by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith
At about 2 AM, I shoot out the lights of the neighbor’s house. She leaves them on all night whenever bark collar guy is not home. I also shoot out one of my own. The next day, Wednesday, she calls the cops to complain about vandalism. Vandals are a terrible blight on modern society, aren’t they? While the blues are looking around, they notice that one of my lights is shot out too. They come over and knock.
“Detective Mascone,” one says after I answer the door. “Your neighbor, Mrs. Gibney, has had some vandalism at her house and we notice you have too. Lights have been shot out. Looks like a BB gun prank or maybe a pellet gun.”
“I knew those kids were up to no good. Look at this,” I say. I take the camera off the buffet and show the picture of the kids. “I was taking some foliage shots. It’s so lovely at this time of year and these little boys came running out of the woods just as I snapped. Look, do you see? They’ve got a BB rifle. The little rascals.”
“Looks like you’ve got the culprits, detective,” the officer says. “Nice work (chuckles). Do you need a report for your insurance?”
“Nah,” I say. “I’ve got a thousand dollar deductible. I don’t think a piece of glass and a 40 watt bulb are gonna run that high,” I smile and stifle a laugh.
“Guess not,” he says smiling. “We’ll notify Mrs. Gibney. She’s gonna submit a claim. Husband works for the state and I guess their insurance covers everything.”
“Wow, that’s something. All of us cops work for the town. We get nothing like that, huh?”
“Someday,” says the officer.
“Yeah,” I say. “Someday.” They leave and walk across my lawn back to the neighbor. My torso is almost in spasms. I put the camera back in place right next to the bark collar.
It is not easy trying to sleep so I lie down and stare at the ceiling. I can feel my spine beginning to twist as if a drain snake had been inserted in my rectum and someone had fished it up to the base of my skull and then slowly turned the crank handle, rotating, writhing, painful, yet somehow re-assuring, almost therapeutic. The ceiling danced with bluish visions of the world, of the imminent changes, as if all of humanity were standing on the brink of the Grand Canyon sleep-walking.
I arise at 2 AM, dress in my black outfit and slip out the door into the moonless cloudy night, the outlines of leafless black ink trees against the bleak houses and slumbering cars. I glide toward the colonial, flat faced, white weathered clapboards and loose shutters. More likely, it will soon be the shudders. My tool bag makes a muffled bell-like clink-clank. Maybe a toddler awake with visions of sugar-plum fairies and Rudolph and Frosty, thinks it’s Christmas and the sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’, in the glade inner organs glistenin’. No, Francie, there is no such fat fucker as Santa Claus; only me, heart thumping in my cranium, urine held tight within my gut like a reservoir in Saudi Arabia. My spine, my spine.
The side door hides from me in the deep shadows of two tall shrubs. I take out my lock pick and begin to work at the bolt, but I find the door unlocked. Oh, holy night, what gift has thou given me? I enter the kitchen and get a full salute from the appliances all at attention up against the wall. The faucet drip-drips hello and the fridge hums the National Anthem. Through the dining room, down the hall and up the conveniently carpeted steps I go. A moose could walk through here and up this staircase and no one would hear it. Believe me, they’d prefer the moose. Be still, spine, but it twinges with a frantic cannibal excitement. I can almost feel it extending a milky dendrite across my shoulder and into my right arm. Calm down, honey. Thata girl.
I hear distant groaning, a panting, muffled drum beat almost as if the furnace hunkered down in its cellar is trying to cry out a warning, but no, it’s a human groan coming from a bedroom. Nightmares, perhaps, the prescient warnings of a witch? The glazed dreams of the seer listening down the corridors of time to Nostradamus, the patron saint of the idiot? Nah.
The bedroom door at the top of the stairs is open and a red light emits. Red? What gives? I cross the hall to the wall with the door in it and see that there is a full-length mirror opposite. Oh, let me see, is this dress too tight in the waist? Do these jeans make my ass look large? It’s the Beanpole’s mirror so she can check out her paltry, earth muffin, Birkenstock wardrobe as she leaves her boudoir to face the world of this humdrum, go to work until you’re sixty-five, minivan, geraniums in the spring, hardy mums in the fall line-up of shoddily constructed abodes called a middle-class neighborhood. You know, the one where that detective lives. It makes us all feel so much safer knowing there is a high-ranking officer of the law right in the midst of us. Praise god and pass the ammunition.
