by Sam Mariano
It’s the perfect time of night for this. The rain has slowed down but there’s still noise as it pelts the homes. The houses on this street are piled one on top of the next so the neighbors are close. That’s really my only concern, and even that’s a mild one.
Leroy’s most recent girlfriend ditched him a month ago. He doesn’t have pets or a roommate. He does have an eight-year-old daughter, but she lives with the mother, not him. I’m uncomfortable that he even has visitation rights. If Mia was 12 when he had sexual interest in her, 8 isn’t so far away.
No matter. This is Leroy’s last night among the living, so if he’s left a trail of victims behind him, that trail ends here.
Stupid asshole shouldn’t have touched Mia. Of course, when he did, she was a little girl without even her mother’s protection. No one could have predicted she’d ever have mine.
Surprise, motherfucker.
Getting into the house is easy. The challenging part may be getting him out of the house without waking the neighbors. Normally we could just knock the guy out, but I don’t want drugs in his system tonight. I want him awake and fully experiencing every one of his last moments.
I want him to know why, too. I kind of like being Mia’s harbinger of justice. It’s not a hat I usually wear, but she’s given me the last few days; I owe her this much.
We make it to his bedroom easily. For a minute, we just stand there and look at this slumbering asshole. Here he is, sleeping like a baby, thinking he’ll wake up in a few hours and go about another meaningless, monotonous day of his worthless life.
A man is most vulnerable when he’s asleep—unguarded, unconscious, unprepared for whatever threats might be lurking in the shadows. The poetic thing about it is, he’s been the monster in the dark before. The idea of this unimpressive little maggot being any kind of monster is frankly insulting. I work at what I am; this sloppy marshmallow of a man shouldn’t be able to inflict lasting damage on a person—least of all, Mia. Someone like this should never have been allowed to touch a hair on her head, not even in his wildest dreams.
Leroy Weiss is a large man made entirely of softness where there should be edges. If he has a clavicle, you can’t see it through the blanket of flesh that is his flabby chest. Springy black hairs cover the soft, fleshy surface. I can’t help noticing the defeated set of his shoulders. I don’t ordinarily focus much on a man’s shoulders, but I have noticed over the past couple days Mia’s eyes are often drawn to mine. I don’t have soft, defeated shoulders. I have broad, muscular shoulders. It’s one of the many things I’ve determined Mia must like about me, since she ogles them about as often as I ogle her breasts.
I wonder if she’s drawn to strong shoulders since this man’s are so weak.
I wonder if everything about this man is weak. He’s still asleep, but my money’s on yes. On paper, he appeared lazy and unimpressive. In person, I’m already vaguely disgusted.
Somewhere under there must be muscle tissue, but he’s certainly never worked at enhancing it. Leroy has two chins and they both need a shave. His eyes are set freakishly close together in his bulbous, ugly face. He has a huge, bumpy, cauliflower-like nose with hairs poking out. Everything about the man is unkempt and thoroughly disgusting.
He’s also sleeping in just a pair of boxers. I’m unexcited at the prospect of touching his probably greasy skin long enough to haul him out of the house.
Goddamn Alec. I never have to do this part.
Oh well.
Adrian and I exchange looks. He nods and heads over to the bed. Sets his black leather bag down and pulls back the flap. He grabs a sock he wore at the gym yesterday morning and smiles in anticipation. Then he pulls out the duct tape and bends to set a length of rope on the floor.
I don’t even have to help with this part. Adrian is my right hand man for a reason. Marshmallow man is asleep one second and jolting awake as Adrian shoves a dirty sock into his mouth the next. He begins thrashing immediately but Adrian anchors him with a knee and makes quick work of wrapping duct tape around his mouth and then around his head a couple more times at a different angle so he can’t move his jaw.
Marshmallow man is still attempting muffled screams so Adrian punches him in the face and grabs his gun, pointing it to his forehead. He tries to beg. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you can see it in the lines of his face, the panic in his eyes—he’s begging, pleading for his miserable life.
“Listen, motherfucker, I have no qualms about shooting you in the gut and letting you slowly bleed out right here. Keep fucking making noise and see what happens.”
