"Mind if I get another-"
"Go for it," I said, grateful to have him away from us.
I didn't know Cynthia could be so dark and interesting. So it happens that after all this time she had a thing for serial killers. Who would have guessed?
"Do you own an original Gacy painting?"
I asked, leaning in even closer. Now she didn't seem as repulsive as she used to. She spread her lips into a wide smile and winked.
"Six of them.All originals.All worth a fortune."
"And all painted by the hands of a clown who liked to rape and kill young boys."
She bristled in her seat.
"Well, that's what builds the provenance isn't it?"
She was beginning to worry I thought she was a creep. I could see the look of regret that was spreading across her face.
"I love it," I said. "I really do. You're like an art dealer but... a macabre and wonderful one."
Her smile returned. Suddenly, she looked ten years younger. It was as though talking about this horrific love of hers was infusing her with life and passion that her husband couldn't give her.
"Old man Schiele hates it, doesn't he?" I said, nodding my head toward the kitchen.
He was standing by the central island sipping rum out the bottle.
"He says I'm disgusting," lamented Cynthia. "Says that I'm glorifying the worst people on God's Earth."
"God," I laughed. "Why would he mention such a silly thing?"
She pouted and shrugged, turning her lips down so she looked like a trout in drag.
"He's such a serious man," she moaned. "Has no time for fun."
"And doesn't appreciate true art."
"Exactly."
She shuffled in her seat. The atmosphere in the air had changed. Out of the blue it felt as though I'd been given an ally, someone who could appreciate my killer craft.
"Do you think all killers are evil?" I asked.
She thought for a second and pursed her lips.
"No," She said. "Some are just... I dunno, they have biological urges don't they? They can't help it."
"And some people kill for good reasons," I added.
This really made her think. Her whole face twisted up as she sucked on her teeth.
"Like Dexter?" she asked.
"Like Dexter," I nodded.
"Do people like that really exist?"
"Oh, they must," I said. "Why wouldn't they? Someone clever enough is probably out there, killing not just for fun, but for good."
"Like some sort of avenging angel," she mused.
"Absolutely."
We shared a conspiratorial glance and both smiled.
"I'm sorry your husband doesn't appreciate how amazing you are," I said.
"Amazing?" she swooned. "No one's ever called me that before."
"Oh, I find that hard to believe that."
She bit her lower lip as she became hot and flustered.
"But you are amazing," I said. "You have this appreciation for the arts. You're this marvelously macabre lover of death and you see beauty in murder."
"There's no such thing as beauty in murder, Mr. Bosworth."
Now it was my time to look away, bashful as a schoolboy.
"There's beauty in everything," I said. "Especially murder. I've seen it. Seen just how beautiful it can be."
Her eyes widened with something I first thought to be fear, then I realized it was arousal. She slid her hand up my arm and dug her fingernails into my shirt sleeve.
"You've seen it?"
"I've seen everything."
"Bosworth, you're such a peculiar man. A mysterious man."
I winked and her grip on me tightened.
"Please, call me Lincoln. Or better still, Linx."
She began to breathe heavily. I was enjoying every second of this. She was hanging on my every word and was lost in my eyes. Yet at the same time, seeing her like this made me desperately sad. It was as though I was the first man to pay her any attention and she was drowning in the sensation of someone complimenting her. Then a thought struck me. Schiele wasn't the key to the Tricephthial. She was. She would say anything for a compliment, would probably do anything for a kiss. I wondered what she would do if I promised to hold her tight for a minute and tell her she was beautiful.
"I'm sorry your husband doesn't understand you," I said.
With a sorrowful frown, she averted her gaze.
"But I understand you."
She began to tremble slightly.
"You do?"
"I understand this passion you have because I have it too. But people will talk about us, say we're creeps, say we're disgusting but you and I know it's not true."
"It's not. We're so misunderstood!"
"I know... But we understand each other, don't we?"
She nodded and traced her finger down the inside of my forearm.
"I think so," she whispered. "I feel like..."
"We have a connection?"
She bit her lip again, this time closing her eyes.
I looked over toward the kitchen. Schiele was watching us intently but didn't seem to care. It appeared that any love once present in this marriage was evaporating fast. They'd been married nearly thirty years with Cynthia being nothing but a shadow to Schiele's illustrious career. Now I was going to put her in the limelight.
Chapter Five
Berger
"Hey, how about you just drop me here?"
The words were hardly escaping my mouth as blood distorted my voice. I was in too much shock to feel the pain of my broken nose but knew that as soon as reality hit, it was going to hurt like a motherfucker.
The guy in the driver's seat turned to me, gave me a wry smile then ignored me. He clearly had nothing but contempt for me.
"So, you do this thing a lot?" I asked.
He gave me a quizzical sideways glance.
"You know, go around getting guys robbed, breaking their faces and driving them to Guatemala. Is it like a well-paying job or do you just do it for fun?"
He flared his nostrils like a bull. I'd obviously hit a nerve.
