Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance

by Michael Paul Gonzalez

  To protect and serve. To betray and destroy. The picture freezes, the bottle inches from my face, my husband in the corner, and I see pain in his eyes.

  “To move to help you would be to blow his cover, and neither of you would have made it out of that bar alive. To sit back and remain undercover meant watching his wife bleed to death before him. What to do, what to do…”

  The doors that barred those memories had been welded shut. The wrenching scream as they flew open echoed around the room, inside of my head, through my body.

  Watching myself on the ceiling, getting stabbed by Clarabelle. In a snap, my husband moves, charging towards me, and his eyes are filled with nothing but anger. Too slow to stop that bottle from coming into my jaw. The picture explodes into a white haze as the bottle penetrates my skin.

  When the flare dies down, I see him chasing someone out the door. Or is someone chasing him? He’s running. And here, a woman approaches me as I bleed on the floor. It’s Delia Sugar, and I can’t tell if this is her interfering in my dream or if this really happened.

  “The Doctor’s making a housecall,” she says. “Your husband’s as good as dead. You should have left when you had the chance.”

  Two of her assistants move to drag me towards a back door, but I shake them off and stagger to follow my husband, everyone in the bar staring at me.

  “He was a good, honest man, wasn’t he?” Delia, from outside my mind, I hear her. “The life of a policeman’s wife…”

  I hated it. I hated all of it. His job was the other woman in our relationship. I had to find a way to get close. I hated going to the range, I hate the smell of gun oil. Hand-to-hand training was sometimes the only touching we would do for weeks.

  Maybe it’s why I hate sniping. The feel of the rifle. The voice I hear in my head telling me to exhale slowly, to squeeze, not pull.

  “Mrs. Robinson? Did you love him?”

  That night was the last we were together. And it was my fault. That much I remember. He died because of me. Doctor Robert was going to make an example of me. My husband was trying to buy me time.

  “Oh, but look at your face, Mrs. Robinson! Let me get a tissue…”

  The whole tent smears and circles, swishes and resolves like a kaleidoscope. I think Delia’s patting my cheeks dry out there. The whole room swims with images of our past.

  Steadying the rifle with his hands. He was gone six days a week. Most days he’d be out at the crack of dawn, and if I was lucky, home in time for supper. It was a change after so many years together, but he saw undercover as his ticket up. It wasn’t supposed to last forever. Just a year or two, then the promotion would come, he’d move up to something better.

  I’m not the patient type. I took it for six months before going stir crazy. There’s only so long you can count your shoe collection, arrange flowers, find new ways to decorate. Once your daughter grows up, that is.

  Once she grows up and figures out how things work. When he’s bringing his “work” home with him. And I catch her in the basement experimenting with needles, rolling paper, whatever he skimmed that week. And I catch her making phone calls to the Doctor.

  “Why did you follow him?” Delia asks out there.

  “I wanted to save him.” I actually spoke that, and I’m surprised to hear the clarity of my voice. “With everything that was happening, I just wanted a chance, a second chance, but I couldn’t get that because of the Doctor. I don’t know why my husband…why Gavin…why there wasn’t a way out of…I don’t know what he was tied up with. I wanted my family back.”

  “Gavin. There’s that name again. You’re throwing walls up. He was lured into the criminal underworld. He lost his perspective.”

  “Yes…he got caught up…everything…easy money, I remember, easy, and he was working for the Doctor…We had a nice house, a family and a nice house. It was nice,” why am I talking like Frances? “I decorated. I kept it clean. We had a basement. We had a second floor. It was…”

  “Those first few years, you were able to overlook what your husband did when he left, because you were comfortable. You were convinced that he was making the city a better place.”

  “He was.”

  “He was making your life better because he worked for me.”

  “When did he meet you?”

  And there’s a pause, barely perceptible, but long enough that it seems she’s having trouble remembering. “He was part of a bust on one of my East Side operations. I made a bargain with him.” Or maybe she’s making up her answer.

