Shakes stares. Have I been ogling my photo too long? He can’t make the connection. I’m nothing like the woman in that picture. He keeps looking. For a long time. It’s unbearable. I stare back.
I was beautiful. That was me before Shakes dropped the dime on me. I can’t remember any details, and it kills me. I look at the picture, willing it to give me something.
He’s locked on me, his eyes like two black marbles. I want to kill him now, but he knows something, and I need it. I’m used to being stared at, but knowing that it’s him, that he’s right there, and I can’t do anything yet, and I have to keep looking…it’s too much. He sits on the edge of a rusty metal table and points at the spot next to him. I hobble over.
“I ain’t stepped over no lines—stepped,” he begins.
It’s a question, not a statement. The fact that he said it means he has crossed a line, and he’s worried that it’s all over. He wants to impress the Doctor, obviously. But somewhere he was overzealous. Showing the right amount of ambition would bring a visit from the Doctor to discuss incorporation. Showing zeal would bring a final cease and desist notice.
He fidgets. Something on Shakes is always moving. His feet, his hands, his mouth. “What’s he want?”
The longer I stay silent, the more frightened he’s going to get. But I don’t want him to go over the edge.
Read the note, I tell him.
“What?”
The note, read the note.
“What—what the fuck are—are you saying? Marblemouth you’re a marblemouth!”
Before this day is over, I’m going to make him understand how hard it is to form certain consonants when part of your tongue is missing. I point to the note. He reads it again. No. He looks at it again.
“What’s it say?”
He can’t read. All he knows is Dr. Fortescu’s symbol, stamped at the bottom of the note. The rest of it could say: “Shakes, you are responsible for the mess you see before you and retribution has come upon ye.” The note could have the lyrics to the theme song from Three’s Company. It wouldn’t matter.
This is horrible. This is going to take forever. Because now I have to read the note out loud to him. It’s a simple forgery, a request from the Doctor for information. “Caligula is becoming a pest, help us find him and you will be considered worthy to come back into the fold.” That kind of thing. Ratting people out is what Shakes does best. This should be so easy for him.
The note also details a request to see what Shakes is holding in his inner sanctum, to see if his goods meet the Doctor’s standard of quality. This means he has to take me to his private reserve vault, deep in the bowels of the building, where sound does not penetrate the walls. Where guards do not tread unless invited. Where a man could be strangled, stabbed, and tortured, and nobody would come to his aid. Where I could take my sweet time.
I’ll have to send this in Morse code. Short sentences. Important words only. Pray he understands.
Doctor, I say. Doctor?
“I ain’t stepped over no lines—lines. I been happy here—happy in—”
Shut up.
That’s one phrase I’ve got a pretty good handle on. He quiets down.
Imagine having to give a speech with a huge chunk of uncooked steak in your mouth. Imagine trying to tell a story after a visit to the dentist, your face still numb from Novocain. This is where I am. I stand in front of Shakes as calmly as possible, and I begin:
“Dokkah Frtsku. Snt mmee to imvite you. You mmoove uht. Yourr cuhlt hss cuhlt tgever. Tllgll ‘sboddern Dokkah. Helk Dokkah. Where Tllgllah? Haffa…”
I swallow. The front of my shirt coated in spit. My chin cooling off from the air conditioner breezing across the slime slick below my lip. This was supposed to be the moment of glory, the Clint Eastwood catching up to the bad guy part of the film where I’d have a righteous speech before blowing this guy away. Now it’s the part where the girl has to be strong and not cry.
“I ain’t stepped overoverover. IIII been here the whole time—whole.”
He’s not getting any of it. And he’s really scared now. I can tell because his foot is snare drumming the floor tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
“Dokkah?”
“I stayed in my yard the whole time—whole. Gotta grow things, though. Times are—are tough with the recession people ain’t buying like—people—they used to—”
How the fuck does Shakes know a word like recession?
“Dokkah imvite you. You n’ Dokkah. T’gezher.” I interlace my fingers gently. Maybe sign language will help him understand. Frances would understand everything I was saying. Frances hangs on my every word. And Joe wouldn’t even need words. For this idiot, I need a translator.