Leroy has no idea what’s going on, but he’s scared shitless. His gaze jumps to me, terror in his beady little eyes. I doubt he knows who I am, but I’m one of two men who just showed up in his bedroom in the middle of the night with guns and kidnapping paraphernalia; it’s not hard to guess I’m bad news.
Figuring he still somehow has a shot at leaving this situation alive, he stops making noise. His gaze darts from me to Adrian as Adrian climbs off the bed and retrieves the rope.
I take a step closer. “Want me to do anything?”
“Nah, Leroy here is gonna be a good hostage, aren’t you, Leroy?”
Leroy nods vigorously.
“Got any valuables, Leroy?”
He nods even harder, faintly relieved. Since Adrian is leading him to believe maybe this is a mere robbery, he doesn’t think he’s fighting for his life. He doesn’t put up as much of a fight as Adrian ties his arms behind his back and starts wrapping the rope around his wrists. He’s apprehensive and balks a little when Adrian pulls his elbows together and ties those up, too.
Leroy starts trying to talk again, jerking his head toward his closet. “Your valuables?” Adrian guesses, his focus on the intricate knots he’s tying.
More nodding from Leroy the marshmallow man.
Nobody moves for the closet.
Adrian now has the ropes all tied to each other, halfway to hog-tied. Since there are two of us and if we were burglars I should be searching for valuables while Adrian handles Leroy the loser, he grows apprehensive. That story doesn’t check out.
Now that he’s all trussed up, Adrian grabs Leroy and pulls him close, doing his patented soulless stare. “We’re gonna go for a little ride, Leroy. We can do it one of two ways. You can walk downstairs and save me a little upper body work, or I can pistol whip you in the back of the head and drag your ass downstairs. Can’t promise I won’t cause some damage. I’m gonna be pissed, and when I get pissed, I tend not to take care. You may not even make it to the destination alive. That’d be a real shame. So, should we do it the easy way?”
Adam’s apple bobbing, Leroy nods his head.
Only when we get to the staircase, he decides to try to be a badass and attempt to shove Adrian down the stairs with his massive, saggy shoulder. Adrian does miss a step, but he catches himself on the wall and turns back to glare.
I grab our hogtied friend and yank him back forcefully enough to knock him to the ground. He scurries, but I give him a solid kick in the side for his efforts.
“Hard way it is,” Adrian states, grabbing him by the ankles and dragging him down the stairs. Leroy whines and groans along every bump. I love it. He tries to shove Adrian down the stairs and then cries when we aren’t nice afterward. What a stupid fucking asshole.
Once at the bottom, Adrian releases Leroy’s ankles. He promptly tries to wriggle away. I cock my head and watch him struggle. It’s quite sad. He rolls this way and that, but because of the way Adrian has him tied up, every movement is painful in one way or another. If it’s not hell on his joints, the hardness of his bound hands must feel like a rock digging into his lower back. The floor is hard, his body big and heavy. Every move he makes is painful. He’s already sweating like a pig and we’ve barely begun. This is fucking tragic. I expected some satisfaction out of this, but it feels like killing a three-legged dog with cataracts—so unsportsmanlike.
“Is this really the best she
could do?” I ask Adrian, shaking my head. “I understand she doesn’t have a lot going for her and she’s not the most fascinating woman to carry on a conversation with, but she’s not ugly. Surely she could do better than this.”
Adrian shakes his head, checking the windows to make sure no lights came on. We haven’t been loud so it’s unlikely it would be related to us, but before we haul this asshole out to the car, he needs to make sure we have a clear path.
“I couldn’t tell you. If I liked guys and pedophilic slobs like these were my only options, I’d stay single.” Apparently getting an all clear, Adrian comes back to stand over the guy’s head. “Are you gonna keep being an asshole, Leroy? I can knock you unconscious if you are.”
Leroy doesn’t believe us anymore, so he thrashes. Even as unimpressive as he is, this waste of a person has enough instincts to know he’s fighting for his life here—as insignificant as it may be, it’s all he’s got. Some pain and discomfort would be worthwhile if it meant escape.
