“You might not want to watch this next part,” Norman says with obvious false concern.
Stacey’s eyes widen and he tilts the pot toward her lap. Several ounces of the molten lead spill out of the pot and onto Stacey’s lap. The lead burns through her jeans and sizzles as it burrows itself into her thighs. She screams again and again and again, the pain almost too much to bear. She thinks she may pass out but can’t. The pain is too intense.
Norman steps back, returning to the workbench. He sets the pot back into its holder and grabs three more toy soldiers, dropping them into the pot and melting them with the blowtorch. Once again he grabs the pot and brings it over to Stacey’s chair, looking her over the way a cat eyes a mouse. His eyes come to rest on her hands.
“Are you right handed or left handed?” He demands. “Which is your dialing finger, or are you one of those thumb dialers?” Then he recalls when he first encountered the young lady on the street. He and Stacey had come to a four-way stop sign at the same time. Only he stopped and Stacey hadn’t. She was talking on her cell phone and sailed right through the intersection, narrowly missing his car. If he had not slammed on his brakes she’d have T-boned him. Even after he’d laid on his horn, Stacey just drove on, oblivious to the accident she’d nearly caused.
He’d followed her for several blocks, making a note of her license plate number. She hadn’t even noticed him following her but he could see her through her rear window, still talking with that damned cell phone plastered to her right ear. Norman wrote down the address of the house where Stacey had parked. With just these two pieces of information he was able to set into motion the very plan he now found himself executing. He’d just bide his time until an opportunity presented itself. Tonight it did.
“Ah,” he says, satisfied with his mental picture of her on her phone. “You’re a righty, aren’t you? Think you can still gab on that damned cell phone using your left hand?”
Norman leans over and pours some more of the molten lead onto Stacey’s right hand, especially the index finger and thumb. She screams loudly again but still can’t budge.
“Now now,” he said. “It can’t be as bad as all that.” He hesitates for just a second or two before adding, “Then again, maybe it can. And you know what, Stacey? You look like the kind of girl who could dial that cell phone just as well with your left hand.” He sidesteps and pours more of the liquid lead onto her left hand. Stacey passes out.
Stacey came to a few minutes later, dripping with water that the man had thrown in her face. Immediately the pain comes back to her lap and both hands but she can’t scream. She’s going into shock.
The man returns to the workbench and drops four more lead soldiers into the pot, melting them again with the torch. He picks up the pot again with his right hand. In his left hand he holds a small funnel.
Stacey’s mouth tries to form words but all she can do is whimper. The man steps over to her chair again and shoves the small end of the funnel into Stacey’s right ear. She still cannot move her head and the man has no trouble pouring just a few drops of lead into Stacey’s right ear. The flesh sizzles and Stacey’s head quivers.
He steps over to her left ear and mumbles, “I don’t think you’ll be listening to any more cell phones with that ear, do you? But you know you could always get one of those hands-free headsets for you left ear. What do you think?”
Stacey tries to shake her head but it is still held fast by the leather strap. The man steps back one step and assures her that he would not rob her of her only good ear. And he keeps his word. Instead, he shoves the funnel into Stacey’s mouth and says, “Come to think of it, I don’t think you should ever talk on the phone again, do you?”
She struggles in vain and he pours the remaining molten lead down Stacey’s throat, some of it spilling onto her chin and running down her neck. Stacey stops struggling and goes limp. At just that moment the cell phone in Stacey’s purse sounds off with a tinkling version of “Fer Elise” and keeps it up for twenty seconds before Norman flips it open and announces, “Stacey can’t come to the phone just now. Leave your name and number and she’ll call you back. Second thought, she won’t.” He flips the phone shut, throws it on the floor and stomps on it with his heavy work boots. The phone breaks into several pieces and scatters across the floor in an unrecognizable lump. He laughs, content with his accomplishments.
Norman returns to the workbench and picks up the last remaining lead soldier. It is posed on one knee with a bazooka perched on its shoulder. He drops the miniature warrior into his shirt pocket, turns out the light and climbs the basement stairs.
