Smut Central

by Brandon McCalla

The guy started ranting about it. He started hugging the babies closer. James wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold. The guy looked like he wasn’t going to give the babies up.

  “I don’t know how much they paid you already. I don’t know how much is inside this bag either. All I know is that I gotta deadline. I was sent here to get a baby.” He tossed the bag of money at the guy’s feet. “Just give me one. I don’t give a fuck.”

  “But,” the guy stuttered. “She had twins. It’s gonna be documented like she lost the babies but she had twins.”

  James moved closer. The guy looked like he was going to run inside the clinic. “Easy,” he whispered. “Relax. Let me think things through.”

  James knew everything was done secret. The clinic was run by people who were down with whatever was going on, the doctors who delivered the baby and the nurses, everyone was down. Everyone was getting paid like he was.

  The guy was having mixed feelings. It was more than the twins and the money. The guy was selling his children. The guy was a low life but he was having second thoughts. James wasn’t sure about anything. He didn’t know what to do. No. James knew. The guy wanted more money.

  That was the size of things, that and nothing more. There was no turning back. No renegotiating and no double dealing. The guy was business. James never took business personal, never asked and did what he had to do.

  “I don’t know about this,” James told him with finality. “I don’t have a number to call. All I know is the money is on the ground, in that bag.” He nudged his jaw at the bag. “Take the money. Give me one of the babies or both, I don’t give a fuck. I would think they pay you more than enough.”

  “No,” the guy said in defiance.

  James saw his hand reach for the doorknob. He cursed out in frustration. He never got into any sort of situation before during a job. He knew what he was supposed to do if something like this happened. They told him exactly what to do. They hired James because he was the sort of person capable of doing what had to be done.

  “Ok,” James said with the calmest voice he could muster.

  He was nervous, very nervous. Nervousness however never hindered him. It only made him keener. “Let me call somebody. Maybe we can get you more money.” He reached into a pocket. There was a cell phone in his jacket, a cell phone and something else. “Take the money.” He laughed. “It’s so windy. We wouldn’t want the bag of money to blow away.”

  The guy nodded his head in approval. James watched him stoop down. He was holding both bundled babies in one arm. They were as silent as the night. All that could be heard was the wind whistling in the back of the alley. James gave the area a stronger look. He was quite sure no one was around. Instead of pulling out the cell phone he pulled out the other thing inside his pocket. The pistol had a silencer on the tip of it. His employer told him to kill and take the baby if the person proposed a problem. The guy was definitely proposing a problem. But there were babies. She had twins.

  He pulled the trigger. The gun fired off with a soft sucking sound. The bullet went between his eyes and out the top of his head. James cursed when the man fell. The babies hit the ground with him and tumbled. He heard the babies cry out. They were newborn babies. He shot the guy in the head again for good measure. He moved closer.

  He was a professional. He knew it wasn’t the time to be slow. He picked up the babies. The twins were wrapped tight. He wasn’t sure if they were hurt or if they were cold. He couldn’t even see their faces. They were crying. They were alive. James grabbed the bag of money. It didn’t make any sense to leave it. What could the guy do with the payment now? He shot the guy in the head a third time. He had to make sure he was dead. He figured three bullets in the face were enough to kill anyone.

  “Fuck!” James exclaimed to the corpse. “You shouldn’t have given me problems. You should have taken the money.”

  James tucked the bag of money back in his jacket. He was wearing gloves. The gun and the silencer were ambiguous; the serial numbers were scratched off. No one would find out anything. He dropped the gun. He rushed out of the alley. His car was parked on the street. The headlights were out but the engine was running. He looked around. The area was still desolate. He grinned. James had nothing to worry about. The babies had already simmered down.

  He popped the trunk and put the babies in the special compartment. There was room for two. James thanked whoever for that. If there wasn’t room for both he would have had to leave one of them on the street. He wasn’t sure how he would have felt if he had done that. He had some scruples not many but even James Peterson had his limits. He figured leaving a newborn on the street was something that would get you a ticket straight to hell.

  He wasn’t sure what sort of ticket he would get for what he was doing. What he did know was the person who hired him, his employer, whoever that was. That person was going to go as low as hell was. He was going to be all the way in hell’s boiler room.

  The present

  James spied on the young lady for weeks. He knew all about her. She was some sort of freelance photographer who lived in the East Village. Her occupation made him laugh. He knew what she was designed for. She was designed to be a sex slave. She was designed to be the perfect whore.

  He thought two decades back. It was so strange. He had vague memories of each and every pick up he had done and each and every baby he abducted looked no different from one another, if he got a look at them at all. This woman, Michelle Watson was one of the twins. It was the reason why he remembered her so well. The twins were the first assignment that proposed a problem. It was the first time he had to kill a person on the job.