“Pahtnah,” I say, extending my hand. He’s got to get this one.
His eyes are all over the room, taking in every photo, seeing the blood and gore and worried that I’m the harbinger of things to come his way.
Shakes stares at me. I wipe the spit from my chin, my head turned slightly. I try to offer his my most polite smile. His eyes and mouth go comically round. Over his shoulder, I see myself reflected in a window. My hand over my mouth, covering the crazy quilt of scars that is my jaw. My head is turned down, so Shakes sees my good eye. It’s all he needs. His eyes go the photo on the wall, then back to me.
The photo. Me. The photo.
He’s not moving. He’s got the pills back out, turning them over and over in his hand. I don’t think he’s made the connection. But if he did, I don’t have time to wait for him to make the first move. Here is where an experienced professional would assess the situation, do a threat analysis, start picking options.
I don’t have time for any of that shit. It’s time for a balancing act. Measure once, cut twice. Or three or four times, depending on the sharpness of the blade. I raise my right pant leg and move a lever, releasing the shoe. Slowly, I slide it off, revealing the curved blade. Then I reach a little higher, hitting the release on the leg.
Shakes turns the pills over one last time, almost pops them, but stops. “Hey. Hey-hey-hey, Doctor F. wants to—to—Doctor—team up? Serious? All is f-f-f-fuck-forgiven?”
Shit. He was lost in his own little world. He hadn’t even paid me any attention. And now, he finally notices me. “Fuck. Where—where the fuck is your leg?”
How do I play off having one leg and holding a razor sharp blade on a pole in my hand? I sweep the blade out hard across his face, spinning once and following through to hook his ankle, pulling back.
He yelps and drops to the floor, blood rushing through his fingers, as if pressing the ends of his tendon together would make it whole again. My hand is vise-tight over his mouth before a sound comes out. The cut I put on his forehead is superficial, but bleeding like crazy. I have to keep things on the ground now. I’ve only got one leg to stand on. If Shakes gets up, I’m dead.
“Tellidyoola,” I say.
I hate talking. I really hate talking. I take it nice and slow, not caring how much spit gets in Shakes’s ear.
“Calid…tellid…”
Shit.
This word should be easy. Reconstruction left me with a horrible underbite and what a speech therapist called “an inherent difficulty with plosives.” This guy’s name has none of the difficult sounds, and I’m still falling apart here.
“Calllli-guh-you-lah.”
Shakes nods his head. I lift my hand a little. His machinery is working full swing down on the production floor, cars being stripped, sanded, painted over. Music blaring to keep the workers entertained. They’re not going to hear. I just have to hope there are no scheduled breaks coming up.
“Caligula? You—you work for CalCalCal that pimp sent you here?”
“Noooo,” I sneer. “Where izhee?”
“How—how the fuck should—know—I know?”
I slide my hand up, taking a grip on the blade just above the hook. I hold the end to the side of his head, grab his earlobe and ask him “where?” I press the blade i
nto the bottom of his ear and the skin slices quick and soft like deli ham.
I have to clamp my hand down extra tight over his mouth for about three minutes. Enough time for Shakes to scream so much that he’s hyperventilating.
“Terr nee where.”
“Bitch!”
Why do men always pretend to be so tough at times like this? My required reading before coming here was a CIA manual about interrogation. Joe has ways to find these things. He’s primed me with gentle prodding techniques honed in dozens of benevolent nations worldwide. This technique I’m using, Joe told me he learned it firsthand in a basement cell, probably in some foreign war.
I take two fingers and tug at the dangling hunk of Shakes’s ear. It’s ugly and cruel. I almost feel bad doing it. Almost.
Look what you did to me. Look what your stupid mouth did. Look what happened when you ratted me out. I’m nothing now. I was pretty. I was a woman. Look at what you did to me, you filthy trash. My family. My life. Everything.
I know why I was targeted. I know why I was at the center of a massive explosion. I had been expecting it for weeks before it happened. There is no such thing as random violence.
