The symbolism of his giving her the watch wasn't lost on her. She knew how much it meant to him and for him to give it to her said more than any words could possibly express. She would definitely return, of this he could be certain. She loved Faden more than life itself. She loved him with all her heart and believed with all that was holy in her that God would lift the curse of the Ranson women, for this match that seemed to be made in Heaven.
Oh, yes ... she would return to him all right, because she sure as hell wasn't going to raise the baby growing inside her without its father.
CHAPTER V
Ben became infamous as the “Roachman” while in prison. Thoughts of revenge against Faden kept his hatred, and therefore his life going, while spending time. He learned behind the gray walls that he could be paid for doing what he enjoyed so much ... bringing pain and suffering to others. What a concept, much like a professional athlete, to be given money for having fun.
Ben had a tattoo put on the back of his hand between the thumb and forefinger. A cockroach was standing erect on its hind legs performing the Mexican Hat Dance around a sombrero. The legend “EL CUCARACHA” was emblazoned on the brim of the hat. Ben became a member of the Bear Clan.
Bear was a giant of a man, standing six-feet eleven inches in his bare feet, and weighing an impressive three hundred pounds with less than seven percent overall body fat. His skin was as black as the ace of spades, and his beard extremely bushy, hence the nickname. He had once upon a time been a professional wrestler, but had broken the necks of his wife and her lover in a fit of rage. He had started the Clan so that they may watch each other's backs. The only requirement for admittance to the Clan was murder. You had to have killed someone on the outside, and would be called upon from time to time to do the same thing on the inside. Ben easily met the entire criteria.
Frankie Martinelli didn't amount to much by anyone's standards, but he was the son of one of the most powerful Families on the East Coast. He had raped an Oklahoma City girl when she had spurned his advances. He had been in Oklahoma attempting to settle a dispute among one of the trucking companies that the Family owned. He had believed that any poor, ignorant, “OKIE” female should swoon at the feet of a wealthy, sophisticated businessman like himself. He had been wrong in his assumption, and was serving a three-year sentence for his erroneous belief. “Big Mac” is the state penitentiary of Oklahoma, and the place he would temporarily call home. He had been a royal pain in the ass while a civilian, and a thorn in the side of the Bear behind the gray walls. The Bear was paid to keep the boy safe. He had, with some difficulty, managed to do this, that is, until Frankie got crossways of the Queen.
The Queen was a man who looked anything but the stereotype of a homosexual. He had an extremely muscular build, and a face chiseled out of granite. He was doing time for molestation, and it hadn't stopped when he entered the system. He still enjoyed his sex with young, pretty boys. One day during lunch, the Queen had made a pass at Frankie. The kid, thinking to make an impression, had slapped the Queen, hard, across the face. The sound was like a shotgun blast inside of the silenced chow hall. The Queen smiled, and then walked away. Everyone was stunned; the Queen had never stood for this kind of insolent behavior before. All the old cons suspected it to be a put-up show, financed by the kid's folks. A contrived act of bravery to convince the others that he was some kind of tough-guy.
No such luck for the boy in a man's body! It had simply been another testament to the kid's egotistical stupidity. The Queen and his lackeys took care of the boy a week following the incident in the chow hall. The multiple sodomy, while extremely painful, hadn't killed the kid, but the sharp pointed stick that the Queen shoved up his ass, did.
The Bear had to bring the Queen down, or lose face. He had been paid good money to protect the kid, but due to Frankie's idiocy, he had failed. He had to wreak vengeance; the Family would accept no less. The main problem was that the guards were aware of this also, and many of them were on the Queen's payroll. The Bear was immediately put into solitary confinement before he could speak to anyone about any planned retribution.
