“Malcolm! What’s up, dog? I ain’t seen your black ass in years. Man, you all over the news. Them cops want your ass bad!”
“That’s why I’m here. I need to stay with you for a while.”
Rick’s eyes slid sideways back toward the house then swept the floor. He looked nervous.
“Is that gonna be a problem, nigga? You still my nigga, ain’t you?”
“Yeah, Malcolm. You know I got your back. It’s just that I got a woman . . . a wife, and this shit you involved in . . . .”
Malcolm leaned closer until his face was inches from Rick’s.
“Are you my dog or are you your bitch’s bitch?”
Rick had lost a little of his craziness. It showed in his clean, white Hanes underwear and terrycloth house coat, his neatly groomed hair and, most telling, the can of Bud Light clutched in his right hand instead of the forty of malt liquor that had once been permanently attached to his palm. Along with his insanity, he’d lost the quality Malcolm had most admired in the man, his fearlessness. There was a time when Malcolm saw in Rick something to be feared, a little nigga who didn’t give a fuck. Now, marriage, college, and comfortable living had softened him. He wasn’t street no more. He was still ghetto, that you can’t escape, but now he was soft pillows, cable TV, recliners and house slippers. He was domesticated. Weak.
Malcolm sneered in disgust, the fangs making the expression twice as menacing. If the man didn’t remember where he came from real quick, Malcolm would have to turn Rick’s crisp, new, white T-shirt all red.
“You know I’m your dog, Malcolm.”
“Yeah. I know, Rick. I know.” Malcolm slipped past him into the house, carrying a garment bag filled with expensive designer suits from Giorgio Armani, Hugo Boss, and Gianni Versace.
“So, where is your woman?”
Malcolm laughed out loud when he saw Rick flinch and shudder in horror.
“Don’t worry, nigga. I’m not gonna hurt her. I just want to meet her. I mean, since we are going to be roommates for a while.”
Rick’s shoulders slumped. His face hung with the defeated look of a whipped dog. If Malcolm still cared for the man, he would’ve killed him for that just to put him out of his misery.
“She’s upstairs asleep. She works at night.”
“Alright, I’m gonna drop my shit here. Then you and me are gonna go on a little mission.”
“What’s up?”
Malcolm smiled carnivorously, baring his fangs in a ghastly expression somewhere between pleasure and naked aggression.
“Did you know that Natasha lived around here somewhere?”
This time Rick did smile, that old goofy smile with the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth like a hyena. His eyes began to gleam with a kind of lust. Perhaps he hadn’t changed as much as Malcolm had first suspected. He still had his old taste for violence, especially when it carried a sexual component.
Rick shrugged into a thick, black, goose down jacket with South Pole emblazoned across the front in two-inch high, silver lettering. He wore baggy South Pole jeans and a Tommy Hilfiger skullcap. A pair of silver and black Nikes completed the look . . . urban thug. He draped a huge platinum chain that resembled some type of wild animal restraint around his neck. Malcolm glared at him.
“Why the fuck are you trying to look like a fucking drug dealer when we got heat on us already? If we get stopped by the cops, you know damn well I ain’t goin’ to jail.”
“Man, if we run into a cop they’ll spot your spooky lookin’ ass long before they spot this chain. So, fuck it. It ain’t like your ass is incognito. You couldn’t be low profile now if you tried.”
Malcolm looked at himself in the living room mirror and considered maybe changing from the black suit into something a little more understated, but the fangs would give him away no matter what, and he wasn’t about to try and pull his own teeth. At least, not now.
“Fuck it,” he said, then tightened the belt on his trench coat and stepped out the door.
“Cops down here are a bunch of cowards anyway. Ain’t no way a patrol cop is gonna try and stop two killers by theirself. If they ain’t got SWAT behind them, they ain’t shit,” Rick said, digging in a desk drawer for his pistol and hurrying close behind Malcolm.
