The garbageman still didn’t say anything, and I tapped the field skinner with my right thumb and said, “Look, I told you that I don’t believe in torture, but if you don’t answer my question in the next two seconds, I swear I will scalp you.”
The garbageman started crying, and he uttered with a terrified voice, “I can’t help it. I was built that way. I am attracted to young girls, man. What do you want me to say? What do you want me to say, man?”
“So your father raped you?”
“Yes, he did. He fucking raped me, and his stinky friends did, too!”
“Is he still alive?”
The garbageman was quiet for a moment and said, “Yes, but he has terminal lung cancer.”
“Wow, there is some justice in this world, after all. Goddammit, that actually makes my day. Thank you for sharing that, Mr. Covington.”
The big man was sobbing now, and snot was running from his swollen nose like he had just crossed a mighty glacier. I almost felt sorry for him, but I tried to remember what he had done.
“Look. I believe that your father’s crimes against you made you the man you are today. He is the number one villain here, and I would bury him in this forest if he were healthy, OK? However, I can’t change the fact that you are a defective man and dangerous to children. I can’t change the fact that you have already raped innocent people and ruined their lives. You are like a sick dog that bites kids for no good reason. Dogs like that are put down regardless of the fact that it was their idiot owners who beat them and turned them into violent beasts. Do you understand what I’m trying to say here?”
“But I am not a dog, man. I’m a human being,” the garbageman shrieked in desperation and fresh tears started flowing down his bruised cheeks.
“You are right, you are a human being, but you are a sick human being, and sometimes sick people are way worse than sick animals. They are dangerous, cunning beasts, capable of mass misery. You must be stopped, man. I have no choice here. I would say that I’m sorry, but you already told me what you think about my apologies.”
“Call the cops, at least. I’ll go to jail rather than die in this shitty van. Please, please.”
“No. You could get away with it all. You have committed your crimes abroad, and maybe nobody would care here. They would just slap you on the wrist, and you would fly back to Africa to rape more girls, dump more toxic waste into the ocean. I can’t live with that. Killing you doesn’t give me any pleasure, but I can’t stand the idea that a man like you continues to operate with impunity.”
“Please, no, please!”
“I am sorry, even if I shouldn’t apologize to you anymore. This is my courtroom, and there is no insanity defense or mitigating circumstances here. I only look at the result of your actions. Girls have been raped, and this judge doesn’t give a damn why you did it, or what maybe drove you to do it. I don’t care if you are batshit crazy or totally sane. I only care about the victims and the fact that you have to be punished. And then there is the tree hugger contract, of course. Pacta sunt servanda, motherfucker.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he said and started sobbing uncontrollably.
“Look, your problem is that you cannot control your addiction. What I mean is that there are a lot of people in this world who want things that are unattainable to them, even illegal. I, for example, would like to have sex with a different supermodel every Friday night, but, unfortunately, supermodels don’t appreciate a man like me. That is a real bummer, yeah, but I accept it as a fact of life because I am not a sick bastard like you. I don’t run around raping supermodels, do I now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you do. You kidnapped me, didn’t you?”
“Well, trust me, I don’t. And you should understand that if you were a rapist inside your head only, you could get away with it, but that’s not enough for you because you are special. So special that you can do what the hell you want, even destroy the lives of innocent children. But all that ends today, thank God.”
The garbageman didn’t say anything, and I walked to the hunting bag and pulled out the Sig Sauer. Then I said, “OK, Mr. Garbageman. Unfortunately, there was no earthquake tonight. Your time is up. You can look at me when I pull the trigger, or you can close your eyes. The choice is yours.”
The garbageman stared at the cold barrel with terror burning in his watery eyes, and he said feebly, “No, please, don’t kill me. Please don’t.”
“Sorry, it’s time.”
“No, no, kiss me first, at least. Please kiss me.”
I was somewhat surprised to hear that kind of request at that particular moment of time, and I said, “Why do you want me to kiss you?”
