole when his dick be hard. But this . . . this be somethin’ else. Mofo Bigg’ should be in the bug bin.
“That be some strange shit.”
“The fuck is the matter with you now? Sight of blood bother you? That it, Slim?”
“Yo. Blood don’t bother me—long as it don’t be mine.”
CHAPTER 128
Same Day, Early Dawn
Petunia peered through a crack in the drawn bedroom curtains. It wasn’t mere curiosity that caused her to behave this way; no, it was more than that. Her nerves couldn’t take the pandemonium that had been coming from Biggs’s place, all that strange noise, and it made her angry and she stayed angry.
Roscoe was sound asleep in their bed, snoring as usual. His wife looked at him and shook her head. Dead to the world. The house could have been on fire and he wouldn’t know it; for that matter, all of San Fernando Valley could have been ablaze and oblivious Marty would have snored right through it.
Work a minimum amount, drink like a fish and sleep like a hog and chase those young bimbos in their clinging skirts every chance you get.
The racket across the way persisted and Petunia was back at the window trying to make out what the hell was going on, peering through the curtains. She was exhausted and needed sleep and was convinced Biggs was one inconsiderate jerk.
“Marty?”
Roscoe chortled like the true swine that she knew him to be.
“Hear that, Marty?”
“Hear what?” Roscoe hardly stirred.
“Hear what? Are you falling apart like Harold now?”
“Let me sleep, woman.”
“Can’t you hear that, for crying out loud? What’s it sound like to you?”
Roscoe’s eyes stayed closed. He was scratching his buttocks. “I don’t know.”
“What time is it?”
“Time to give your husband a blow job, woman.”
“Idiot.”
His wife shook her head. It was then the ruckus ended. It was quiet. Petunia remained standing at the window. Still. Waited for it to start up again. It didn’t. It was too good to be true. It was nice and quiet. Bastard’s probably too spent to party anymore. Those orgies must take a lot out of you.
She walked over to the bed and slid under the covers.
CHAPTER 129
Inside Biggs’s Fun Room things were, in fact, relatively calm now. It was clean-up time, time to get the hose out and get rid of the evidence: chunks of meat and bone, loose teeth, hair clumps, toes, intestines, torso halves, hacked off arms and other limbs.
There was the woman’s head with the scalp gone, while a few feet away lay what remained of the rest of the body. There was blood everywhere; too much of it really. Other than it being one big mess, he hated to see so much blood go to waste. Truly did. And that head. What was it doing on the floor?
Trophies were to be handled with care. He’d gotten careless in the whole euphoria of it. Picked up the head. Placed it inside the metal cabinet. He would boil it in water later to get the flesh off. Make it look real nice. Paint it gray and find a place for it on the special shelf in the cooler with the other skulls, or maybe on top of the safe in his bedroom.
Probably safer that way. No way Mr. Fimple would be able to break into his bedroom the way he’d been able to break into the cooler from time to time. He gave Marvin the key to unlock the spigot out there by the pit, gave him one end of the hose. Told him to hook it up and turn the water on ful
l blast.
Biggs went over the contents in the various buckets one more time to make certain anything with a decent amount of meat on it was separated from the rest and tossed into the proper bucket.
Marvin was back.
Biggs aimed the hose nozzle at the walls and began spraying. Did his best with it. Paused spraying long enough to have Marvin pick up the push broom and brush down the walls, cabinet, butcher’s block and floor.
“Get with it.”
As expected, Marvin’s effort was half-assed.
“Get the lead out. This is the price we pay for the fun we have around here.”
Muck did what he was supposed to. Didn’t give it his all; never gave anything one hundred percent, other than when it was time to rape the whores. It would do. Biggs had him step back. Blasted the walls some more with water. Guided all the bits and pieces in a single pile in the center of the cement floor. Stopped spraying. Tossed some more of the limbs with potential, that Greta could use, into the designated bucket, while Marvin shoveled the rest into the remaining three.
“Grab the bucket with the meat and take it to the walk-in.”
“Door be locked.”
“I know door ‘be locked.’ I didn’t say to go inside, did I?”
“Could be you did.”
“Could be you got shit in your ears.”
“Could be ’cause you be playin’ that loud mothafuckin’ disco all the fuckin’ time.”
“You done exaggerating?”
“Didn’t know I was, me.”
“Come back for two more. Go on.”
Marvin carried the bucket out, and was back shortly. Biggs grabbed the lighter of the three, left the remaining two for Muck to deal with, and they hauled them out. Biggs unlocked the door to the walk-in, dumped the meat in the one bucket in the freezer, stepped back out and locked the door back up.