A minute later his own cell phone vibrates in his left pants pocket. It continues vibrating until he fishes it out, flips it open and says, “Hello. Oh, hi, mom.”
“Norman,” the elderly lady’s voice squeaks. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing important,” Norman says. “Just playing with my toy soldiers. Yes, I love you, too. See you tonight. Bye.”
Norman closes his phone, tucks it into his pocket, takes several steps down again and walks up behind Stacey’s limp body. “Mom says hi,” he tells the corpse, as he tips the chair over with Stacey in it. Norman reaches down and snips the plastic restraints from Stacey’s wrists and ankles. He pulls the wooden chair away and slides it up against the wall.
Norman grabs Stacey’s ankles and stretches them out, straightening the body as much as he can. He lays her arms alongside her body and then folds the plastic sheet up and over Stacey, rolling her up like she was a rug. Once he reaches the end of the plastic sheet, Norman stops rolling and retrieves a roll of gray duct tape from his work bench. He folds the excess plastic up over Stacey’s legs and tapes it in place. He does the same with the excess plastic over the girl’s head. He attaches some of the duct tape to the plastic and rolls the package again, wrapping it several times with duck tape.
When he’s satisfied with the secure package, Norman tosses what’s left of the tape roll onto his bench again. He bends down and lifts the plastic wrapped package, tossing it over his shoulder and hauling it up the basement stairs. He carries it through the kitchen and into his attached garage. Holding the body with his left hand, Norman selects his trunk key and slips it into the trunk lock of his car. The lid opens and Norman drops the body into it, closing the lid again. Time to dispose of the body and begin looking for his next offender.
Norman drives to the dump on the outskirts of town. He checks to make sure no one is in the area before he stops, opens his trunk and dumps Stacey’s plastic-wrapped body onto a pile of burning rubbish. He slams the trunk lid and drives away.
Norman has had his sights set on another person for the last few weeks, studying the habits and routines and the routes of his intended victim. He has seen the man on several occasions and there is no doubt that this man will soon pay the prices for his lifestyle. The man he’s stalking has both arms slathered full of tattoos. He’s heard these called ‘sleeves’ by some of the other lowlife dirt bags who have disgraced themselves with body ink and the sight of these people makes Norman want to puke.
The particular man that Norman has set his sights on is a guy who goes by the street name of Weasel. Both of Weasel’s arms are covered with tattoos from the shoulder to the knuckles with very little skin that hasn’t been colored in with ink. On the knuckles of Weasel’s right hand are letters that spell out HATE and on the left hand, when Weasel makes a fist, the letters tattooed on that hand spell out COPS. It’s obvious that Weasel likes to spend a lot of time with both fists extended, letting law enforcement know what he thinks of them. That’s too bad, because even the cops won’t be able to save Weasel once Norman has him secured in his basement work shop. Weasel also has both ears and both eyebrows pierced with silver rings.
Norman knows from weeks of surveillance that Weasel usually frequents the same bar every night and leaves the bar at closing time, and he’s usually alone. On this particular night, as Weasel is walking back toward the alley
where he always parks his motorcycle, Norman is waiting in the shadows. Norman had a hard time grasping the fact that Weasel could even make it home in one piece on that motorcycle after a night of hard drinking.
As Weasel stands alongside his chopper, searching his pockets for his keys, Norman steps up behind him and clamps the chloroform-soaked handkerchief over Weasel’s mouth and nose and presses tightly until Weasel goes limp. Norman stuffs the wet handkerchief into Weasel’s denim vest pocket and drags the limp body to the back of his car. He dumps Weasel into the trunk, closes the lid and drives back to his house, parking in the alley that leads to his back door.