“I just want to feel loved before I die. Just a little bit, just a little bit.”
I thought about his words for a moment and said, “OK, I will kiss you, but you know what happens if you try to bite me?”
“I won’t try anything, I promise. Just kiss me.”
I walked to the garbageman slowly, put my lips against his mouth, and kissed him. I didn’t use my tongue, but I kissed him properly for a good ten seconds. Then I pulled my head away and asked, “Was that OK? Am I a good kisser?”
“You are fine, thank you.”
“OK,” I said and sat on the floor. Then I looked straight into the sad man’s blue eyes as the Sig Sauer roared and sent one of its small assassins on a field trip to his brain. The bullet killed the garbageman instantly, and I took a large gulp of water. And one by one they fall like stupid toy soldiers.
I buried the beast sloppily next to the slim man and left the forest in a hurry. I didn’t even sterilize the site or cover my tracks, even if I knew that some evidence was probably left behind. I just didn’t give a shit anymore, and all I wanted to do was to get some bleach and wash my whole body with it. I wanted to forget.
The drive home was painful, and my emotions had broken the weak barrier that had kept the demons at bay. I was seriously thinking about getting the gun from the bag and shooting my head off, but then I remembered that I had a lot of money waiting for me at Johnny D’s. I had no choice than to keep on trucking.
After the agonizing drive was finally over, I opened my front door and ran into the shower as fast as I could. I poured a full bottle of shampoo on my head and tried to get rid of the poisonous ticks that were biting my skin off. Then I ate a couple of slices of rye bread and some fresh blueberries and flushed it all down with a can of cold beer. After that, I hit the sack and drifted slowly into hell.
Something truly disturbing was hounding me that night, and it tried to consume my sanity and kill me in my sleep. The devil had sent one of his best demons to fight me because I had already crushed all his other pathetic little minions under my unforgiving heels. Now that powerful little shit began injecting toxic nightmares in my head with a long syringe, and I could see the one-armed man emerging from a thick veil of smoke. He was sitting on a park bench next to the smoldering corpse of the consultant and screaming, “You lied to me, you spiny lumpsucker! You are the man who dresses like a Chinaman but is not really a Chinaman! You are the one who travels with a chained cherub near the silent lands! The one who weeps in his dreams like a GODDAMN baby! Come with me now, priest, and I will give you the fruit of the manchineel tree.”
I was begging for mercy, but then I saw the slim man rise from his shallow grave, and he started running through the dark forest with a dirty needle hanging from his bruised arm. He was naked, and the tree branches were beating his bony corpse like thousands of merciless boatswain’s whips. His face was bleeding hard, and half his nose fell on a plump Amanita muscaria, but the slim man just kept running. A starving fox appeared from a dark hole and ate the mushroom and then the nose. The slim man was now running faster and faster, and he turned onto the road that led to my house. Blood started dripping from his broken teeth, and he began pulling his hair out like it had caught hell’s fire. He was at my door now, and he kicked it in and ran into my bedroom and started stra
ngling me with his skeletal fingers.
I jumped up like there was an angry adder under my pillow and wept louder than a GODDAMN baby. My heart was beating like it wanted to break free and run out of that torture chamber that my body had transformed into. Cold sweat was flowing down my face freely, and I was absolutely certain that my brain had been poisoned with expired cyanide. I was scared to death, and I ran to the kitchen, fear breathing on my exposed neck, and opened a bottle of vodka and drank the whole goddamn thing in less than twenty minutes. I didn’t want to be scared anymore.
After the Stolichnaya had driven away the powerful demon and convinced my heart that it could finally stop panicking, I took a second shower and washed my hands with bleach again. I felt so dirty and disgusting that I was afraid I would never be clean again. The murder of the garbageman had awakened something truly frightening in me, and I felt like yet another part of me had died. I just wanted to forget everything and sleep forever, but I knew that the one-armed man would make sure that any hope for a sweet slumber was buried under a heavy pile of burning rocks.
