THUGLIT Issue Twenty-One

by Rena Robinett

  "Mahalo." We knew she could lose her job if word got back to the hotel. She trusted it wouldn't come from me.

  A few days later, I flew back to Northern California to brood. I spent another few weeks trying to eat, sleep, walk, cry…mostly cry. I thought about using. I thought about shooting heroin more than a few times. I yelled at the sky more than a few times. And then I started imagining what I could do. I thought about calling Detective Becker and giving him Mana's information. I thought about principles and spiritual paths and walking the straight line, and I thought about some bastard hurting my girl. Finally, I had to decide what to do.

  The thing is, most people in recovery are just baseline druggies like my ex. Harmless pains-in-the-ass who wreck lives mostly by being useless. My story was darker. I came from a place where people did bad things to each other, and I'd fought hard for a long time to forget who I'd been.

  Now I remembered.

  I called an old friend in Boulder Creek, in Santa Cruz. We hadn't talked in decades, but we went way back. I gave him the name and info from the registration.

  Chris called me back a few days later. I drove up to his cabin in the woods. He met me at his door, undoing the five chain locks. Chris is a paranoid, careful guy who survived the '70's drug trade in Afghanistan and Hell's Angels drug wars in Watsonville. He brought me into his study and showed me reams of paper he'd printed out. I stuffed the papers in my bag. He handed me a small bundle of canvas. I set it down on his table and peeled back the folds to see the gun I'd ordered.

  The Glock 17 is one of the preferred weapons for female law enforcement officers worldwide. It's a copy of the Glock 19, but lighter, with less recoil. I'd need some practice, but I was pretty sure firing a gun wasn't something I'd forgotten.

  When I got home, I read all the material Chris had scrounged and knew I had my guy. I spent the next week at the local firing range, and over my kitchen table, making plans.

  Jack Rayson lived in Ventura, near old town. He was a single man who worked for the county in some office job. He had been to Maui every year for the past five years, and when I found that out, it made me wonder how many daughters he'd taken to Hana. His house in Ventura was a modest two-bedroom off the avenue near downtown. He lived alone.

  I rented a hotel room in Oxnard and bought an old beater off some surf bum down by the harbor. Once I was settled, I drove over to watch his house. I watched for over a week. Part of me just wanted to get it over with, but another part of me wanted to be sure before I broke ties with every part of the life I had built for myself.

  On the Thursday I knew he would work late, I broke in. I went through the house wanting to find a Silence of the Lambs interior, only to find a neat house with fresh flowers in vases, polished furniture, lovely paintings on the walls and a sense of well-being. My heart pounding, I kept searching, racing through each room carefully pulling drawers open, checking closed doors. Finally, I knelt down on the Moroccan carpet by his plush bed, looked under and pulled out an old case.

  Inside were pictures of a family and vacation pictures of what looked like Hawaii in the 1950's. Hundreds of pictures and mementoes, old shell necklaces and cloth leis. I searched the whole case quickly, my breath going out in gasps—and then in the side pocket I found them.

  Pictures of girls.

  Pretty girls in bathing suits, in shorts, in flowered dresses. A stack of pretty girls and my girl. A picture of my girl staring at the camera, laughing with the waves crashing the shoreline behind her. My heart exploded. I stuffed everything back in the case and shoved it all back under the bed.

  I kept my baby's picture. I couldn't leave her there. I got up and slipped out of the house. I spent the next few days in bed in my hotel room, unable to move, or cry, or eat, or sleep. I just lay there, paralyzed. What I could do would kill me. What I wouldn't do would kill me. I was already dead.

  It's not really hard to kill someone. It's the deciding that's hard. I spent days deciding, then I got up and drove back out to Jack Rayson's house. I broke in again and waited for him to come home. I heard his car pull up and his key in the lock of a door that was already open. He walked in to see me sitting on his couch, gun in hand.

  "You killed my daughter."

