by Rodd Clark
TURNING BACK to Church, the writer considered his question. “Never really wanted to. You should be proud I chose to do it with you.”
“You have no idea. Pleased as punch I was to be the one to draw first blood. But surely you’ve been asked before . . . I mean, you’re a foxy, studly dude and all.”
Christian turned his head away upon hearing Gabe speak so frankly of him. Partly to hide the hot blush he felt rising in his cheeks and partly to catch his breath without showing his embarrassment.
“I’ve never really placed myself in that situation; of course, in college there were times when the offer must have been laid out for the taking, but I guess I didn’t want it bad enough.”
“Would your parents disown you or somethin’?”
“No, my folks are pretty cool, they might have suspected a few things by now, and I never married and was never engaged. In my world that pretty much solidifies my orientation. Of course, they’ve never even asked the question.” Christian edged closer to take the chance to learn more about his prize. “What about Bennett? How would he feel if he could’ve seen you in action? He already failed you as a father, but what would that have done to your fucked-up relationship?’
Church took a long distant look across the plaza; his eyes veiled a twinge of sadness at his recollection. “I don’t think it would’ve mattered to him either way . . . Remember, he had his own bent ways, even he couldn’t have judged me too harshly.”
“And your mother . . . your sister?”
“They are lost to me now. I don’t think the image of me fucking a man would’ve shocked them in the least. I doubt if they knew my other crimes that’d surprise them much either.”
“Regrets? You ever want to look them up, or are you afraid of them knowing what you’ve done? I mean, if you get caught, what do you think they’d say about it?”
“They’d say good riddance to bad rubbish.” His face drained of the preoccupied, dreamlike quality and again turned cold and impassive. His mood had changed quickly, as it usually did, and Christian suspected some form of bipolar affect had taken hold of the man somewhere in his lost childhood.
“What’s the plan here—” Christian asked as he braved reaching across the table and lightly fingered the back of the killer’s hand. “—are you going to turn yourself in before the book comes out . . . or do you have something other than that in mind?”
The words were weighted gold. He wanted his answer because it was important, but they were heavy and rested like anchors in the moment, dragging them both under dark waters. Church had again turned his head, ignoring the question, and he pulled his hand away, reaching for his glass of beer. Men had secrets; they carried their thoughts like they carried their possessions. They learned to hide them in their shadowy caves and hoard them mysteriously. Church was male in every sense; nothing metrosexual existed in his personality. He guarded his past, and he stockpiled his plans. It was clear Christian wouldn’t get his answers today.
They finished their beers and ordered two more. They nibbled at their buffalo wings but only as a distracted afterthought. They were relatively silent after that. The writer had overstepped, and the killer had closed up shop to the curious. It would take time before the mood could be reestablished. Christian asked Church if he wanted to head back to take the next walking tour, but the man scrunched his nose in derision. He wasn’t the same little kid who left the hotel room with excitement, the cloud had taken him, and he maintained a cautious dullness on his features.
“There’s always the Mayflower?” Christian asked with a sheepish grin.
It was only that suggestion that enabled him to yank Church back to the land of the living. The writer’s proposition offered a promise of sex and sweat, and that obviously appealed to Church more than any time spent under Seattle sidewalks. He reached his hand over and placed it over Christian’s. It was the most pronounced a display of affection as he could offer, but it had been sufficient in cresting both men’s interests. They walked back to the hotel slowly, side by side, cavalierly chatting about nothing of any significance—they both had other things on their minds.
Chapter Twelve
IT HAD BEEN an unusual day all around. Justin Mackavie left home headed for work, and he hit every green light along the way. After arriving at work, he found an open space right beside the front door to park his Acura. He was pleased to find every request for documentation from his borrowers had been replied to, and his email was overflowing with the necessary documentation to close almost all the loans in his queue. It would prove to be a profitable month if he could finish all his loans and reap the benefits of his commission bonus on each one.
Justin was in a good mood that morning; he even smiled at the underwriters in the other departments as he strolled in with his steaming coffee in hand and his Walkman plugged into his ear. Things had been looking up lately, or maybe they just appeared that way when his outlook had changed. He had recently met a young woman and begun spending time with her. She had a child from a previous relationship, but at least the little girl was barely out of diapers. She seemed to enjoy playing with Justin on the living room floor whenever his new girlfriend found the time for a date.
Overall, things appeared more promising; he had a job he felt comfortable with, one that enabled him to support himself and the eventual family he’d always planned. He was dating a lovely woman and the sex was good, and he’d doubled up on his car payments and applied every tax refund he could, and now he was nearing a glorious payoff date. Although he had only been renting his condominium, he was considering purchasing; he was only waiting for that voice in his head to push him forward and a woman at his side who was screaming at him to do it. However his good spirits would not save him, and on any mundane day, as today, when things were looking like they were peaking, he would find his hopes dashed and fortunes altered. Justin Mackavie was acquiring every aspect of his own American Dream, but regrettably he would not survive past lunch.