Through the door, I see a red scarf draped over a nightstand lamp, hence the crimson glow. The bed covers are bunched on the floor at the foot of the bed and there are ass cheeks doing push-ups on top of what? My spine twitches, almost rattling my vertebrae. Beanpole has a dude on top of her. And it ain’t hubby; I know he’s off in the forest somewhere a hundred miles away, tagging trees to be chopped down, noting the quantity of bear shit prior to hibernation and reviewing the locale for a proposed campsite for jack-wagons in RVs. His very important job has left his stick-figure bitch with her hole unfilled and a craving for man-meat. The dank odor of ass, sweat and feet seeps out the door and plays peek-a-boo with my olfactory lobes. Do I leave? Do I wait? A whore, a whore, my kingdom for a whore, I shout in my brain trying to calm the schizophrenic spine. It tells me to wait in one of the other rooms. I turn to obey, when the cum groan fills the air, pushing the wave of odors out the door and down the stairs like an ejaculatory tsunami.
I wait in the hall bathroom. I listen to the final kisses, the sweet murmuring nothings whispered as only lies can be whispered, the shuffling of clothes being put on and the receding sound of footsteps as he leaves slightly lighter than when he arrived; maybe a few grams worth of jism lighter. Ta ta for now, mon frère, mi amigo, my prime suspect dick-wad.
I hear the kitchen door close and a few seconds later the clanky sound of a cheap four-cylinder import compact, likely a Hyundai. I have more and more special powers, you’re thinking, as the hours ski by. But it’s my expert training doing its job.
I slip out the bathroom door and watch the mirror again. A small sigh like a lost bird rises from the bed and I see those tiny tits with cranberry nipples stretch from the mattress to the lamp as she reaches to turn it out. My eyes adjust quickly to the darkness as I slide into the room on little cat feet.
“Honey,” she says. “Is that you, back so soon? Everything OK?”
I leap on the bed and jam a pair of rolled up socks into her mouth before she can scream anything. I have a very complete tool bag with me.
“It ain’t honey, honey. And I’m not back too soon. I’m back just right,” I say softly as I tie her to the bed with 100% cotton rope imported all the way from yellow land. It’s unoriginal, but spread-eagle just cannot be improved upon. My latex gloves fit just right, the smell of talc a puff in the air. “You been a bad girl while the man of the house is at work, naughty, naughty,” I say. I’m not going to bore you with the sounds of muffled screaming and pleading and futile struggling. I imagine there is a good deal of fear along with a fountain of tears in those eyes, but it’s too dark to tell. “Welcome to my neighborhood,” I say.
“Eeeeesseess,” she says. It’s a tree-hugger tied-up mouth-stuffed version of “Please.”
“I’ll tell you what, Laurie,” I say. “We’ll play a game. It’s like Jeopardy, but you won’t have to give a response in the form of a question, Alex. No, you can just give me the answer. But you’re at something of a disadvantage because you’ve got socks in your mouth, poor dear. See this knife I have here?” I say, revealing my ten inch Bowie knife. “I’m going to take those socks out of your yap so you can answer the questions. But if you make any funny noises or plead or do something that will work my very electrified nerves, I’ll be forced to cut your vocal cords. And that will probably jeopardize your arteries and veins and stuf
f that’s in your neck along with your voice box. Get it? I said ‘jeopardize.’ That’s why this is a form of Jeopardy. Do you agree with the rules?”
She nods in sweaty agreement.
“But first, I want to see something,” I say moving down toward her crotch. Her hip bones stick out of the sides of her body like hands about to clap under her skin. This is one skinny woman. Stretch marks from plopping out her brats criss-cross her softish belly and there’s a small lump of damp lint in her navel. I spread her va-jay-jay lips apart. “Just as I thought,” I say watching the semen flow out in thin drips onto the very wrinkled sheets. “You don’t practice safe sex. You could get all kinds of diseases from a guy that will sleep with a married thing that looks as unappetizing as you. I imagine he does critters like sheep and big dogs and might even go to hoors for fun. Do you think that’s a good idea? To not use condominiums?” I laugh. That’s a good one. She does not respond but who cares? I notice that both my arms have the dendrites in them. I can feel them slippering their way right down to my fingers making my back ache fiercely.