They left with the shotgun tucked deep in the pocket of Malcolm’s trench coat along with a long straight razor. Rick had a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson that Malcolm guessed had never been fired. It had, no doubt, sat in its fancy case ever since it was purchased. Malcolm knew Rick wanted a gun just so he could say he had a gun and the nine millimeter had been featured in so many rap videos that every wannabe thug who knew nothing about guns now owned one. Malcolm wasn’t the type to carry a nine millimeter. The nine millimeter shot sleek high-velocity bullets that left neat, clean, through-and-through wounds that were easy for surgeons to stitch. Malcolm liked blood. The grislier the wound, the better. He preferred his forty caliber Sig-Sauer with its big, slow bullets that left exit wounds the size of children’s fists. A nine millimeter was like a forty on stun, and compared to the shotgun, it was a squirt gun.
Natasha’s place was thirteen blocks from Rick’s house. She lived alone as far as Malcolm had been able to figure, though she had a boyfriend who spent several nights a week at her apartment. Malcolm was hoping he had chosen this night to sleep over. The detectives were right about one thing. Killing only one victim no longer satisfied him. He needed more.
The little apartment atop the hoagie shop on Federal Street where Natasha lived was surprisingly nice. It had new carpeting in a gray that was almost silver with thick upgraded padding, new furniture in that artsy antique style from Z-gallery made of iron and steel. The counter tops were either cultured stone or tumbled marble. The cabinets, tables, chairs, and bookcases were oak, mahogany, or cherry wood. A black leather sofa and a laptop iMac computer completed the look of nuevo urban success. Malcolm couldn’t help wonder what she did for a living.
“Where is this bitch?”
“She’ll be home soon. She probably went out on a date with her little boyfriend.”
Malcolm looked around her apartment. There were pictures of Natasha’s mother, her older sister, and her current boyfriend. He picked up a photo album and began turning through the stiff, yellowing pages. He wouldn’t admit it to himself, but he was secretly looking for a picture of himself, an old letter or a poem, some sign that he had actually meant something to her, had made some impact on her life.
There was nothing. He began tearing her high school pictures in half with his teeth, remembering what that smooth supple flesh had felt like beneath his lips years ago, imagining what it would feel like between his teeth now.
Natasha had ripped his heart out fifteen years ago. He would rip hers out today. His eyes began to tear up. Malcolm roared and threw the photo album across the room. He smashed everything he could get his hands on, shattering the beautiful, expensive furniture with his fists, splintering the rich wood and sending shards of marble and granite flying. His elbows cracked through table and counter tops with psychotic fury.
Rick watched without comment. He muttered a silent prayer that Natasha made it home soon, before Malcolm got so out of control he turned his fury on the closest living substitute, on Rick. He took hold of the nine millimeter tucked in his waistband and jacked a round into the chamber. Just in case.
XXXII.
Natasha tried to pretend that Edward’s calm soothing words were having some impact.
“Everything’s going to be fine. The cops have it under control. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
She had changed her name and moved out of Germantown after high school. Her phone number and address were unlisted. She had no contact with anyone she knew fifteen years ago. Even the cops were unable to locate her. She had avoided contacting them out of fear that they might lead Malcolm to her. So far, she’d been safe. More than a decade had passed since she’d seen Malcolm, but she knew he was out the
re looking for her, and all her precautions, all of Edward’s soothing words, all of the police efforts to catch Malcolm weren’t going to stop what was coming. She knew it the day she slept with Reed. She’d told herself that Malcolm loved her enough to forgive her but she’d known. When she told Edward what Malcolm did to Renee’, she could feel the knife sliding into her own gut, opening her up, spilling her intestines onto the floor. Edward didn’t understand. The cops didn’t understand. But she knew.
“He’s probably just running from the police now. He did kill a cop after all. If they catch him, he’s done. Natasha? Natasha, are you still listening?”
“Uh huh. Look, I’ve still got a lot of work to do here. I’ll give you a call when I get home.”
“You sure you don’t want to stay at my house? At least until this whole thing is over?”