  “He never stopped talking about you. These wonderful stories he would tell me, how he was doing this for your own good. And one day you happened upon us. You came home early from your work. Do you remember?”

  Everything is hazy at this point. Maybe she’s feeding me lines, maybe the drug is too strong. All I do is listen.

  “I promised you I’d keep you all safe, as long as he helped to keep me safe until he moved on from undercover work. We all need help sometimes.”

  There’s a vague picture of this on the ceiling, the three of us in the kitchen, but it looks wrong, as if someone has clipped our photos from separate places and pasted them there.

  “Do you remember the night your husband came home with a briefcase? Red alligator, gold clasps? A gift from me.”

  The case. Long since lost in the rain. But did he give it to me? The combination was 1-8-7. That would have been some kind of inside joke, police code for homicide. But the briefcase wasn’t his, I know that. I know I had it. Someone else gave it to me, and inside, there was…

  There’s a strange pressure on my ears now. Delia is doing something to me out there in the waking world.

  “Do you remember how important that was to all of us?”

  I try to shake my head, but I can’t.

  “That was the night your daughter had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting Doctor Robert Fortescu. The monster. You obviously remember what he did to you…”

  I see him again, holding the jar, the cold grey heart floating inside, the threat to come for me.

  “Fortescu likes them young. Do you know what he does in his medical practice downtown? When people go under? Men do such strange things to feel powerful. But your daughter…he never had to take anything from her.”

  She’s wrong. This is not how things are. You don’t make friends with monsters. They find you, they destroy you. Accidental. No order to any of it.

  “We set out to save her. This is how it all began, that night in Pompidou’s bar. He was going to destroy your daughter because your husband knew too much, and it was all there, in that case. It was her or the information. And we know which side your husband chose. So much trouble.”

  I don’t know why, but I think she’s lying.

  “And all he had to do was hand over a case.”

  I don’t know how I know she’s wrong, but she is.

  “He was in a frenzy. Seeing his little girl with raccoon eyes and bruised thighs, his wife attacked, he did the only thing he could. He pulled his badge. The Doctor’s men beat him. Caligula beat him. And your daughter, she was in the back, that whole line of men, cold, uncaring, like they were waiting for the bus, and what could you have done?”

  Hold the phone here…I see this snippet unfolding, a dark corner of the bar, a long line of men waiting by a faded green door. Delia standing next to me, telling me it’s too late, they’re here now, there’s nothing I can do about it. But she’s laughing. She’s taking money from the men, her children are working security on that green door…

  She’s lying.

  “But we can avenge him. All you have to do is tell me what happened to the case. The information…we could take everyone responsible down in a heartbeat.”

  What the fuck was in that case? Who gave it to me? It didn’t happen like that. It couldn’t have…

  “Remember! As he bled, as they asked him for a name, he said nothing. He kept silent until they poured the gasoline on him. And it was that split se
cond before they lit him up that—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Oh, he screamed your name, but nobody heard. He screamed your name while he burned. He called out for you. It doesn’t have to be for nothing. Your husband dead, your daughter abused by a gang of thugs. And then,” and Delia’s sobbing here, melodrama or honesty, I can’t tell, but who can, really? “Then, the final insult, your daughter, your husband, both of them gone because Veronica Madden—”

  And suddenly, Delia is screaming.

  I feel like I’m floating to the top of a tar-filled pool, breaking into the light as Delia’s screaming goes louder.

  I open my eyes.

  Delia slaps at my wrist. My hand clutches the pen, which I’ve managed to drive into her chest just below her left clavicle. Pulling, yanking, her body shaking like a puppet.

  She’s laying there, blood jetting from her neck, rattling on the floor. “It was,” she says, and then she breathes out ooooo, a horrible death rattle. She coughs. “Veronica. It was always…Veronica…”

  She falls silent. Not dead, because I see the blood still pumping out of her. In shock. But I think I can count her remaining minutes on one hand. At times like this, I’m glad I can’t talk. I wouldn’t know what to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I guess saying sorry would be out of the question. Trevor exploded back into the room, followed closely by a few of Delia’s kids. They threw me across the room, where I landed gracelessly and flipped onto my head.