Of course, it won’t, but he hasn’t accepted that yet.
It’s hard for a man to accept his own end.
Adrian decides to go outside alone first so he can open the car and ditch his bag. As soon as he opens the door to slip out, Leroy tries to scream for help.
I shake my head in feigned disappointment. “You just don’t learn, do you?”
He rolls onto his side and manages to get over on his stomach, but without the use of his arms he can’t crawl away. I kick him hard in the side. He cries out like a bitch and I do it again.
By the time Adrian gets back inside, Leroy has stopped fighting and started crying. Actual tears. They could be fear, since he can wager now he’s going to die, or maybe pain. I may have kicked him too many times and busted his ribs.
No matter.
Leroy cries some more as Adrian hauls him out to the car. He cries out once for help and I punch him hard in the same side I kicked while Adrian was outside. The guy is already completely miserable. He’s making this too easy. He better not die on me before I’m ready. I will be so pissed.
Shaking with fear and pain, sweat oozes from his pores. I’m glad Adrian put down plastic before we threw this guy in the back. I was going to sit back here with him myself to make sure we made it to the warehouse without trouble, but the longer I’m around this guy, the less I want to be.
I wake up Alec instead. He jolts awake, a little disoriented.
“Go sit in the back with our cargo,” I tell him.
“What? Huh?” Scrubbing his hands down his face, he mutters, “Shit. What happened?”
“You’re drunk. It doesn’t matter. We could’ve taken down this asshole completely drunk and half asleep. Go sit with him.”
Alec does as I say and Adrian heads to the driver’s seat, smirking at me in the rearview mirror as he slides into the driver’s seat. “You sound almost disappointed.”
“Guy’s a fucking sad sack. There’s no sport in it.”
“We’re not supposed to be killing for sport,” Adrian reminds me. “We’re getting some justice for Mia since we can’t kill you.”
“I know, but he still could’ve made it more fun.”
Adrian rolls his eyes and shakes his head at me, firing up the engine.
A short time later, we arrive at the warehouse. Adrian walks ahead of us and lets Alec wrestle the big asshole into the warehouse. I could help, but I just watch. It’s kind of funny to watch Alec get pissed off at the guy.
We considered going traditional and sentencing this guy to Adrian’s chair, but I had more brutal ideas for his execution. Past Adrian’s office, for lack of better word, there’s a dank room with a cold, cement floor. It’s an empty room, by all appearances. There are a couple of chairs folded up and stacked in the corner. In the center of the room is a beam with columns reinforcing the structure. On that beam there are three meat hooks.
“Middle hook,” I say.
Adrian nods, grabbing more rope as Alec brings him over.
I’m pretty sure Leroy tries to say “no, no, please!” but I don’t speak muffled asshole, so I can’t be sure.
“Someone get the tape off this asshole so he can talk,” I direct.
Adrian nods toward the chairs. “Go get the step ladder.”
Alec goes to fetch that while Adrian grabs a box cutter and starts hacking the duct tape off Leroy’s face. The man yelps as Adrian misses and slices skin.
“Keep moving and I’m gonna keep missing,” Adrian states, simply.
Leroy goes still while Adrian cuts the rest of the tape off. Even though he’s wearing the leather gloves, my lips curls up in disgust as Adrian takes the sock out of his mouth.
Immediately, the man starts whining at me. His voice is like a fucking mosquito buzzing in my ear.
“Please. Please. I didn’t do nothing. Please.”
I nod slowly, taking a few leisurely steps back and forth in front of him. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”
“What’d I do? What’d I do? I didn’t… I didn’t do nothing that should… I didn’t mess with any of your shit.”
I raise an eyebrow and glance at the little maggot. “So you do know who I am?”
He freezes, seeming to realize maybe that might be a bad thing to admit.
“I shouldn’t know who you are,” I tell him, continuing my slow pace. “You’re insignificant. You’re not worth my time. Hell, you’re not worth any of our time,” I add, indicating Alec and Adrian. “But you see, while I do a lot of heinous shit myself, there is one thing that bothers me on a personal level.” I stop pacing and squat down, feigning a sympathetic expression. “Just so happens, you pushed that button. And I have to tell you, if I’m judging you, you’ve really fucked up.”