Two days earlier, Justin had encountered a man he was not prepared to meet. In actuality, they hadn’t met per se, they had merely passed each other, as many of Church’s victims found their fate. There was a ghostly aura ebbing from Justin, one he had never noticed and others seemed equally unaffected by. But for Gabriel Church it was a sign, a call to action, and Justin’s outcome became considerably shakier at the happenstance of brushing past Church in a restaurant.
Both men never faced each other, never shook hands or acknowledged knowing the other. They couldn’t have been any more different. Justin carried a paunch of settle at his waist, even though he was only in his early thirties. He was an innocuous man, considered attractive only by his mother and his new girlfriend. He worked and he planned, and his only enjoyment seemed to be the rare party he attended or his weekend warrior activities with a band of nerdy cohorts from school. The only thing he had working for him was a glow to pinpoint him as being someone special in the other man’s eyes.
It would be another eight months before Church would meet his writer or settle in a luxurious hotel room for his first real sexual encounter with another man, and without this information, Justin’s fate was irrevocable, air-tight and irreversible. He would be followed to his office, and he would be watched for hours by a man who had slipped easily past security and followed him to the fifth floor. After drinking two cups of coffee, Justin would need to relieve himself. It was a predictable sequence of events as seen by a man who studied the patterns and behaviors of others. He would be followed into the men’s room, be standing at the sink washing his hands when a stranger would come quickly from behind holding a garrote of wire to end his life.
Justin’s body would be found behind the doors of a closed stall, propped on a white porcelain throne with blood staining the front of his button-down shirt. His murder would be investigated, but eventually grow cold. He was a man without enemies, leaving detectives at a loss for motive and reason. No one was captured on video, and no one could say whether the
y had seen an unfamiliar face roaming the halls on that fateful morning. And since he was unmarried, the only notification his new girlfriend would get about his death would come from a news account on the television while she folded clothes at the kitchen table later than evening.
BACK AT the Mayflower the two men had awoken slowly, never wanting to break from the physical union they had created after sex. It was a safe bet neither man had ever slept through the night wrapped in another man’s arms, but it seemed splendid and somehow natural. Gabriel’s chest hair tickled at Christian’s back, and their body heat formed a satisfying giftwrapped slumber.
Both woke hungry and desperate for caffeine, sticky and raw from their previous frolicking. Gabriel’s shaft had started to stir to life at Christian’s backside, alerting him that if he didn’t jump from the covers, he’d be stuck there for another hour. He showered alone this time, stretching under the pulsing water and lathered with suds. He called out from the spray to have Gabriel phone down for a fresh pot of coffee to be delivered. “Dial 99 for room service,” he screamed out while poking his head out from the shower and over the din of the shower jets.
Christian watched Gabriel pick up a white complementary bathrobe from the hook and head to the phone. “Do you want food brought up too?” he called out and visibly started when he turned to find Christian standing behind him with only a towel wrapping his neck. Gabriel’s eyes traveled down his wet, naked torso. “. . . err, sorry . . . didn’t know you were done. Do you want food too?”
“No let’s find something in town. This is going to be frightfully expensive as is.”
“Is this going to be our last day in paradise?” Gabriel asked.
“That depends on what you consider paradise as being,” Christian offered with a smile before kissing Gabriel’s mouth and indulging in their first morning embrace.
“You know you’re getting pretty comfortable in my presence these last few hours. Maybe too comfortable . . .” Gabriel broke away and turned his back on Christian who had grown to accept his usual transmutation of mood and only smiled broadly.
“You are correct, sir, but I’m enjoying the moment because there might not be many great moments to follow. It’s nice here . . . allow me to keep it.” He reached his arm out and permitted his hand to graze the back of the robe as if entreating his lover for acceptance.
“Let’s make it a late lunch and work a bit over coffee. There’s more about me that you need to know.”
Christian nodded quietly, even with Gabriel turned from view; words would only be a distraction now, since both felt their answers, even unspoken. By the time the porter rapped gently at their door, Christian had pulled on his jeans and was wrestling into a shirt as Gabriel opened for a young lady in a starched white top. She smiled sweetly as she pushed a cart with a large carafe of coffee, four fresh cups, and a silver bowl of sugar with a small matching pitcher of cream next to it. She bowed her head in servitude as she positioned the cart in the center of the room and whisked out a pad for a signature, then backed out professionally, closing the door with a grin of acknowledgment as she departed.
As Christian filled the cups, Gabriel wrapped his arms around him and nuzzled sensually at his neck. “Maybe you should lose the clothing and make yourself more comfy.”
“If I did that we’d never get anything done,” Christian said, beaming with appreciation.
“That being said, where would you like to begin today?” Gabriel asked as he blew a cooling breeze across his unsweetened coffee.
“We’ve tiptoed around the subject of your victims for a time now. I’d like to go into that if you’re comfortable with it. Namely, how many . . . and in what states.”
“Right to the bone you cut today, even with my scent still dancing around your nethers. Okay, let’s go for it.” Suddenly Gabriel’s eyes became glassy as he tugged for exacting memories, and Christian could see him making a grisly count inside his head. After a long pause and two sips of his coffee, he turned to the writer and said, “Forty, but that’s only my initial guess without putting a pen to paper and working out the details for accuracy.”