  Now I’m watching the whole scene unfold in front of me upside down. Trevor trying to staunch the blood pouring from Delia. She’s doing this weird kind of inhale-scream thing. I don’t think I punctured any organs. She might even live. Fucking baby.

  By the time I’ve turned everything right side up again, Delia is near death and two of her kids have stretched my arms out, holding me back against the wall. Sweet Death is still racing around my body. My arms feel paralyzed. Trevor stalks over to me and bends close to my face. He casts dark glances at my two captors and they release me and move away. He’s so close I can feel his breath on my ear.

  “You missed,” he whispers. “Two inches lower and it would have been her heart.”

  “We’ve got to get you out of here,” he adds.

  While I’m still processing this, he stands up, draws his fist back, and punches me square in the nose. Little lights explode behind my eyelids and my face feels like it’s riding a wave every time my heart beats.

  “Mrs. Sugar,” Trevor asks, “are you all right?”

  Delia doesn’t answer. Her eyes burn from her darkened little corner. She looks like an angry rat.

  “She still doesn’t know…,” Delia hisses. “Don’t let her…find the…”

  To my amazement, she shakes Trevor off and stands up. She hobbles over to me, the front of her shirt stained and splattered.

  “Gather the children,” she wheezes. She runs a finger through her blood and smears it across my forehead. She turns to Trevor. “Make it bad. Make it hurt.”

  The skin on my cheek feels like it’s slowly filling with marshmallows. I think my eye might swell shut. Delia collapses as more of her kids storm into the room, ready to tear me apart.

  They lift me, two kids on either side of my body, draping my arms over their shoulders. Like they’re trying to help me walk off a drink or two. Like we’ve just been in a bar fight or something. And now we’re headed for the stairs, climbing, climbing.

  Behind me, Trevor calls to them, “I’m J.J.E. on this one. Nobody else touches her. She’s fucking mine.”

  And then we’re upstairs.

  The grounds surrounding Delia’s quarters are Standing Room Only. Two huge groups of the night kids with a skinny path up the middle, leading to my van. My last ticket out.

  Trevor comes out, and clambers to the top of a tall crypt, holding court over everyone. He points to himself. “Judge. Jury. Executioner. Any objections?”

  The crowd is silent.

  Trevor leaps down and grabs me by the front of my jacket, hauling me up above his head. “Court is in session!”

  The crowd begins to scream. He pulls me down so my face is close to his. Beneath their roar, I can barely hear him.

  “This is going to hurt you a lot. I think I can get us out, but I can’t make any promises. I should leave you for dead, but, you know. Duty.”

  The last of the Sweet Death in my system is washed away by a burst of adrenaline. Trevor leans close to my ear again, and there’s a little tremble in his voice.

  “Sorry.”

  He tosses me hard across the ground. I careen into a little cement cross, cracking it with the force of impact. I look across at him, and he’s stalking towards me, and we have a little nonverbal conversation that goes something like:

  —What the fuck?

  —I said I was sorry.

  —Again, what the fuck?

  Our little dialogue is cut off when Trevor jumps into the air and stomps down hard on my right thigh. He pulls me up by the hair, and I steady myself with my arms. He draws back a fist. The crowd goes crazy. Then, just as suddenly, they fall silent. So he drops me.

  One little knock-kneed paleface has clambered from the underground tomb, cradling Delia’s body. She looks brittle as onion paper. She’s bled out. The girl slowly stalks across the cemetery, all of the kids hanging their heads. She lays Delia inside of a small fenced-in plot.

  Delia’s hand twitches, lifts up once, trembling. She lowers her hand to her side and her eyes drift skyward.

  “I have been with you for over a year now,” Trevor shouts. “There ain’t a soul here Delia trusts more. If this is her night to leave, I’ll be damned if it happens before she sees justice.”

  “Delia,” they chant in unison.

  “Who helps you? Who feeds you?” Trevor asks.