“Well, here’s the rules of the game. I’ll ask you a question about history or science or sports…well, not sports because I don’t give a rat’s behind about sports. But you know, all types of good topics. If you get two questions correct, I’ll let you go free if you promise not to tell anyone about me. For every question you get wrong though, you get a punishment. Do you understand? It’s no worse than what I went through with Mr. Boyle in geometry. I hate to tell you what he did to me after school when I got detention for not doing my geometry homework juuuuust right. Agreed? Of course, agreed. You have no choice. Oh, and let’s not forget this,” I say as I pull out the bark collar and fasten it around Laurie’s skinny neck. “This is an early Christmas present from Conrad. It was your husband’s idea. You’re lucky to have such a thoughtful husband. Let’s see if it works.” I press the button on the small remote and she lets out a throaty scream that would wake the dead if she didn’t have her pie-hole stuffed with my socks. “Oops, now Laurie, we can’t have you screaming like that so I guess you’ll have to stay muffled. I’ll ask multiple choice questions. Tap once for answer A, and twice for answer B. That’s not so bad. You can move your index finger can’t you? Of course you can. Let’s begin. And no cheating!” I say as I hit the remote button and shock her again. Another muffled shriek. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Here is question number 1. Which was the last state to be admitted to these great United States? A is Alaska; B is Hawaii.”
Her eyes go shifty and I smell the ammonia stink of urine. She has let her bladder loose.
“Oh, now you’ve made this room stink worse than before. But you know that sexual intercourse sometimes makes us want to wee-wee after we’re done. It’s nature’s way of cleaning out your stinking snatch. But I can’t hold it against you.” My back is spazzing out like a lightning rod in an electrical storm. “OK,” I whisper. “I’m getting on with it. Well, is it A or B?”
She taps her index finger once.
“Wrongo,” I say. “And that was an easy one. Alaska was the 49th state. Hawaii is number 50.” I take out two vice grips from my tool bag, tighten them down and apply one to the erect nipple on her left breast. She kicks and screams as a pus-like goo flows out along with a slow trickle of blood. “Now you need to pay more attention and think! Do you hear me? Think!”
“Next: George Washington was the first president. Who was the second? A is Thomas Jefferson; B is Sam Adams.”
She has a terrified look on her face. My back is straining against my legs and arms like my torso is going to break loose from its limbs. She nods back and forth, half grunting and half screaming.
“Is that your final answer?” She taps twice.
“Wrongo you stupid bitch. Sam Adams is a beer not a president.” The second vice grip is applied to her right nipple. While it’s oozing I give it a 360 degree twist and the nipple and a quarter-sized disk of flesh come off. I toss the grip to the floor. Lots of blood, then it lets up and I look close and see little lumps of yellow fat in her tit sack. She closes her eyes and I think she’s praying.
“I told you not to cheat,” I say grabbing my needle-nose pliers and using them to grip the skin of her left eyelid. I yank quick and hard the way Dad would pull out a loose baby tooth. I do the same thing to the other eye. Both lids are ripped off leaving a ragged edge around each eye like a rag doll’s. The muffled moaning and hoarse screams dwindle to a distant thoracic rumble. Her naked eyes are goo-goo-googling like mad, like they’re trying to find a place to hide. I remember thinking about her with her eyeglasses on behind her eyeballs. Maybe I’ll do that for the math question. I want to be fair. The pain is apparently easing as Laurie begins to lose steam, her life draining from shock, pain and a bit of bleeding.
“You are not good at this game,” I say understandingly. “I thought you might be good at history. Let’s try current events. President Barack Obama was born in: A, Africa; B, the US of A. That’s a tricky one, isn’t it?”
Her breathing gets shallow and I can hear phlegm in her throat and lungs. It’s the classic death rattle. My back feels almost fine and my arms are my own again. Appeasement is what it wants.