  He stood staring at me. It ran through my head how many movies I'd seen with this scene, where in my head I'd be screaming, Just shoot the bastard while the hero yammered on and on, some nonsensical dialogue that nobody cared about or even heard. But there is something about killing someone that forces you to postpone the act as long as possible, unless you are in a passionate rage. Killing in cold blood is not as easy as we make it seem. So I sat there pointing the gun knowing that there was no turning back.

  "Do you want to hear what happened?" I was shocked that he spoke in a calm voice. Did I want to hear this monster tell me my daughter’s last hours, could I stand to hear him? I could hardly process him offering to tell me when he shot across the room and fell on me. I pulled the trigger just as he landed and felt the warm seep of blood spreading out across my chest. He tried to put his hands around my neck, but he was already shaking and weakened. I pulled the gun from under him and shot him again in the head.

  I crawled out from under him, shoving him over, gagging, and gasping for air. I ran into the bathroom off the hall and tore my shirt off with all of my clothes. I ran the shower, jumped in and washed everything. Me, my clothes, the gun. I got out, wrapped a towel around me, threw the clothes in his dryer and drank some water from the sink. I sat at the kitchen table looking at his body, waiting for my clothes to dry, until it got full dark outside. Then I went out to my car and got some chemicals.

  It takes approximately ninety hours to break a body down to nothing. And it's almost impossible to break it down to no trace. But that was not my intent. I just wanted to throw off the scent.

  First, I hauled the body into the bathtub and filled the tub with chemicals. It was a horrible task, and I'll never forget the sound or sight of that hissing body sliding into the vat of noxious fumes, half-expecting its eyes to pop open, its mouth to scream. After, I ran around the house collecting everything, including the case under the bed and the gun. I took the bundle out quietly, watchfully, to my car trunk. Once I'd done all I could, I left.

  I drove the car to the local dump and paid the guy a few hundred dollars to smash it up, telling him it was my ex's car and I wanted to get rid of it. He gave me a ride to the bus stop and I rode several buses until I got close enough to my house to take a cab home.

  Then I waited. I didn't return my sponsor's calls. I didn't go to meetings. I fought the urge to drink, to shoot drugs, to kill myself and I waited for someone like Detective Becker to knock on my door.

  A Nice Pair of Guns

  by Nick Kolakowski

  We came home from the movies to find our front door kicked open, both floors ransacked, half the food in the fridge missing. My five-year-old daughter ran into her bedroom, screaming, to make sure her toys were safe. She loves her two Pink Princess dolls, which I won for her at the trick-shooting booth at the state fair. Her toys were safe, but when I went into my bedroom, I found that the frisky varmint had stolen my favorite playthings: a pair of AR-15s with very expensive scopes.

  First thing, I called the cops. While I waited for them to arrive, I phoned my former brother-in-law. His voice came over the line raspy and slow, and I had to talk loudly to prevent him from nodding off. I had no compunctions about treating him a little rough, not when I paid his sister two grand a month in child support, a big chunk of which probably ended up in his veins.

  "Rick," I said. "You tell any of your fellow scumbags about my guns lately?"

  "Nuh-uh, I swear."

  Through the line I heard the faint moan of a freight train, which meant he was on the west side of town, probably in one of those crack shacks near the bridge. "I don't believe you," I said. "Activate that chunk of meat you call a brain and think again."

  I took his silence to mean he was trying his hard
est. Rick had an outstanding warrant, and he knew I'd roust him for it, no matter how much my ex-wife screamed at me. "Zombie Bill," he finally said.

  My skin tingled. "Zombie Bill what?"

  I could practically hear Rick shrug. "I told him you had a couple nice rifles. I'm sorry?"

  I hung up without bothering to reply. A couple of meth freaks stealing my guns was one thing. Ten out of ten times, they would try and pawn the hardware, and end up busted. But Zombie Bill, the crazy bastard, would use those beautiful AR-15s to fill as many people with lead as possible. And that blood would be on my hands.

  A police cruiser pulled into my driveway, and I walked outside to meet it, my crying daughter in my arms. The cops were polite as they took the report, and told me they'd do their best, which meant exactly squat.