The Queen had the run of the entire prison with the Bear secluded, and he made the fatal mistake of relaxing his vigilance. The Roachman seized the opportunity that presented itself. He traded cigarettes for a gallon of flammable cleaning fluid and some stout cord. He talked a trustee (who had a damn good reason for hating the Queen and his cronies) into assigning him clean-up duty on the fourth floor. This was the Queen's bailiwick. It was three o'clock in the morning, and the Queen was sound asleep in his private cell. Ben had hidden the fluid in the mop bucket. By reaching through the bars as far as he could, and with the aid of a filed teaspoon handle, he was able to poke a hole through the two edges of the wool blanket that hung down both sides of the bunk. He pushed the cord through the hole on the right side, then through the side next to the wall. He pulled the ends of the cord as tight as possible beneath the bunk, taking great pains not to waken the snoring Queen. He tied a hard knot in the cord, thereby trapping the Queen in his bed. Given enough time, a man would be able to wriggle out from between the blanket and bed, but the Queen didn't have that kind of time. Ben struck a match, and then hurled the entire contents of the pail into the unsuspecting face of the Queen. The match made an eerie glow as it arced through the air on the way to its target. Ben exclaimed, while sneering, “Hot Springs, tonight!"
The prison doctor, who also doubled as coroner, probably wasn't as thorough with his examination of the deceased as he should have been, but then it was his golf day. He advised the warden that the departed might have drowned from the volume of fluid that entered his nose, mouth and lungs, been asphyxiated by the fumes, and, or explosion that ensued, or may even have lived long enough to feel himself burn to death.
The warden had a tryst, which he was late for, with the bleached blond from the diner down the road, so he allowed that it was a damn shame, but shit happens.
Ben was routinely questioned, then released for lack of evidence and interest. There wasn't a prisoner in the entire place that was going to rat on the man who had done what he had to the Queen, not even the Queen's own men. The Roachman returned to his cell to find the Bear reclining on his bunk with his hands clasped behind his head. The Bear smiled, and said, “The Queen is dead ... long live the Roachman!"
Bear explained to Ben, in no uncertain terms, his appreciation for a job well done. The Family was also very pleased. Upon his release the Roachman would receive twenty thousand dollars for the actual killing, plus a bonus for the suffering he had inflicted. There was also to be instructions included with the money. Instructions that would tell him how to get in contact with the Family for possible future jobs on the outside. There was always work for a man with Ben's unique talents in the Family business.
Ben finished his sentence without further incident, other than a murder, or two. He was released on the third of June, 1967. He found a new ‘67 Ford Galaxy 500 in the parking lot outside the gate. His name was scrawled on the driver's side window in white shoe polish. There was a new briefcase lying on the passenger side of the front seat. He turned the ignition on and drove out of the prison parking lot without peering into the case. Gazing into the rearview mirror he saw the long black limousine pulling out of the rear exit of the lot.
He didn't stop for lunch until he arrived at a small roadside diner near Lake Murray, just outside of Ardmore, Oklahoma. He opened the briefcase and found one thousand, twenty-dollar bills, along with a note that read;
"I sincerely hope that you enjoy your bonus. A Ford Galaxy is supposed to be a good car, or so I am told. Take some time off and relax for a while, then come to the designated place in Albany, New York. Drive safely. Thanks for a job well done. I know that my boy's soul has found peace since you did the nice work."
D.M., SR.
Ben destroyed the note and instructions, as he knew he was expected to. His plans for vengeance against Faden would have to be put on hold for the tim
e being. He had all the time in the world to make the little punk pay for his insolence. For now, he would take care of the business at hand. He believed he could really go places in this line of work he had chosen.
And go places he did! He was an apt pupil of the perversities of human nature. His skills at causing pain and suffering, which eventually led to death, were so great that by 1969 he was one of the most sought after and highest paid hit men on the continent.
CHAPTER VI
"What if she was dead?” inquired the man in the three-piece suit.
"We both know that she isn't dead!"