Low and scared, his voice shaking, he asks, “What’d I do?”
“Do you remember Shelly Mitchell? You dated her a few years back.”
Frowning in confusion, he nods jerkily. “Yeah, I remember Shelly. I didn’t do nothing to Shelly.”
I nod slowly, as if considering this. “You have any kids, Leroy?”
He latches onto this with the desperation unique to a dying man. “Yes. I have a little girl. We’re very close—it’ll kill her to lose me.”
Hearing this man say he and his little girl are “very close” only serves to further sour my stomach. “Do you touch your daughter, Leroy?”
Beady eyes bulge and his bloated face quickly loses all its color.
I don’t wait for the answer. I don’t particularly care to hear it. He’s dead either way. “Because, strangest thing, you’re a grown man and Mia was 12 when you started dating her mom, but you know what I’ve heard, Leroy? I’ve heard you touched her.”
“M—Mia? This is about Mia?”
Loudly plopping the step ladder down beneath the meat hook, Alec smiles coldly. Leroy’s gaze jumps to Alec at the sound. Taking advantage of his attention, Alec tells him, “Mia’s dating our cousin. We’re all pretty close now. I guess you could say little Mia Mitchell… well, she’s basically part of the family.”
Obviously this is horrifying news to poor Leroy. He slowly looks back at me, pale and sweating, his dull mind grasping desperately for something he can say to save his own hide.
I nod my head. “That’s right. And can you imagine what I do to someone who hurts a member of my family, Leroy?”
“I didn’t hurt her! I didn’t. She… you don’t understand. She flirted with me.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Alec abandons the ladder to walk away, not having the stomach for this shit. Adrian grimaces, since Leroy’s focus is on me.
I’m the one who has to keep the poker face.
I feel it slipping. Before I can stop myself, my arm acts of its own accord—pulling back and flying forward, punching this sack of human garbage right in the face.
He cries out and lurches backwards.
“A twelve-year-old girl flirted with you? That’s your excuse?”
“She
always wanted to spend time with me,” he cries, bordering on shrill. “She’d turn on these stupid girly fucking shows and we’d sit on the couch. She’d tell me about her day. She’d wear these little skirts and shirts with no bra.”
“Okay, stop,” I say, standing. My hands keep clenching and unclenching. I wanted to draw this out, but he’s making it so goddamn hard not to kill him.
Adrian doesn’t practice the same control. Before Leroy even has a chance to keep going with his bullshit list of Mia’s sins, Adrian walks up and punts him in the head.
Alec looks like he wants to join in, but he keeps his distance and lets Adrian work.
“Did it cross your mind, your worthless sack of shit, that a fatherless little girl might look to her mother’s boyfriend to fill the fucking void?” Adrian asks, just before kicking him again. “That’s not fucking flirting, asshole. A twelve-year-old can’t flirt with a grown man. You know why? Because she’s twelve.”
Leroy is crying again. I let Adrian kick him around some more and get out some frustrations. Leroy yelps and cries and begs for help. He begs Alec, since he’s the only one not actively beating him at any point. He doesn’t know Alec just doesn’t want to ruin a new suit.
Leroy is sobbing like a 12-year-old girl now, saliva and blood dripping from his face. I was planning on punching him some more, but Adrian got angrier than I anticipated and I don’t want to touch him now. That’s okay. I’ll improvise.
“Hang him up,” I tell Adrian.
“With fucking pleasure,” Adrian mutters, grabbing Leroy by the hair and pulling him up off the ground.
“Please. Please, please. You don’t understand. I’m not… Please…”
“Has he admitted enough for you, or do you want more?” I ask Adrian, ignoring sad, sad Leroy Weiss.
“Fuck this guy,” Adrian says. “Let’s just kill him.”
I nod once and look to Alec. Wordlessly commanding him to help Adrian with my eyes, I take a step back, cross my arms, and watch them lift this sad man. Once he’s suspended from the ropes, hanging from the meat hook, I pull out my gun.
“Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything. Please!”