Natasha thought about it and quickly dismissed the idea. She knew Edward wanted to protect her, but he couldn’t. If Malcolm found her at Edward’s house, they were both dead. Alone, maybe she could reach him. He loved her once. Maybe that meant that he wouldn’t murder her?
How could a man love someone and then kill her?
Those others, yes. Even Renee’ she could understand. But she and Malcolm had been something special. Renee’ was his lover, but she’d never been his friend. They’d never laughed together the way Natasha had made Malcolm laugh with her. She had been his friend. But then, so had Reed.
The fear started in her again. She’d been fighting it all day, but now it gripped her deep in her stomach, twisting. It clamped down on her spine and shook her. Natasha dropped the phone and grabbed hold of the desk, holding on as the world turned and flipped at odd angles. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to resist the urge to crawl under the desk and curl into a fetal position. If she gave up now, she was dead for sure. Malcolm would eat her alive. She picked up the phone and let out a long breath to steady her nerves.
“Natasha? Natasha?”
“I’m here and thanks for the offer, but I think I need to be alone tonight. I’m pretty worn out and I sleep better in my own bed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
There was a long, awkward pause as Edward struggled with the idea of saying, “I love you.” Natasha felt his struggle and wasn’t in the mood for it. She hung up the phone, helping him to solve his dilemma. She knew Edward loved her, but he didn’t want to be the first one to say so. It was one of his insecurities. He didn’t want to be the only one in the relationship who was “in love.”
Natasha didn’t want to be in love at all, not with anyone ever again. Love scared her. She’d loved Malcolm. Malcolm had loved her. And because of that love, she’d probably be murdered.
Natasha dropped her head to the desk and cried. She hated herself for it. They were tears of self-pity and fear. She felt weak and pathetic, but the crying helped. She could feel eyes on her as people walked past her office and looked in at her, watching her sob like a baby.
She’d always hated the fact that all the offices at Creative Computer Concepts were made of glass. She felt like a bug in a child’s ant farm. Natasha loved her job. It wasn’t what she thought she’d be doing when she was an art major at Creative and Performing Arts. By now, she figured she’d be showing her Picassoesque oil paintings at galleries all over Greenwich Village, Paris, and Italy. Now, she channeled all her artistic talents into putting a good twenty-first-century face on automotive supply stores, furniture warehouses, restaurants, and discount stores. She spent the greater portion of her day in cyberspace. The good thing was that computer geeks were supposed to be eccentric, so she could come to work in Birkenstocks, paisley skirts, loose, blousy, mid-rift shirts that revealed her pierced belly button and sunflower tattoo, and she could read comic books at her desk and call it research. In other words, being a professional didn’t mean she had to grow up.
There was a soft knock at her door and Natasha knew it was one of her fellow geeks coming to be supportive, probably hoping that her moment of weakness would make her an easy lay for the right comforting shoulder. The last thing she wanted to do was hear trite words of support and encouragement from some leering quasi-virgin whose sexual vocabulary included computer jargon.
One of her co-workers, a disheveled computer-game junkie with an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball, opened the door without waiting be invited and stuck his head in.
“Are you okay?”
Natasha sighed heavily and slammed her hand down on the table.
“Go away. Yes, I’m sure. No, I don’t want to talk about it.”
She didn’t even bother to look up to see his reaction.
She heard the soft footsteps tentatively creep away. She hated to admit it, but her own cruelty energized her and shook her out of her depression. She got up from her desk, picked up her Carhartt bomber jacket and Kenneth Cole black leather purse and walked toward the elevator. The closer she came to the street, to abandoning the safety and mundanity of the office, the less confident she felt. By the time she reached the elevators, she felt like she was walking toward the gas chamber.
It was the same dull, hopeless dread she’d felt since she heard Malcolm’s name on the news. When she heard that he was wanted in connection with Reed’s slaughtered family and that Renee’ and her family were missing, when she learned that Malcolm was the prime suspect in the brutal murders of half a dozen families over the years, Natasha felt every meal, every breath, was potentially her last. She felt every person she spoke with was goodbye. Her senses were aroused and fevered as if for the last time. She was a condemned woman, and she’d never felt more alive.