Because of my fragile mental state, I didn’t do much during the next couple of weeks. I just read my history book and pleasured myself every other day with my homicidal hands. I was like a zombie on autopilot, and I hadn’t even checked the news for any information on the garbageman’s disappearance. I didn’t care about him or the police anymore, and the paranoia of a novice murderer had exited my body like a guest who had begun to smell. I took the Econoline for a spin whenever I wanted to, and my heart didn’t even skip a beat when a police car stopped right next to me. I tried to keep the murders out of my mind the best I could, but it was difficult, and I had to keep cleaning and washing like crazy just to remain sane. The images of violence and pain tried to infiltrate my brain like an army of starving cockroaches, and I was scared shitless of the arrival of the terrors of the night. I desperately wanted to travel to a new place, a place where my guns and knives were no longer needed. I didn’t want to kill anymore, and I knew that the garbageman had been my last victim—or so I thought.
10
Wolf City
It had been sixteen days since the death of the garbageman, and I knew that it was time to go see Ramses. I wanted to get my money and get fabulously drunk in the process. I also needed to see dirty, disgusting people, compare myself to them, and hopefully feel a little cleaner, a little more adorable. Johnny D’s was the perfect place for that mission since 99 percent of its clientele was either dirty on the outside or on the inside—or both. I also knew that I wasn’t the only murderer who visited that fine establishment, and that made me feel a little better than sitting in a church with a bunch of singing nuns.
The Econoline arrived at the potholed parking lot near the promised land at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon, and I opened the door so salvation with a childish eagerness. Ramses was cleaning the floors with a dirty mop and a bucket of water that was darker than the murkiest cypress swamps of the silent Everglades. The bar was empty, and I was, unexpectedly, the only murderer there, I think.
“I believe you are making the floor dirtier that it was,” I said to Ramses.
The greasy man turned his head quickly and looked at me with bewildered eyes and asked, “Where the hell have you been, man? Don’t disappear on me like that.”
“You said that it takes two weeks to get the money. I had no reason to come here before that. I need my alone time, OK? I did the same thing with the consultant, don’t you remember?”
“Uh, OK, but the bosses are worried.”
“Why?”
“Because they haven’t been able to confirm that, uh, let me close the door,” he said and walked to the front door and locked it. Then he sat down on a ripped barstool next to me and said, “They haven’t been able to confirm that Covington is gone. They suspect that you made a deal with the target.”
“What the fuck is this, Ramses? I handled the job exactly the same way as I handled the previous one. What’s different this time?”
“Look, all I know is that they want to have a little powwow tonight and talk to you about Covington and confirm your story before they give you your money, OK?”
“How did they know that I would be here tonight?”
“They didn’t. They told me to tell you this when you come here. You are a priority.”
I didn’t say anything.
Ramses looked at me moodily and said, “If they are happy with your answers, you will get your money. I can promise you that. Trust me.”
“So the bosses are coming to meet me?”
“No, but they will send someone.”
“OK. Where and when?”
“A strip club called Wolf City. Nine o’clock tonight. Don’t be late.”
“OK, but I need you to be there, too, Ramses.”
“Why?”
“Just fucking be there, OK?”
“OK, OK, I’ll be there.”
“Good, now give me a couple of godfathers and shut the fuck up.”
“Coming right up, sir,” he said and started mixing the drinks with trembling hands.
“Do you have any bratwurst?” I asked after a moment of mutually beneficial silence.
“No, not today, but I have these new chicken sausages, if you want to give it a try.”
“OK, bring me one.”
Ramses gave me my two godfathers and disappeared into the kitchen. After about five minutes of cooking, he came back with a plate that had two small sausages on it and some Bavarian mustard on the side.
“They are tiny bastards, aren’t they?” I said.
“Yeah, just taste them.”
I took a bite and said, “It tastes like rattlesnake.”