"But what if she were?” asked the other of the two men that occupied the room. The date was the twenty-first of December, 1985, and the place was an office in the thirty-story building, which sported the SIN record label logo. The two characters were Jim Simmons (Sinda's former second husband), and Vic Rogers, Vice President of SIN productions.
"Her record sales are down. Kids these days are the money people, and you have to keep making hits and having concerts to keep them interested. Sinda's drug habit has cost us more money than I care to mention. She was a no-show for three of her ‘85 concerts. She hasn't had a number one song in over two years, and after she made such a fool of herself at the Grammys she won't be invited to any more award shows, not even as a presenter. I don't have to remind you of how her tit fell out of the halter-top last year, do I? Everyone was so shocked when Mick ran up on the stage to put it back in for her. My God, man! That was on live national television. She was so whacked out of her gourd she thought he was merely getting fresh with her and in return grabbed him by the crotch. Instead of looking like a superstar, she came across as a trailer-trash tramp!” exclaimed Jim.
Vic had to suppress a grin as he recalled the incident. Sinda had grabbed Mick by the crotch all right, but not hard. She and Mick had spent the next two weeks in the Bahamas. In defense of her actions, he said, “She will get back into the swing of things."
"Bullshit!!! She's finished in the recording business, and you know it as well as I do. Once word leaks out that she has simply been hiding out from the public, we're all through.” Jim had become suspicious when Kimberly had stopped calling to see if he had any information of Sinda's whereabouts. Record sales had been up immediately following the sensation of her disappearance, so he hadn't given any more thought to his suspicions. When the public had tired of the vanished singer, and moved on to something new, record sales had plummeted. This was when he had contacted the man, known to inner circles, as the Roachman.
Ben had gone to work on Kimberly, giving her sodium pentathol, (truth serum), and her system's low tolerance for any drug had caused her to sing like a canary. He had then given her a drug, which gave a person all the symptoms commonly associated with heart failure. He then checked her into the emergency room of the Dallas Memorial Hospital, claiming to have found her wondering aimlessly along side of the freeway.
At this time only six people knew for sure that Sinda was alive (excluding Faden and Sinda) Jim, Vic, the ranch house maid, and Sinda's personal assistant, all of whom were in on the deal since its inception. Kimberly, who wouldn't be saying anything to anyone for some time to come, if ever, and the Roachman.
The plan was to bump Sinda off, then capitalize on her tragic death. Elvis and Hank Williams had sold a shit-pile of albums after their deaths, and were still immensely popular. Jim detested Sinda, and hated the way she had thrown him the bone, which happened to be a one hundred thousand-dollar a year job, knowing full well that his gambling debts would keep insuring his continued employment. If only he hadn't signed that damned pre-nuptial agreement, but he had been so “in lust” with her. Thoughts of the three times he had slept with her could still stir him to an unwanted erection. Maybe the black eye and broken jaw he had given her were more than had been called for, but dammit, he deserved at least half of everything she owned for having kept up the appearance of a happy marriage for those seven months.
Ben was staying in a swanky motel room outside of Fort Worth, Texas, when word came down for him to “take-out” Sinda. The price was one million dollars, but he would have done it for free. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, two birds with one stone. He would be rewarded with the million for wiping out Sinda, and wreak vengeance on the punk, Faden, by framing him for the murder.
Life was good!
CHAPTER VII
Sinda was sitting on a rocking chair in the living room of the cabin when Roachman drove up in the long black limousine with the SIN logo on its side. He got out of the car wearing the costume of a chauffeur. He knocked on the door, and was told to enter by the sobbing woman. She held the back of a pocket watch on a gold chain to her lips.
He had seen the watch many times twenty-one years before, and the significance of her now possessing it was not lost on him. Faden must have really fallen for her in order to give her the watch. Ben thought, so much the better.
He had seen the Star on television, most notably the last time he had watched the Grammys, but she was barely recognizable as the same person. The girl on the awards show had been an emaciated, disheveled version of the wholesome woman that now sat before him. He asked for something to drink, before starting on the way to Dallas, and was told to help himself.