  Roger, my neighbor, was another firearms enthusiast. "They broke into your gun locker?" he asked, as I handed him a nylon bag loaded with enough toys, books, and snacks to see my kid through the night and the next morning.

  I shook my head. "I was an idiot," I said. "I kept them in a wooden cabinet, locked."

  He offered me a gently withering look. "Got to get something tougher, man. Like a big safe."

  "I know." I shrugged, even though the gesture felt dismissive, weak. "Kept them unloaded, under lock and key. Figured that'd be enough."

  "You going to find them?"

  I nodded. "It's my responsibility to make this right."

  After giving my kid over, I headed for the west side in my truck. I needed to talk to Rick, and whether that discussion came with a generous beating was up to him. Zombie Bill might have stripped my house of guns, but I still had a dinky 9mm hidden inside the paperback Bible I kept in my glove compartment. Call me damned to Hell for cutting a hollow in the Good Book, and I'll tell you I'd rather risk divine wrath than show up anywhere unarmed. Besides, I lost my faith a long time ago, in a desert on the other side of the world.

  Stopping at a red light, I dialed the office. Janine picked up on the first ring, sounding bored as usual: "The Bond King."

  "It's your favorite bounty hunter," I said. "You want to carve time out your busy schedule, dig up a last known address?"

  "You looking for a William Price?" That was Zombie Bill's legal name.

  "What are you, psychic?"

  "Nah, he called five minutes ago, suggested you meet him at the Tastee Diner at eleven. Said you could split a milkshake or something."

  "Funny guy."

  "He's turning himself in? Want me to prep the paperwork?"

  "Nah, he's trading information. Thanks for letting me know." I swung the truck around and headed north along Franklin Avenue. The Tastee Diner, a bright and shiny temple to deep-fried fat, always had a crowd. Unless Zombie Bill planned on splattering me in front of thirty witnesses, I was probably safe there.

  At the restaurant, I found a booth in the corner and took a seat facing the front door, 9mm in my left hand beneath the table. When the waitress came by, I ordered a coffee. At five minutes past eleven, the door opened and Zombie Bill shuffled in, dressed for success in a white t-shirt and a pair of stained cargo shorts, his tattoos looking like old wounds in the fluorescent lighting. One of his lieutenants, an inked-up skeleton with a waist-length red beard, came in behind him, taking a seat at the counter that ran the length of the restaurant.

  Zombie Bill sat down across from me and smirked, revealing metal teeth that could have used a polish. "How's your night going?"

  "Cut the crap," I said. "What do you want?"

  He leaned back, snorted, scratched at the pink scar on his neck. He'd earned his street name after surviving eight bullet wounds to the jaw, stomach, throat, chest, and right arm. It's like he's undead, some half-wit had said after that. The only way to kill him is with a shot to the brain. "I want a favor," he said.

  "Good for you. I want a new pickup and a supermodel in my bed. That doesn't mean it's going to happen. What makes you think I won't call the cops?"

  "Because the cops won't ever find the guns." Zombie Bill waggled a bony finger at me. "You think I'm an idiot? Why you keeping that much firepower around the house, anyway?"

  "What can I say, I believe in home defense," I said, my stomach churning.

  "I'm not asking anything of you that I wouldn't do myself," he said, flashing those teeth I so desperately wanted to yank out of his head. "Just that you don't bust me or my crew. Maybe sometimes I ask you to track someone down, and you do it."

  "I'm never getting those weapons back, am I?" I said. "It's like endless collateral for you."

  Bill bit his lip. "Here's your first task: Frankie has some outstanding warrants."

  "No," I said. "You know I can't do that."

  "Can't, or won't?"

  "Same difference. I have a code."

  He slapped the table, softly. "Think about breaking it," he said. "When you're ready to make a deal, you call that number I left at your office. I'm giving you until tomorrow afternoon, maybe. Then I do something unpleasant." And he left, the red lieutenant drifting in his wake, while all around me, a lot of nice people went on clogging their veins with delicious fat, oblivious to the weird horrors happening all around them.