"I get paid by the club to do whatever I'm told. Paid real well."
"Is that so?"
He took a deep breath and slowed down. There wasn't a single car on the road. Above us, the stars were crystal clear. I'd never seen a sky like it.
"Look, like I said. We're stuck together for the next little while so you can either keep your mouth shut and be nice or you can get another one of these."
He raised his fist. Now, with the interior light glistening off his rings, I could see just how big his hand was.
"I'll be nice," I said. "But I gotta tell you. When I get back to America my government will not like this. They'll be looking for me you know."
He burst out laughing and slapped the steering wheel.
"You have got to be kidding me," he chuckled. "Looking for you? You think anyone knows you're here? Everybody passing through here is lost, in danger, on the run. They're all escaping something. No one's down here on vacation, know what I’m saying? What were you running from?"
At this point, I didn't even know anymore. There was too much behind me. But as the truck glided further into the darkness, an image of Etta’s face entered my head and I had to fight back the urge to cry. Then I remembered Miranda and what I had left behind. No doubt I'd broken her heart and abandoned her kids too. She deserved so much better than me. Everyone did.
I even thought of Marcia. Who knew how long she had been planning what she'd done to me back there. Maybe I was just an unlucky guy and fell for her damsel in distress routine. Maybe if it wasn't me it would have just as easily been someone else.
"Do you know Marcia?" I asked.
"The bitch who fucked you back there?"
Strangely, despite what she'd done to me, I hated that he'd called her a bitch, but I got the impression that's what he called all women.
"Yeah, her."
She kept his eyes on the road and sh
ook his head.
"Not really. I mean I've seen her around at the club a few times. She's in with Rondo's crowd. Doesn't really hang with us bikers much."
"You work for Rondo?"
He nodded but there was a bitterness in his eyes.
"You don't like Rondo."
"Nah man. He takes everything. We do all the work and he gets all the money!"
I was getting somewhere. Old cop habits die hard.
"Was Rondo the guy behind the bar?"
He nodded.
"But he's not just a barman though, right?"
"He owns the place.”
"And he knows Marcia?”
“They go way back. Have history you know. I think they even had a kid together at one point but that was a long time ago."
Lol, I thought. Could he have been her dad? I shivered in my seat. Wepassed a sign - Guatemala 10 miles. I only had minutes until I was tossed out into the middle of nowhere, bleeding with no cash or phone. I would die out here. If wild animals didn't find me, bandits would and even though I had nothing more to take, they'd find something.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked. "When you leave me."
I was trying to hide the fact I was panicking but my voice was betraying me, breaking as I tried to pull myself together.
"Fuck knows, man."
"What happens to everyone else you leave?"
He shrugged.
"How should I know?"
"How many people have you left?"
Again, he shrugged.
"Fuck man, I dunno. Like, it's not important. Besides, we kill most of them."
Somehow, I actually thought that after everything, maybe it was just my time to die. I'd managed to live a full life, do everything I wanted and fuck up everything else. The only thing I'd never managed to do was treat a woman right. It was my only regret. Pictures came into my head of what it would be like to be a family man, to be a nice husband. But it was pointless dwelling on it. I wasn't one of those men. I was a dirty bastard and I was always running. I had problems, real problems and as much as I wanted it to be the case, a nice woman wasn't going to cure anything. Just kill me now, I thought. There's no going back for me. This is the end of the line.
"I'm not gonna kill you, though," he said.
"You're not?"
"You're alright. Done nothing wrong. You're just unlucky."
"That's an understatement."
"But if Rondo or Marcia asks, I'll say I put a bullet in the back of your head."
He turned to me and smiled, a single gold tooth shining at one side of his mouth.
"Thanks," I smiled back. "I guess."
But I couldn't stop the feeling of disappointment welling up inside me. Death sounded like such an escape. In those few moments when I thought it was approaching, I thought that death would have been wonderful.
~
He braked heavily. All around was darkness. I squinted through the pain in my nose and looked into the distance.
"Are we here already?"
"Yup," he answered. "You're good to go."
I was still bleeding all over my shirt. The blood was hot and viscous and drying fast on my sweaty skin. My nose was beginning to throb as pain radiated across the front of my head.
"What if I don't want to get out?"
He gave me that look again, the one he gave me when he thought I was out of my mind.
"You have to," he said.
"But if I get out I'll die."
"I told you. I'm not going to kill you."
"You won't but the desert will."
He frowned as though the thought hadn't occurred to him.
"How good are you at strangling snakes?" he asked.
"Is that... Is that a serious question?"
He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat.
"I dunno, man."
The silence was thick between us. It was as thick as the blood on my face.
"You're weird," he said at last.
"Thanks."
"You're not supposed to take it as a compliment."
"Well forgive me for finding a moment of pleasure before the inevitable happens."
He stared at me for a long while. He was young but his eyes were drooping and he had deepset laughter lines around the sides of his mouth. But his cheeks were still filled with babyfat and his lips were pink and rubbery.