  “Delia,” they chant again.

  “What’s our word for mother? What’s our word for queen?”

  “Delia.” The name comes like a war cry, like a plea for my blood.

  Delia’s mouth trembles. Her face contorts, and she draws one final breath. Every element of the cemetery respects the moment. The wind stops blowing, nothing moves as she exhales. “Blood for blood.”

  And oh, the moaning, the crying, the demands for my head. I almost want me to get punished now.

  Trevor shouts, “Blood for blood. Let’s drive!”

  And the kids scream like nothing I’ve ever heard. You’d think some teen pop idol just happened by. “This van brought us to her. This van will take her out.”

  The crowd gasps. I mean, as a whole, they audibly gasp. They’re chanting as one.

  “Crush…crush…CRUSH!”

  Trevor lifts his right hand and says, “Helmet.” He lifts his left hand and says, “Mouthpiece.” He points at the van and says, “Ropes.”

  “We are the power in this city!” Trevor shouts, clear above the roar of the crowd, “Everyone else…bugs on our windshield. War is coming, and we’re the survivors!”

  And the crowd goes wild. Two happy little drugged-out onlookers approach Trevor, handing him a black crash helmet and a mouthpiece.

  Trevor raises the helmet in a salute to Delia. “For you, Delia. For you.”

  Her dying eyes are shiny wet with tears of pride and joy.

  As he bites down on the mouthpiece, two more little drug monkeys race out of the crowd and grab my arms. Two more are going to work on the front of my van, busting out the windshield with crowbars. The safety glass doesn’t shatter, but eventually buckles and folds like a heavy sheet of plastic. They rip it from the frame. Trevor climbs into the van and they shut the door, anchoring two lengths of rope to each side of the windshield frame.

  I’m hoisted onto the grille of my van, arms spread. I’m too confused to fight, and what good would it do me now? Trevor may have beaten the shit out of me, but he also said he was sorry, so he’s pretty much my only ticket out of here. If he’s not trying to kill me.

  They tie m
y wrists tight to each rope, and I’m crucified on the front of my EconoVan. I think I see where this is going.

  Trevor starts the van. The vibration on my back is oddly relaxing. The hot air blowing across the radiator feels like the breath of a dragon waiting to eat me alive. The headlights click on and Delia is painted pearly white there on the ground. The kids are lined up, dropping flowers, needles, rolling papers onto her, making her pyre.

  After paying tribute to her, each kid walks up to the front of the van and shouts a request to Trevor.

  “Start with the cemetery gates,” one screams.

  “Take her straight down McCallister into the freeway underpass!”

  “Pain. I want pain!” This last kid’s eyes are big and bulgy in a Mommy Dearest sort of way. He slugs me in the stomach as hard as he can, which isn’t hard at all.

  The cemetery gates, two big slabs of wrought iron. The freeway underpass, a wall of solid cement. My van, a battering ram. And me, soon to be a moth on the radiator.

  All of the children in the cemetery watch me, angry and upset as Trevor backs the van up. He turns in a wide arc, and my body shifts around on the grille. My wrists hurt like hell. My hands start to tingle. Then the engine gutters and roars, and I see the gates in the distance.

  The cemetery is old. It used to be surrounded by high stone walls. The city fathers tore them down in an effort to reduce crime, back when they still felt like trying. Now, all that’s left is the historic iron gates, an effort to placate the history buffs of our fair city. Frances taught me this back when I was studying. Poor Frances. He’s going to be all alone now. I’ll miss him.

  Trevor guns the engine, and my vision turns blurry as the van vibrates and rumbles, picking up speed towards the gate. The wind tears at my eyes and I have to squint to see my death coming, but I will watch it. I don’t want to miss this.

  The van is probably doing about forty now. I recognize the whine of third gear. The gates are flimsy iron. They’ll bust pretty fast when I hit them. If I’m lucky, one of the spokes will pop into my guts, and I won’t have to watch the rest of the show. More than likely, the gate will pop, and I’ll just be very bruised and winded.