“You’re saying you have committed approximately forty murders in your lifetime?” Christian couldn’t help but pull a round of oxygen in then reach for a nearby chair-back for support. His knees were wobbly with Church’s cold pronouncement, and he considered once again the legalities of him standing in a room with such a prolific killer.
“Forty . . . ” The word came out again, and Christian found himself dropping into a chair inattentively.
“I said that was my best guess without doing the math. But I figure it’s very close to the right number. It’s kinda amazing how I haven’t been caught yet, huh?” Gabriel had a twisted grin to his face without the humanity of understanding his own confession. He was recalling numbers not faces. Simple data was forced from memory, yet there were no remaining family members, grieving friends, or shattered lives wrapped in his words. He had come up with the analytical figure of forty, and that was all it was to him in that moment.
Christian sat dumbstruck with Gabriel casually standing behind him, void of the benevolent remorse one should feel. He couldn’t speak words and stared off into space, trying to measure out what he’d just heard. He had never really trawled for the exact figure of homicides before now; maybe it was because he suspected the truth would be overwhelming, or maybe because he just didn’t want to know.
For him, everything instantly blurred then lost immediate substance. He had to admit, even to himself, that he was more than just enamored by a man who’d announced he was greater than a mere serial murderer. He had confessed to inordinate sin, which Christian understood even he lacked ample words for description. Forty was a number that might’ve been linked to the sum of deaths in a factory explosion in Jakarta, not the single acts of a lone killer. One had to reserve that number for catastrophes, not those of an executioner acting alone. If he’d taken an assault rifle and multiple rounds of ammo to a high-perched clock tower, there would still be significantly fewer victims than Church just admitted to.
IT TOOK a minute before Gabe sensed a need for empathy. He fought back confusion in his head and placed his hands on Chris’s shoulders. The man had asked for a number, and he’d been given one. Why, he wondered, did his friend not comprehend his answer? It, after all, seemed clear to him.
“Sorry . . . I hadn’t figured you wouldn’t have known that.”
Gabe’s voice may have offered conciliatory words, but they couldn’t break Chris’s state of awe.
Time didn’t dawdle then, it nearly stopped completely. As Chris absorbed what he heard, Gabe was left to stand in silence behind him, resting his palms on those shoulders he had previously ran his tongue on hours just earlier. It was odd to him that Christian seemed so weighted by the number, but he dared not risk making it worse by talking or saying something stupid.
“The accounting is inconceivable to me,” he said. “After lunch, why don’t you take some time and come up with an accurate figure. I will leave you alone with pen and paper and let’s see what number you come up with then.”
“Fair enough,” Gabe said, shamefully. This was not at all what he’d expected from the writer today. Maybe he should have fudged the number considerably. Maybe then Chris wouldn’t look at him with that pained expression.
Chris stood up and gently pushed the chair under the table. “Why don’t you get dressed. I could use some food . . . We can pick this up later.” As he said that, Gabe could hear a hole in his voice, absent any tenderness that the writer had been accustomed to offering up in his company. He had felt anxiety from Chris before but never the cavity he found himself staring into then. He wondered if he could repair the damage because he wanted more than anything to keep the writer as a friend, and something more if he’d allow. He was quickly becoming the only real companion the killer had ever known.
They had accomplished nothing that morning, but even without any note scrawled on pape
r, the effects would be lasting. Gabe would’ve liked to have turned the clock back, to have kept his mouth shut, or to have simply lied, but what would that have done for the story, he thought—he was burrowed somewhere under a rock and between a hard place. His fucking of Chris had altered things, but not in the ways he’d expected—it was the truth about his murders that risked unraveling the bindings. Would he lie the next time such a question lingered at the door, one that might shake his friend and threaten losing him forever? Or would he accept how he truly wanted his story told and choose not to shy from the cold realities of the killings? Would he permit his new friend to grow to hate him and fear him more than he did today? He hung his head as he headed back to the bedroom to recover his clothing, sadness oozing from him like an open wound.
Chapter Thirteen
YOU COULD NEVER tell what someone was running from, what demons hid in dark corners of their minds—such was Gabriel. He was the baddest of the bad. However, Christian had agreed to walk his hallowed halls, contracted to peer inside . . . even though Gabriel was someone who should have been studied in a clinical setting, possibly from behind the protection of iron bars and bulletproof glass. He would be a heartbreak that was clear-cut, but for Christian the question was, to what degree?
Gabriel seemed to possess an abundance of traits that should have made his life run smoothly. By contrast, he was void of many attributes he should have had: shame, remorse, humanity, greed, and even pity. Whenever Christian looked into those grayish eyes or stared at that wrinkled, sexy grin, he found himself confused by the realism of it all. Over lunch he was lost inside his own head, but Gabriel seemed to respect his solitude and worked hard not to engage him. Double digits had killed the good spirits he’d woken up with.
It’s not like he ever lied to me, Christian thought. Not like I didn’t expect there to be horrific truths in his telling.