All of the things I wish I could be saying right now. The speech I had rehearsed. The pauses I would take. None of it matters. I realize now that none of it would have worked anyway, not even under the best circumstances. The most I could have hoped for was a recording of someone speaking my thoughts, something I could have played to him so he knew why he was going to die. I’ll have to remember it for next time.
Instead, I have to let him die in ignorance. But first I need to know where Caligula is. Caligula will lead me to Delia Sugar, and so on and so forth.
“Hinter’s District!”
Shakes screams it over and over again. It’s muffled, but like Helen Keller, I feel the sounds in my palm. I wonder how long he’s been screaming it. I was lost in a reverie. I bring my free hand up to my face, a bloody lump of cartilage between thumb and forefinger. Guess I got carried away. But it did the job. I pocket the hunk of his ear and grab the other one.
“Widd who?” I ask.
“Nobody, nobody! He’s keepin’ his head downdowndown, so nobody don’t take it off—off. He pushed some buttons—some. He crossed some lines—some. I stayed ininin my yard! You din’t hafta do-do-do this!”
“You nyin?”
“No lie! Shit—lie—no!”
“Grrronka Gaadn…fffffur-ah-ka nnngg-aa—gn.”
“Veronica—shit! Veronica—is this what this is?—I knew—I knew—when you said Doctor—I knew! Shit!”
“Where isshhhhee?”
Shakes goes quiet, lays there bleeding. So I repeat myself, leaning with the heel of my hand with all my weight on his crotch to help him focus.
“Veronica—Madden? Veronica…are you…?”
“Where…issshee? Terrl nggee whu oo ngo.”
“I get it. Get. I understand what you’re why you’re you fucking bitch! What I think of her, like it’s some test, I know she’s evil evil evil.”
That’s pretty evil. Or it might be his speech impediment.
“Doctor says he wants peace but all this torture shit, torture ain’t changed a thing thing. You bitch. Veronica Madden Madden Madden, where is she? Where is she you ask, you don’t know what you’re, you’re messing around marblemouth bitch. Looking for torture and that’s all, hasn’t changed, looking…”
I think Shakes is going into shock. Expected. I roll off of him. Before he can move I jam the blade into the back of his knee. Tendons cut on both legs, he doesn’t know which way to roll. He’s screaming a lot, and a little too loud, but I needed time to get back on one foot to put my other leg on. I strap it in and walk towards Shakes. His eyes are on my picture in the paper, a yellow, tattering scrap on the wall, and finally he makes the connection.
“It was business-business. They would have killed me—me—me if I didn’t tell on you—tell. You weren’t even supposed to make make make it out, and the Doc said he took care of it all that Mrs. Robinson Simon Garfunkel bullshit and you ain’t changed, you ain’t changed, you ain’t changed…”
I walk up to him, my shoe alternating with the steel of the exposed blade on my other foot hitting the floor. Thud-clank-thud-clank.
“I tried to—you weren’t supposed to…but the kid…the kid—you were—but—”
I pause. The kid? Something about my daughter? But the machines are shutting down on the floor. It must be close to break time. I won’t have time to finish this interview. Time to cut and run.
“Tha’s nah nee,” I tell him.
That’s not me, I tell myself. The woman in that picture could never do this.
I plant my left leg on the floor by Shakes’s shoulder and axe kick down with my right leg. The blood from his jugular paints most of the photos on the wall, but it misses mine. That crying, frightened lady is still clean and pure.
Shakes shudders and convulses long past death. His body spasms and the air rushing past his vocal cords is enough to make it sounds like he’s laughing at some private joke.
“Huh…huh…huh.”
And the punchline is, he’s not waking up. And the punchline is, I’ve just taken a life up close and personal. And the punchline is, the joke’s on me. I scramble to a trashcan in the corner and heave my guts out. I’m crying. I hate myself for this. Through a scope, it’s easy. I’m detached, far away. I can’t smell that warm-blood smell. I don’t have to watch them twitch. What the hell did I do to Shakes?
What has Shakes done to me? Look what he’s made of me. Look what I’ve become. I prod him with my foot, trying to get him to stop twitching. He won’t. My mind screams at me that I’m a murderer.