  Frankie stood five-foot-two in her customary combat boots, her small body tight with muscle and sharp with bone. She wore as much black clothing and eyeliner as a high school goth, and nobody made jokes about it, because she liked to do things like shove pens through necks. As she poured me a whiskey, she said, "My old friend Bill."

  "Wants you arrested," I said.

  "Yeah, so one of his little meth-heads can shank me inside. He can't beat me on the street, you know."

  "I didn't say he wasn't predictable." I sipped the whiskey, checking out her new office: a shipping container with a skylight cut in the roof, a thick rug on the floor, a leather couch at one end and a nice desk at the other. The container sat at the edge of the river docks. Anyone who wanted to take a shot at her would have to bypass three fences and ten bodyguards. Frankie had founded an e-commerce site on the darknet that exchanged Bitcoin for pretty much anything illegal, which meant at least a hundred people in twenty countries wanted her cold on a slab. Hence the security, and her habit of wearing a bullet-resistant vest around town.

  "Bill's not predictable, is the problem. Never stops moving." She slugged down her drink. "Thanks for calling me about it."

  "You know I didn't have a choice," I said.

  "True." She poured herself another round, after topping off my half-full glass. "Now drink up, because you're not going to like the solution I'm offering. You'll have to abuse the powers of your office."

  I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but I've never felt scummier than the next morning, when I paid bail for a child molester named Mark Miller. He was exactly the sort of simpering scumbag that makes you fear for the future of the human race. As we exited the jail, he kept asking me who I was, and what I wanted. I don't think of myself as blood simple, but it felt like sweet relief once we made it to my truck, where I could punch him in the face many, many, many times until he snapped into unconsciousness.

  You want to know the worst part? I paid a thousand dollars to spring him loose, and I would probably never see a dime of it again.

  It was noon by the time I finished cleaning my knuckles, and with Miller bound and gagged in my backseat, I swung by the office. Janine, who never seemed to leave her desk, gave me Zombie Bill's number. I dialed it in the parking lot, the only place where I had a modicum of privacy.

  "You arrest Frankie?" he asked.

  "Nope," I said, injecting my voice with false cheer. "But guess who I just sprung from jail?"

  He knew. Even with someone like Zombie Bill, there are only so many cousins you can have locked up at one time, especially if the cousins in question help you run your drug-smuggling business. It took him forever to speak. "You making a play here?"

  "Uh, yeah. Duh. You hand over my guns, you get your relative back. If you act fast, I might even
leave most of his face intact. If you don't, he's going to tell me enough to make your life real difficult, and real short."

  "I will kill your daughter," he said. "I will blow her brains the fuck out."

  My vision went red, and it took superhuman control to force the next words through my clenched jaw, "She's already out of the city. You want to blast my ex-wife, though, you go right ahead and save me another thirteen years of child support." That part about the kid was true— my friendly neighbor Roger and his girlfriend had driven my little pumpkin north to their cabin.

  Zombie Bill went silent again, so I took the initiative. "Listen, man, your plan wasn't a bad one, but it's over. Give me the rifles, and I'll hesitate to bust you in the future. Scout's honor. Otherwise, this all just ends in blood."

  Something in my voice convinced him. "You know the big quarry in the foothills, the kids call it the Hole? Meet me there in two hours. Bring my idiot cousin."

  "Bring my guns."

  Back when we were teenagers, we used to bike over to the Hole on hot summer days, and dare each other to jump into its watery depths, to risk our spines in the name of applause and a couple dollars. A few plunged into the depths of the quarry and never surfaced. Later on, it served as a favorite dumping ground for snitches, and a few of my clients ended up there.

  I had Mark Miller on his knees near the edge of the chasm, blindfolded, with my 9mm pressed against the back of his neck. I watched as Zombie Bill's monster truck maneuvered through the open gate in the chain-link fence surrounding the quarry, wondering whether I'd made a colossal mistake, if my old self—the one who'd survived countless shootouts and standoffs in Baghdad—had whispered too much bad advice from deep in my subconscious.