  Now he was a killer. Now he kills the babies but the babies are all grown up. In a sense James was their first and their last experience. He was their Alpha and their Omega. He was no longer a courier but it was the same thing. He was still involved in Randleman and now his involvement cycled a complete three hundred and sixty degrees. He still saw the Randleman product as babies since he had been around when they were born. He had for the past two decades snatched these babies up and now they were grown and intergraded into society. Most of them were integrated in a big way. Most were celebrities or high profile socialites.

  It was only fitting for James to be there when their lives ended. Sometimes the Randleman Protocol wore off. Additional hypnosis lessens the effects of the original programming. Some of the kids have multiple programming. Sometimes a person would pre order the product and then have a change of mind. Then someone else would want that same product but with a different sort of programming. He didn’t know too much about anything. He just did what he was told. He wasn’t sure who was worse, the people purchasing or his employer, the seller.

  It was all crazy, scientific and mystical bullshit dealing with flies and things that dated back to ancient Egypt. Why things went wrong mattered little. What did matter was things had to be rectified. Murder was the best way to rectify things. So many people’s lives would be ruined if the world started putting two and two together. There were so many influential people involved in the Randleman Project, politicians, business tycoons, diplomats and ‘A’ list celebrities.

  James was fifty years old. He killed more than a dozen people in his life; men, women and children. Michelle Watson was another assignment and nothing more. She was going to be an easy kill. She wasn’t a socialite and she wasn’t famous. She hadn’t risen to some sort of celebrity status like the others. She hadn’t any bodyguards. She wasn’t in the spotlight. For some reason most of the children who were abducted and underwent the hypnosis grew up being superstars, that or high class whores. James wondered why it was always one or the other. His wondering was brief. He didn’t care enough to ponder it for any real length. He knew caring and being curious about things would only get him killed.

  He had to be emotionless. He never cared about anything but money. His employer paid him handsomely, had been paying him generously for the past three decades. He knew they liked him
because he cared so little. His employer appreciated that he never talked. James did whatever he was told and said nothing.

  It was close to the stroke of midnight and drizzling. He sat in his car. James was parked across the street from the building she resided in. Every night for the past couple of days she came home at roughly the same time. Normally her working situation was erratic. The last couple of days were the most consistent. He figured she had some sort of photo assignment that lasted a couple of days or she landed a steadier job. Either way, he analyzed the doorman schedule and knew tonight was a good night to kill Michelle Watson.

  There was a fifteen minute gap between the doormen’s shift. Every night at midnight one door man would leave and the other would arrive and for the last couple of days Michelle had gotten home during the gap between the shifts. The building had no video cameras. That was the best part. If the building had some sort of surveillance it wouldn’t have hindered him but he liked for things to go smoothly and appreciated the fact that there weren’t any cameras. Things were going to go smoothly.

  Two days ago James snuck into the building during the gap in the shifts. He knew exactly which apartment Michelle lived in. He went to the door and jimmied the lock open. It only took him two minutes. It took him three minutes to get inside the building, reach her door and walk back out the building again. While he was leaving he walked by Michelle. She walked into the building. She didn’t give him a second glance. He was so close to her he got a whiff of the perfume she was wearing. He got a good look at her face from the corner of an eye. She was the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Most of them were.

  If they grew up anything less than drop dead gorgeous, they were exterminated. He didn’t know much about things but he did know that. He knew most of the children abducted never fit the criteria and were disposed of. He wasn’t certain of the criteria but he knew it had something to do with the children’s genetics and their looks. One baby looked exactly like another to him. And he didn’t know shit about genetics. His employer assured him there were ways of determining whether or not a child would grow up to be gorgeous or not. Michelle Watson was drop dead gorgeous. Soon she would just be drop dead.

  Michelle was so tired. She recently acquired a steady photo shooting gig for a very popular hip-hop magazine. Nothing in her life was ever steady before. A nine to five wasn’t something she was used to. She walked in her apartment building, yawned then waved at the doorman. The afternoon doorman yawned and waved back. They hadn’t switched shifts yet. It wasn’t the older man at the door. It was the young one, the cute one. Michelle said, “Hey sexy doorman,” And went to her mailbox.

  She knew the cute doorman was looking at her butt and admiring her body, like every man on the planet did. She wanted to turn around and flirt with him but she was too tired. The doorman was a black man. Most black men made Michelle think of Markus Johnson. If her mind wandered towards thoughts of him, she knew she would throw-up or worse, blackout. She didn’t want to do neither.

  She retrieved her mail, it was mostly bills. She was waiting for a letter that didn’t seem like it would ever arrive. She frowned and slammed the mailbox door before she locked it. Michelle went to the staircase and jogged up two flights and then jogged to her door. She immediately felt something was wrong as soon as she walked inside and locked the door. Her dog didn’t greet her.