The elevator doors slowly shut, locking her in its tomb, and began to descend. Going home was the scariest part of her day as she waited to feel his powerful hands clamp around her throat.
Each evening at the end of her workday, when she stepped through the door to her apartment and found it empty, the relief, the release of tension, was almost sexual, orgasmic. She would collapse onto her couch and stare out the window wondering where Malcolm was and when he was coming for her, how much longer she had.
The elevator doors opened with a whoosh and Natasha stepped into the lobby, walking briskly, her heels tip-tapping across the granite tile and through the glass revolving doors. Cold air hit her face. The chill afternoon air on her skin felt refreshing, invigorating, strangely soothing after eight-and-a-half in her little office inhaling stagnant air and staring at her computer screen. She walked quickly toward the subway, weaving between slower pedestrians as she lengthened her stride into the walking sprint that she’d used ever since she’d been in high school, walking home beside her six-foot-five boyfriend.
She stood on the subway platform waiting for her train and staring at the other passengers, wondering how many of them were worried about being murdered when they got home.
XXXIII.
The moment Malcolm heard Natasha’s keys in the front door, a rush of adrenaline and endorphins dumped into his bloodstream. The excitement was luscious, sensual. He hadn’t seen Natasha face to face since he’d left the hospital fifteen years ago with stitches and staples holding his throat together. He wanted her now more than he’d known possible.
The apartment was a tomb. Malcolm hadn’t turned on a light. The sun set and night crept in to slowly leech away all light. He sat in the living room, staring at the front door, watching the shadows slip along the floor toward him. He hadn’t spoken to Rick, who was nervously pacing from one room to the next, in hours. The tenebrous shadows had occupied all of his attention as the night slowly absorbed him, sucking his black skin down into darkness, leaving only his feral silver smile glinting in the faint moonlight.
When the door opened, the widening triangle of light from the hall reached across the floor, slicing a wedge out of the darkness that left Malcolm’s legs and feet revealed. Natasha was so busy with her oversized purse and shrugging out of her extra-large bomber jacket that she almost d
idn’t notice. Then, just before she shut the door and turned on the light she stopped, frozen. Her breathing became quick and audible. Malcolm leaned forward in his chair until the bottom half of his face entered the funnel of light so that his mouth and chin were visible, leaving his eyes still enshrouded in night. He smiled ear to ear and ran his tongue over the tips of his platinum canines.
Natasha’s silhouette shook and swayed, backlit by the hall light. She didn’t speak. Her hand was on the light switch, but she hadn’t turned it on. Her other hand was still on the front door knob, but she hadn’t shut it or tried to run. She seemed confused about what to do. She was just frozen there. Her breath came faster and faster. Malcolm could see her chest heaving. It looked as if she might be having a heart attack. She took one long, ragged breath and exhaled long and slow. Her breathing then returned to normal. Malcolm was impressed.
“Hello, Natasha.”
“Malcolm.” Natasha finally said in a calm, measured tone, not a question or a welcome, just an acknowledgement.
“Close the door and leave the lights out.”
“Yeah, I remember. You and your thing with the dark.”
Her tone held the glimmer of sarcasm, but there was something else there, a hint of sexual innuendo, the same fatal flirtatiousness, the same fearless, careless, mischievousness that had first attracted him. That same devil-may-care attitude had no doubt led them to this moment, the way it had once led her to fuck Reed.
Natasha shut the door to enclose them in crypt-like darkness. Malcolm’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He could see her clearly without the light. He felt his own pulse quicken as he realized that she looked exactly the same as she had fifteen years ago. Not a wrinkle or a gray hair or a pound of extra weight. She still dressed the same. Her mannerisms were the same. Her hair was still cut short like a boys in what was almost a crew cut. She still had that slight, slender frame with small breasts and large ass perched high on her back that almost seemed out of place on a body so skinny. It was disconcerting. She was a woman in a child’s body.
Pure Hate Page 19