When he was behind Sinda, presumably on his way to the kitchen, he took a bottle of chloroform out of one pocket of his jacket, and a handkerchief out of another. He doused the kerchief with the colorless liquid, and held it over her nose and mouth. She put up a small struggle, and then succumbed to the drug. He locked the door so no one could enter unbidden. He tied her ankles to the legs of the chair, and her wrist to the arms, after having stripped her of all her clothes.
She soon awoke naked to the world with a splitting headache. She tried to move her arms and legs but found she couldn't because they were bound to the chair. She cried out for Faden, but he didn't answer, of course, because the big mean looking man standing before her wasn't him. She watched at first through a kind of dream like haze, then with morbid fascination, as he punctured the flesh immediately above her vagina with the tip of Faden's hunting knife. The effects of the drug wore off, and she was engulfed with pain as the man with the weird tattoo on his hand brought the knife up deeply through her belly, and into her chest cavity. Her right hand jerked in a spasm, which broke the watch chain that had gotten looped around the arm of the chair. The watch then slipped from her fingers and shattered the face when it hit the floor, freezing the hands at 2:15 for all eternity. Mercifully, her eyes had glazed over by the time that Roachman severed the tiny body from her womb.
Ben drove to Ryan, Oklahoma, before stopping to place the anonymous phone call to the Jefferson County Sheriffs Department, reporting a disturbance out at the Casteel place.
CHAPTER VIII
Faden waited until darkness had claimed the land before heading back to the cabin. He had wanted to be sure she was gone so that he wouldn't break down and beg her not to go at all. He topped a small rise of land and saw the flashing lights of several State Trooper vehicles. There were people crawling all over his front yard and in his cabin.
He surmised that they were looking for evidence. She had pulled the wool over his eyes and betrayed him ... but how could she have done it so well? How could it be wrong, if it felt so right? She was the one, after all, who had initiated their lovemaking. His heart had told him that the love he felt for her was reciprocated. Why had she turned him in, after going through all the trouble of telling him how much she appreciated what he had done for her?
He ran for the river as fast as his legs would carry him. He grabbed the tarp covered truck inner tube that he had stashed on the bank at an earlier date. He floated downstream until he came to the tree near the cellar. He stood in the fork of the tree, which he had climbed by grabbing one of the branches overhanging the water, and pulled the string that opened the cellar door. A coat hanger and a piece of twine, which were also stashed in the tree, were used to fish the fu
lly loaded Winchester .22 caliber rifle from the cellar. He then closed the door and dropped onto the inner tube. It had rained since he last visited the cellar so he was able to accomplish all of this without leaving one trace for the trackers, or scent for the bloodhounds that would soon be on his trail. All evidence of his continued existence would end at the river edge where he had entered the water. He knew they would think he had taken a boat, and would be searching all up and down the river for him.
It took him a week to reach his destination. He had traveled only by night, on the river where he could, and away from it when he couldn't. He ate rabbits that he snared, cooking them over the near smokeless fires he had learned to build in Vietnam, and as far as he could get away from the river without losing too much time.
His choice for a hideout was the bluffs south of Oscar. The almost sheer rock walls on the north bank of the Red River were riddled with caves and holes large enough for a grown man to stand erect in. He had stocked one of these caves with supplies, months before, in anticipation of just such an eventuality. He raked the leaves off of the rope that was buried in the sand. The other end of the rope was secured to a spike driven into the rock floor of the cave. He released the inner tube allowing it to drift with the current. He slung the rifle across his back and pulled himself a short distance up the rope, bracing one foot against the rock wall. He used his other foot to splash water onto the sand to wipe out his scent, and then scaled the remaining distance to the cave. He pulled the rope in after himself, changed into dry clothing, ate a bite of non-perishables, then sat back on his haunches with the rifle across his knees, and began the wait.
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