“I guess this game is not much fun. But can you answer that last question? Hope springs eternal.” She does nothing as her eyeballs loll about on the top of her cheeks, sometimes sliding over in the blood toward her temples. “Well, Laurie, I don’t know the answer to that last one myself. But you lose.” I take the bowie knife and hold it measuredly over her heart, its point carefully placed between two ribs. Putting both hands on the handle, I shift my weight and bring it down full force to the hilt. She’s dead in a millisecond, poor thing. I nudge her body over and peek under her; the blade went right through and out the back, its mean little point penetrating the sheet and mattress.
“You have been poked a bit tonight, dearie,” I say. I remember the kids in the other rooms. Slipped my mind completely. I climb off Laurie and head to their rooms. The baby is comfy in its crib; I think it’s a girl. Sometimes, details elude me. I need to keep practicing. What kind of detective would forget the sex of her neighbor’s kid. The little boy is sleeping soundly, snoring lightly. I go back to Laurie and pull the knife out, hearing its raspy scrape along her rib. But my back is completely relaxed. It is appeased. I collect my gear and stealthily leave the way I came. I put the tool bag in the garage under some folded beach chairs. I take the pliers, rinse them off and put them back in the kitchen drawer. I know this is sloppy, but I’ll never be a suspect. Shit, I’m the one doing the suspecting.
Those kids are not going to be happy when they wake up. I guess Santa has decided that they should not get nice toys and doodads for Christmas. He has checked his list for who’s naughty and nice and they ended up on the shit end of the stick. They’ll get over it, I think, as I chop up the bark collar and feed it to the disposal.
I get into bed and curl up next to my husband. He’s a sound sleeper, thank god. I doze off thinking of answering questions tomorrow, then being assigned to the case and tracking down the guy that humped Laurie and kilt her, the fiend. I always get my man.
I remember the guy in the house diagonally across the way watching me heft a big bag of fertilizer out of the trunk of my car last August and not offering to help. Times have changed, haven’t they? I’m new to the neighborhood and I’m a frail little woman with, admittedly, an important masculine-type job. But to not offer a lady a hand is plain rude. My back twitches when I think of him, the bastard. Maybe I’ll just be the cunt next door. I hope not. I dream that women all over the world are having twitchy backs that need appeasement, that need justice to be done, many of them officers of the law. It’s a beginning, isn’t it? The first wave from deep out of nowhere. My spine swells as if I will give birth to it. Will it call me “Mom?”
FRANK ‘N’ JON
By Manny Frishberg
Jon didn’t like this a bit. It was just his luck to hav
e been hanging around the squad room at the end of his shift when Frank Spildak, M.D. walked into the precinct house and announced that he was responsible for a pair of murders. He was stuck taking the doctor’s confession because it was his case and he had been too slow in filing the paperwork to mark it as closed.
The case haunted Jon Morgenthau as few others had in several years. At 14, Willie Stargale had been too young to have working papers, but he ran errands for tips. Everybody in the neighborhood seemed to know him—by sight, if not by name. Neighbors talked about how he’d be whistling some nameless tune—but so quiet they never got annoyed. His teachers all remembered him as polite and respectful—a novelty at IS 137. When he spoke up he always had something worthwhile to contribute.
Maria Fuentes, the suspect he liked for the Stargale murder, had worked part time as Dr. Spildak’s housekeeper, coming in once a week to dust and polish, and to do the laundry. Willie had occasionally accompanied her to and from the laundromat, helping her carry her load and babysitting the machines to make sure nothing got stolen.
It bothered Jon that she had no clear motive for the killing, but the housekeeper looked good for it in so many other ways. She lived half a block from where his body had been found when the late winter snow piled high along the edge of the street melted. Some neighbors heard her calling the boy up to her apartment the last night anyone had seen him alive. But the clincher was the 14-carat gold Madonna medallion he had been given for First Communion, which his mother swore he would not even remove to shower. Morganthau found it in a pocket of the Fuertes woman’s coat. She’d insisted loudly and often that she had no idea how the kid’s medal had gotten there. But Jon had heard that before and, after all, what was she supposed to say? In his experience the only time someone broke down and confessed on the spot when confronted with the evidence was on “Perry Mason.”
True, there were other bits that didn’t add up. She had let the police in and not objected when asked if they could search her apartment. And there were some partial fingerprints they couldn’t ID. But that’s just how things worked in real life.