Weasel’s head is pounding as he regains consciousness and blinks his eyes. He tries to focus but his eyes won’t cooperate. He shakes his head back and forth several times before his surrounding come in clear. He tried to scratch his head, but soon realizes that he can’t move his arms. He is bare-chested and his wrists have been secured to a wooden armchair. Weasel’s ankles have been strapped to the legs of that chair. Weasel tries to force his arms up, hoping to break whatever it was that was holding him down. It was useless. Weasel noticed three plastic tie wraps around each of his wrists. He could move his head just enough to see to his ankles. They had duct tape wrapped around the bottom of his blue jeans and around the chair legs.
Weasel looks straight ahead of him and spots the workbench. On a cast iron stand he sees a foot-long metal poker with a wooden handle. The other end of the poker was made of thick metal that comes to a point. That point is fixed into the tip of a blue flame that is shooting out of a small propane torch canister. The tip of the poker is red hot and glows brightly.
Suddenly, from somewhere behind him Weasel hears a shuffling noise and a second later a man appears in front of him. The man is smiling a smile that has nothing to do with friendliness. It’s the wide-eyed, maniacal smile of a disturbed person. Weasel had seen that look before when he’d gotten into fights at the bar.
“So,” Norman says to his prisoner, “you’re awake. Did you have a pleasant nap?”
Weasel tries again to force his arms free from the restraints with no luck. “Let me out of this thing,” Weasel barks. “Now!”
“I don’t think so,” Norman says. “There are still too many things I need to do first. Shall we get started?”
“Started?” Weasel says. “Started with what?”
Norman looks at Weasel’s chest and points to the six large letters tattooed across the top, from nipple to nipple. “And just what is that supposed to say?” Norman says.
Weasel drops his chin to his chest, trying to see what Norman is pointing at. He looks up at Norman. “That says ‘Weasel’,” he tells Norman.
Norman looks again at the six letters and reads each of them, one letter at a time. “W-E-Z-Z-L-E,” he says, looking at his prisoner. “Are you saying that your name is Wezzle?”
“That’s Weasel,” Weasel says.
Norman nods his head. “You’re stupider than I thought,” he tells Weasel. “That’s not how you spell Weasel, you fucking moron. I’ll just bet you’re bad at math, too, aren’t you? What about geography, or history? Are you any better at those subjects, Wezzle?”
Weasel screamed now. “You let me out of here right now,” he says.
“Or you’ll what?” Norman says.
“Do you know who I am?” Weasel says.
Norman purses his lips and nods. “Sure,” he says, “you’re Wezzle.”
“Weasel,” Weasel screams. “You just wait until the rest of my gang gets a hold of you. They’ll rip you into so many pieces your own mother won’t recognized what’s left of you.”
“Crude AND stupid,” Norman says. “Stupid with a capital S. So you want to get out of here, do you?”
Weasel shows his gritted teeth. “Yes,” he says through closed teeth. “And right now.”
“Tell you what I’m going to do, Wezzle,” Norman says.
Weasel opens his mouth to object, but Norman backhands him in the mouth. He shakes a single finger in the air. “I said, no talking,” Norman says, like a teacher trying to quiet a student. “I’ll tell you what, Wezzle. How about I give you a little test or two and see just how stupid you are? You get four twenty-five point questions right and you can walk out of here without a scratch on you. But for every question you don’t answer correctly, well, let’s just say that you’ll have to pay a penalty. Would you like to start with spelling, math, geography or history? Come on, pick one or I’ll pick it for you.”
Weasel thinks for a moment and says, “Geography.”
“Geography,” Norman says, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “All right, Wezzle, this is for twenty-five points. What is the state that lies just south of North Dakota? You have ten seconds. Go.”
Weasel tries to picture the map of the United States he’d seen on the wall of the school he’d attended all those years ago. He draws a blank.
“Five seconds, Wezzle,” Norman says.
Panic sets in and Weasel still can’t come up with an answer.
“Say anything,” Norman says. “You might get lucky. But no answer counts as a wrong answer and as you know, wrong answers come with consequences.”
“Georgia,” Weasel shouts.
“Ehhhh,” Norman says, sounding like a buzzer on a game show. “Wrong answer. The correct answer was South Dakota.” He turns to his work bench and selects his tool of choice, a box cutter with a retractable blade. He turns to face his student.