“What, what do you mean?”
“Yeah, you know, I was once at this horse ranch in Scottsdale, and the cowboys grilled a big rattlesnake over a wood fire for the excited guests. They urged everyone to try it and emphasized that it tastes like chicken. And they were right. It did taste like chicken. My point is that if rattlesnake tastes like chicken, then chicken must taste like rattlesnake.”
“Uh, OK, I see,” Ramses said and started mixing something truly terrifying in a large red bowl.
“What in the Sam Hill is in that poor bowl?” I asked after watching him for a couple of minutes.
“Riot punch. Do you wanna try it?”
“Uh, honestly, it sounds like something that is designed for idiots. What’s in it?”
“It’s a secret recipe, but I can tell you that it ain’t your typical funeral punch, even if it might send you to an early grave. I am going to serve it to the regulars tomorrow. You know, we host this annual event for our most loyal customers, and I always serve the riot punch. It drives them absolutely batshit crazy, but that’s what they want. Normally the cops arrive around eleven and shut the place down, but it’s fun. You should come.”
“No, thanks. Save the punch for your loyal customers. I am sure they have earned it.”
“Speaking of loyal customers, I need to unlock the door,” Ramses said and went to valiantly release the floodgates.
He opened the heavy door lazily, and a dozen tired souls walked in with their dry lips and wrinkly dollars like a squad of soldiers returning from the urban battlefield. Some of them looked like regular folks with a budding drinking problem, but most of them had strayed far, far away from the Creator’s original, well-intentioned design. It was all good, though. The customers came to Johnny D’s as they were. All you needed was money and a liver that still had some steam left.
Around 7:30 p.m., a man in a dirty top hat walked up to me and asked, “Have you heard about that thing in the old continent?”
“No,” I said.
“Yeah, man, the nuclear plants, man. Fucking cybercriminals hacked them all. We are screwed. We are all dead, man.”
“OK, can I please finish my drink now?”
“Enjoy while you can, man. Enjoy while you can,” he said and disappeared into the darkness
of the smoky bar.
I figured that the man in a top hat was just another crackhead on the verge of losing his mind, so I didn’t give his words much thought. There was an oversupply of senseless bullshit at Johnny D’s, and most things the crazies spat out weren’t worth a nanosecond of my time.
Fortunately, no one else wanted to talk to me, and I ordered another godfather and asked Ramses to turn the TV on. He handed me the remote and a complimentary shot of rye, and I took a comfortable position on my stool and started watching the news.
There was no talk about any nuclear disaster, as I had already guessed, but I still wanted to see what was going on in the unpredictable world of people. I sucked the last drops of my drink with a tiny straw and started flipping the channels with the greasy remote. I kept going until I noticed that something interesting was happening on the weather channel. A husky meteorologist in a nice tailored suit was telling the viewers about a storm that was forming in the eastern Atlantic. The man was confused because the disturbance behaved unlike anything he had ever seen before, and he said that the fast-moving system was a freak of nature and admitted that he couldn’t predict what exactly was going to come out of it. All signs, however, pointed to the storm of a century, and the outlook was disturbing. The weatherman didn’t say it, but I knew that a monster was being born.
I continued watching the story until the dusty clock on the wall hit eight thirty, and I turned the TV off. It was go time. Wolf City was about fifteen minutes from Johnny D’s, and I wanted to get there a little early so I could check out the scene and choose my own seat. I didn’t like strip clubs, and I wanted to sit as far from the pole as possible. In my opinion, they were places where the worship of money was so brutally intense and suffocating that humanity and compassion had simply given up and left. The thought that I was tolerated and treated like a human being only because I had a stupid piece of plastic in my pocket, made me want to strangle myself.
I raised my finger and Ramses walked to me sluggishly. I looked at him with my fox’s eyes and said, “I am going to Wolf City now. Are you sure you are going to be there?”
The Sapphire Express Page 18