But look at him, with his trophy photos on the wall, he obviously stalked me once. He’d do it again. To me, to anyone. The newspapers tacked up around here don’t lie. He would find the next poor woman, the next unsuspecting family, rat them out, torture them, target them. Not now. Not again. Never again.
I kick him hard across the neck, and the blade digs in. His body doesn’t convulse. He doesn’t seem to notice. He’s dead. Definitely dead. So why can’t I stop kicking him? Why am I moving on to his arms, his legs, his stomach? Why am I decimating him?
He deserves this. An eye for an eye, and a full body mutilation for the loss of my life. Serves him right. I step back to look at my handiwork and I have to laugh. Did I do this? Did I just grind a man into hamburger?
I can’t even see my other life. This is life number three. I’m a murderer. I’m not a vigilante. Killing is killing, I’ve done this before. It comes easily to me. I just have to close my eyes and think of something else.
Time to move on. I can get to the van. The further I move from the body, the faster I can forget, move on, keep going. Sort out the pieces when it’s all over. Now is not the time.
I snap my shoe back over the blade, noticing how much harder it is to do with the gummed remains of Shakes sticking up everything. I roll my pant leg down, thanking the fates that the darkness in here will hide the splatter from anyone I pass.
From my back pocket I pull an olive branch, Caligula’s current signature piece. This will let everyone know who decided to step up and take Shakes down. Caligula will have two choices: go public and take credit, which could get messy, or stay locked down and hide until the heat blows over and the scum on the water adjusts itself. If he tried to deny it, it would make him look weak.
I lock the office door behind me, hanging Shakes’s emblem on the door handle to signify he’s deep into product testing and is not to be disturbed. That should keep most people far enough from his office. But even that won’t last long, especially if an emergency comes up. I pat his body down, take the pills I find. I almost cry for joy when my fingers close on a tiny glass bottle. 40 ml. I could cry. No time to test it. I will need this tonight. Probably the whole thing, just to forget.
I make my way down the hall. Ten yards past the circular staircase and a
round the corner is a perfectly useable straight staircase. It puts me at a T-intersection on the first floor around the corner from the door greeter. If I had time I’d kill that big bald sack of manure for making me take the hard way. Instead I smile at him and give him the A-OK sign as I pass by.
“Seepin’,” I say, pointing at the office down the hall. “Tess croduck. L’il choo nuch.” I mime sleeping with my hands under my cheek. The bald mountain can’t stand my enthusiasm. I can tell he hates looking at me. He sits in a folding chair and goes back to studying the mold on the walls.
I make it to my van and drive out to the fence on the opposite side of the building, where I’m greeted by the same two thugs.
“Well, well. She’s still alive. Boss musta liked what he saw.”
I mime holding a car key by my temple, giving it a quick turn and rolling my eyes back. It’s a different kind of language that Joe helped me with, one that the cults use in bars downtown to communicate across crowded rooms.
“He’s on?” one of them asks.
“RrrraceKah.”
“I knew it!” the groper shouts. “High class V-8 shit. Boss is rolling in the big time now.”
They both look at each other, fishing in their pockets for what’s left of the pills I gave them earlier. Poison hasn’t had time to work yet, or they just haven’t noticed it. I reach into the glove box for the other shells, the hollowed-out greens. I dig out the pills. Shiny and pink, as friendly as a plastic egg on Easter. Dig in fellas.
“K6? Holy shit, we are movin’ up aren’t we?”
The thugs wrestle to be the first to receive my generous bounty. I shake a few more out of the shell. “Frr yrr hahd wukk. Penty t’go roun’,” I say, pouring the pills into their hands.
K6 is the latest designer drug to come out of the Doctor’s lab. Very new, very chic, very hard to obtain. These guys have obviously never tried it, but they’ve heard the stories. The quick-dissolve gel-caps that release a jolt straight to your spine. K6 takes months of refinement in a special airtight lab and ingredients that are mostly imported or very difficult to make. I don’t have that kind of time or those kind of resources.
Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance Page 10