Weasel’s eyes widen when he sees an inch and a half of the shiny blade sliding out of the handle when Norman pushes the button. “What are you gonna do with that?” he says, his voice quavering.
“You missed the geography test,” Norman says. “And this is the consequence. He lays the tip of the blade on Weasel’s biceps and drags it downward, following the lines of an eagle tattoo. Blood drips from the cut along the edge of the tattoo and Weasel cries out in pain. Norman traces the rest of the eagle’s outline and pulls the blade away. “There,” Norman says. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Weasel lets out the breath he’d been holding and watches as more blood leaks out of the wound. He closes his eyes and drops his chin to his chest, but screams again when he opens his eyes to see that the crazed man is pulling at the skin on his arm with a pair of pliers. Weasel continues screaming as Norman pulls the entire eagle tattoo off Weasel’s arm. He dangles the patch of skin in front of Weasel’s face.
“There you go, Wezzle,” Norman says, taunting his prisoner. “That’s one less disgusting tattoo on your arm.” Norman lays the skin on his work bench and finds a small tack hammer and several tacks. He grabs the tattooed skin and holds it up against his workbench wall, nailing it in place. Satisfied with his handiwork, Norman turns back to Weasel. “All righty, then, shall we move on to the next portion of our test? Which subject will you choose next, Wezzle? Will it be; math, history or spelling?” Norman points to the six large letters on Weasel’s chest. “Personally, I’d save spelling until the end if I were you.”
Weasel’s still breathing fast and hard and he’s still crying.
“Pick one, Wezzle,” Norman says, “or you’ll forfeit this round, and you know what that means, don’t you?”
“Math,” Weasel says hastily.
“Math,” Norman says. “A good choice, Wezzle. Let’s see if I can make it a little easier for you than the geography question.” He thinks for a moment and then says, “Okay, Wezzle, still looking for that first twenty-five points. How much is five time six minus seven? Ten seconds, Wezzle.”
Weasel’s mouth moves along with his mental calculations. “Five time six is thirty,” Weasel mumbles to himself. “Take away seven and that leaves…”
“Three seconds, Wezzle,” Norman reminds him.
“Twenty-three,” Weasel shouts, getting in just under the wire.
“Very good,” Norman says. “Say, you’re a regular Jethro Bodine, aren’t you, Wezzle? I can see I’ll have to step up my gam
e a little.”
Weasel exhales and closes his eyes momentarily. When he opens them again he sees the teacher coming back toward him again and he’s holding the box cutter. “What are you doing?” Weasel shouts. “I got that last one right.”
“That’s right, you did, didn’t you?” Norman says, laying the box cutter back on the bench.
Weasel sighed with relief.
“I guess that just leaves history and spelling,” Norman tells his prisoner. “Which one will it be this time, Wezzle?”
Weasel could feel the anger boiling up inside him but he kept this to himself. “History,” he says, with very little emotion.
“History,” Norman says, turning to his left and talking to an imaginary studio audience. “Let’s see how Wezzle does with history.” He turns to Weasel and says, “This is a three-part question, each part worth twenty-five points. You have a chance to make up for your geography fuck-up and pull ahead. All right, in what year did President Kennedy die, and in what city and who did they arrest for the assassination? You have thirty-seconds, Wezzle. Go.”
“Kennedy?” Weasel thinks. “Hell, he wasn’t even born yet when that happened.” His mind races, trying to remember bit and pieces of information that he’d heard during his thirty-five years on this planet. “1963,” he yells, remembering that someone had told him that the assassination had happened exactly fifteen years before he’d been born.
“Give me the city,” Norman says, looking at the second hand on his watch. “Eighteen seconds, Wezzle.”
Weasel draws a blank, but he knows he still has another part of the question after this so he yells out, “Chicago.”
“And lastly,” Norman says, “give me the assassin’s name. Seven seconds left on the clock.”
Weasel has no idea but time is running out. He yells the first name that comes into his head. “John Dillinger.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 270