"So what does the rest of the night hold for you?" I asked.
He had his eyes on the door handle as he waited for me to grab it.
"Nada," he said.
"Nothing?"
"Going home."
I wondered what home looked like for him. Did he have a family? Or was he a bachelor? Maybe he lived withall the other bikers at the clubhouse.
"Got a wife? Kids?"
He grimaced.
"Naw, man. I ain't got time for a family."
"So you live alone?"
"Why do you care?"
He was getting bored and tired and fidgeted in his seat, brushing his chubby fingers through his greasy hair.
"I'm just being friendly," I said.
"Why?"
I didn't have an answer. All I wanted was to get the hell out of this situation. I was torn between wanting a quick death and wanting to stay alive. I was delirious. Didn't know what I wanted from one moment to the next so all I did was at least try to preserve the one I was in.
"I guess I just want to know what kind of a person you are," I said. "Just wanted to know if you had someone to go home to."
"Hey, man. I'm not gay if you mean that-"
"God, me neither," I insisted. "Shit. Sorry. I'm just talking crap. Ignore me."
I reached for the door handle and got ready to step out into the night that would swallow me up in a cloud of dust. As the cold wind hit me, I heard his voice from behind.
"I live with my mom," he said. "She'll be waiting for me."
Looking over my shoulder, I could see just how young his face was.
"Mom?"
He nodded.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty," he said.
Shit, I thought. Just a baby. He still had time to straighten his life out.
"Look, can I say something before I walk off into the wilderness and give myself up to Mother Earth?"
"Sure," he said. "I guess."
There was no point holding back. I had nothing to lose.
"Get out," I said. "You can have a great life away from those bastards back there. You don't have to do what they say."
I expected him to lash out and hit me, maybe even pull out a gun and change his mind. Maybe he'd kill me.
"You're right," he sighed. "Momma always says I should have stayed in art school but you know, I always did want to be like my dad."
"Your dad's a biker?"
"Was," he corrected. "He’s dead."
I clapped a hand to his shoulder and managed to muster a weak smile.
"You don't want to be dead too, do you?"
He darted his eyes from side to side.
"No."
"Well do me a favor and make this trip for them your last."
I slipped out into the night and walked away, his eyes burning into the back of my head as he stayed in the truck. For a few minutes he didn't move. Half of me hoped he'd drive up beside me and tell me to get back inside. Maybe the two of us would team up and get our lives back on track together as an unlikely duo. But part of me also liked the idea of just disappearing. Perhaps there'd be a nice rock out there that was smooth enough to lay my bleeding head. I'd sing myself to sleep beneath the stars and drift away to join them.
"So long!" he waved out the window.
I waved back.
"Remember what I said!"
"I will!"
He reversed back a few yards then turned round. The tail lights shrunk away in the distance like fireflies and at last I was all alone. It was so dark and silent it almost hurt my senses, like my eyes and ears didn’t know what to do now they weren't needed. No
w all I possessed was my own existence and right now it seemed entirely pointless. I tried to cry at the futility of it all but found that I couldn’t force a single tear. My body was numb.
And so I walked on, unable to see my own feet in the night. There was a bitter chill in the air but I relished the sensation of it caressing my body. Something unseen grazed my foot and I stopped. Maye it was my perfect rock.
Chapter Six
Lincoln
It's real hot out here, don't you think Cynthia?"
She flicked the top button open on her blouse in response. Her cleavage was sweaty.
"Tell me about it," she said. "It's sweltering."
"How about we go inside where it's cooler?"
She raised her eyebrows.
"Gustav..." she said. "He doesn't look happy."
We both looked into the kitchen where Schiele was glowering at us.
"The old man always looks like that," I said.
She laughed harder, slapping her hand on my thigh until it stung.
"That old fart doesn’t know the meaning of the word fun. Why do you think I took up my new hobby?"
She removed her hand but maintained eye contact.
"Tell me, you have any memorabilia in that case of yours?"
She nodded and licked her lips.
"Absolutely."
"Any chance I could have a peek?"
She leaned forward so I could see more of her cleavage.
"Tale a peek..." she purred, "You wanna take a peek at what's in my...case?"
"Inside," I said. "Let's go."
We walked past the kitchen where Schiele was splashing his crimson face with water.
"Ignore him," she said.
"I was going to."
I took her hand in mine and it felt like I was holding a lizard.
"This way."
The side door took us to the top of the basement steps. It was dark but I could still see the shape of her stretched and bloated face.
"How about a little visit to my laboratory," I suggested.
"Oooh."
"I'll be honest. Not many people are allowed down here."
Letting go of her palm, I dragged it dry down the side of my pants.
"Really? You'd invite me into your lab?"
"Of course. I doubt your man would appreciate it."
As soon as I opened the door, the smell hit us. I had got used to it, had almost grown to like it. After all, it was the smell of Etta, it was the smell that grew the more I missed her.
Jewels And Panties: (Book 1-15) Billionaire Romance Series Page 68