  “Randleman,” she uttered, “Randleman, where are you?”

  “Funny, that you would name your dog Randleman. I had to muzzle him and put him in a pillow case. He’s a feisty little terrier. I haven’t harmed him.” Michelle heard a man’s voice say. She panicked.

  Her first instinct was to back herself to the door. It was dark inside the apartment. She knew she clicked on the night light before she left that morning. The guy shut off the night light. How long has he been in my apartment, she thought? What does he want with me?

  “I have a gun,” she lied.

  “No, you don’t,” the man said. “I mean you no harm.”

  “Fuck you!” She snapped.

  She knew the man was creeping up behind her. She turned and swung a kick. Her assailant wasn’t expecting that. Her kick was professional and powerful. Her foot smacked him on the side of the face. It sent him reeling back. He staggered into the living room and got knocked over some furniture. Before he could rise she jumped over the love seat and was all over him, stomping and kicking him in the face. All her strikes were direct and precise. He could do nothing but cover his face with his arms.

  “I’m here to help…” She heard him say while she was kicking and stomping. “Stop it…”

  “Fuck you!” She yelled.

  They heard the lock on the door click. Michelle looked over at the door. She wasn’t sure what was going on. She backed away from her assailant. Her assailant staggered to his feet. She didn’t know what was going on.

  “What is going on?” she asked.

  It was almost comical. Here she was in her living room with a stranger whom just attacked her. Now they were standing together peering at her front door in the darkness. Someone was picking the locks, they both knew. Her assailant looked as nervous as she was.

  “What is going on?” She asked a second time, this time in whisper.

  “I wanted to say, come with me if you want to live when you walked in,” he told her.

  “The Terminator movie,” she uttered. “Is someone trying to kill me?”

  “Yeah,” the guy nodded. He went into a pocket and withdrew a small revolver. “My name is Gary Zimmerman. I’m a private investigator. I mean you no harm. The person trying to get into your apartment does.”

  “Huh?”

  Michelle didn’t know what to think. She wanted to say something but nothing came out her mouth.

  “The person picking your lock is a professional killer. He was hired to murder you and Markus Johnson.”

  Michelle heard Gary Zimmerman say Markus’s name. She fainted.

  “Shit.” Gary blurted.

  He chastised himself for saying Markus’s name. He didn’t surmise Michelle Watson having similar symptoms as Markus. Actually he figured Michelle to be a successful Randleman specimen. Markus had undergone an additional hypnotic procedure. Did she get reprogrammed as well? He wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was James Peterson.

  He finished jimmying the lock. The door swung open. James figured the commotion inside the house would mask the little noise he made when he picked the lock. Michelle had gotten home ten minutes early. That and James knew an intruder was in her apartment. In any event, he wasn’t about to abort the mission. He had to know who the intruder was whether he got the chance to kill Michelle or not.

  They were staring at each other, face to face.

  “Who are you?” James asked Gary.

  “Funny you would ask that, James. The people you’ve been killing usually want to know who they are.”

  “You know too much,” James worded.

  “It’s a sickness.”

  “People die from sicknesses,” James sneered in the dark.

  There was a gun pointed at him. He wasn’t sure how proficient the guy was with firearms but he was holding one properly. He was holding it like a police officer. James had a gun of his own and it had a silencer on the tip of it. He wasn’t sure if he could raise his hand fast enough. He didn’t want to underestimate a person who could follow him around. He dared not underestimate a person who knew as much as this person did.

  “What now?” He asked.

  “I don’t know. You leave I guess. No one is going to harm Michelle as long as I live.”

  “I guess we are going to have to make sure you die soon,” James laughed.

  He slowly backed out the apartment and closed the door. Gary was so damn nervous. He was sweating everywhere. James had eyes like a snake, cold blooded eyes. He was a husky man. Gary wasn’t certain if he could have put him down with one bullet. He wanted to check on Michelle. He didn’t. He ran to the dining room and gra
bbed a chair. He locked the front door and put the chair up under the doorknob. Then he ran to a window that showed the front of the building. James Peterson was casually walking back to his car. He didn’t glance up at the apartment. He was way too cool, calm, and deadly.

  Special thank you to the Augustus Mnuscript Team: Jason Claiborne, Tamiko Maldonado, Juliet White and Anthony Whyte. Another great job done.

  WHERE HIP HOP LITERATURE BEGINS...

  This is a work of fiction. names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or organizations, or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2010 Brandon McCalla

  eISBN : 978-1-935-88317-3

  Novel by Brandon McCalla

  Edited by Anthony Whyte

  Creative Direction & Photography by Jason Claiborne

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For further information contact Augustus Publishing

  Augustus Publishing paperback June 2010

  www.augustuspublishing.com