You Say Goodbye

by Keith Steinbaum

“Ray, you need to call me right away! Elliot did it! Elliot!” Cognizant of Kayleigh’s proximity, he walked farther away, bringing the phone closer to his lips and speaking in a lowered but forceful tone. “Elliot killed Merissa!”

  After hanging up, his refocused awareness of chatterbox Kayleigh’s silence puzzled him, but the unfamiliar sound of something else wrapped itself around his senses, converting his thoughts to immediate concern. Hendrix wasn’t just barking, he was growling.

  “Kayleigh?” he called out, his steps tentative as he moved toward the room. “Kayleigh?” Rounding the corner, Sean’s cell phone dropped at his feet as a tidal wave of terror enveloped him. With a large hand held firmly against Kayleigh’s mouth, and a gun pointing at her forehead, the unmasked face of a monster stared at him through the hostile, vigilant eyes of a serial killer.

  Sean forced himself to speak, his paralyzing fear suppressed by his overwhelming need to save Kayleigh.

  “Please!” he exclaimed, his arms extending outward. “Don’t hurt her. She’s just a little girl.” Looking into Kayleigh’s wet, frightened eyes, he added, “A very brave little girl.”

  Hendrix continued to growl and bark.

  “Open that door and put the dog outside, or I’ll put a bullet through his head.”

  In an instant, Sean grabbed Hendrix with one hand and followed the order before returning to the same spot.

  “Now pick the phone up off the floor and call Maldonado back. Even if you have to leave a message again, tell him you made a big mistake. You thought the card was stolen, but you found it and everything is fine. Nothing’s changed.” In a lowered, more ominous voice, he added, “You got that?”

  Sean nodded and struggled to control his shaking hand as he waited for Maldonado to answer or to hear his recording again. His heartbeat thumped noticeably while attempting to quell his nervousness, but when Maldonado answered, his fervency evident, Sean almost crumpled from the sudden weakness in his legs. He swallowed hard before speaking, never taking his eyes off of Kayleigh while the gun remained pressed against her head.

  “Ray...I’m...I’m really sorry, but...I made a big mistake.”

  “What?” Maldonado shouted. “What the hell gives, Sean? Jesus!” After a few moments of silence, he continued in a subdued tone. “You just called me a minute ago and suddenly you’re changing your story?”

  Sean forced a small laugh. “I’m--I’m sorry, I thought Elliot stole that Jack of Hearts card. He knew you were coming over to check it for fingerprints, so--you know--what else was I to think but he was the killer. You know what you’ve told me--that things aren’t always as they appear, right? I guess--I guess I got carried away. But I found the card, okay?” He looked up into the evil blue eyes glaring at him. “Everything’s fine, nothing’s changed.”

  When the conversation ended, Martin leaned down, placing his mouth near Kayleigh’s ear, and spoke in a soft voice. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetie,” he said, and then shifted his eyes toward Sean. “As long as your friend, here, does what I tell him to.” He returned his attention to Kayleigh. “When I take my hand away, you better not scream, because that would make me mad. You don’t want to make me mad, do you?”

  Kayleigh didn’t move her head for several seconds. Then, in small, rapid motions, she shook it back and forth.

  “Now this is also very important,” he told her. “I want you to go over to Sean and stay there, okay? Because if you try to run away, I’ll have to kill him.”

  Sean closed his eyes and fought against the mushrooming fear threatening to overwhelm him. When he reopened them, he stared in pain as her tears poured forth again.

  “Do you understand, Kayleigh?”

  This time she responded quickly, slamming her eyes shut and nodding her head in an animated up and down manner.

  “Good girl!” Martin said. Releasing her from his grip, Kayleigh rushed into Sean’s arms, crying uncontrollably. Sean dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, holding the rag-doll body close to his.

  “Shhh, shhh,” he repeated. “Everything will be all right, Kayleigh. Be brave. You’re the Fourteenth Laker, remember? You’re tough. Coby tough.”

  Martin took a few steps closer, his gun now held to his side. “You weren’t supposed to be home yet, Sean. I just came for the card, nothing more. I figured I’d be out of here in a minute. Then a short walk around the corner where my car’s parked and that would be that.” He shook his head. “Now things have gotten complicated.” He walked toward the side door, peering out the window on the right side. “By the way, your agapanthus plant looks a lot worse.” He turned back and smiled, reaching into his pocket to remove the object he now held up for Sean to see. “But at least you still have your key under the pot.” Martin looked up at the different corners of the ceiling. “You could have used an alarm system in here.” He chuckled, causing a shiver to course through Sean’s body. “That’s why you had that unfortunate break-in you told us about.”

  As he continued to hold Kayleigh, Sean didn’t respond, his mind a jumbled mesh of disconnected wires unable to formulate more than one thought; protecting his young friend.

  “You know, Sean,” Martin said, “it took a lot of effort for me to keep smiling through your performance today and not give anything away. Once you started singing the song, well...I read your message loud and clear. You obviously suspected something.” Sean kept his eyes fixed on the gun as he held Kayleigh. “That’s when I knew I had to get that card back. If my fingerprints were still on it, the police could match them to my coffee cup.”

  Martin took a deep breath, glaring at them in ominous silence while rubbing his hand several times across his mouth.

  “We’ve gotta leave,” he said. “Get up!”

  Kayleigh burrowed her way back into the sanctuary of Sean’s arms. He held her head against his chest and looked up at Martin, hoping for some compassion, but the sight of the gun pointing at them eviscerated that notion.

  “Now!” Martin shouted.

  Clutching Kayleigh’s shoulders, Sean rose from the floor, lifting her simultaneously. Keeping his arm around her, he asked, “Where are you taking us?”

  Martin strolled toward them and placed his hand on Kayleigh’s shoulder.

  “She’ll wait here while you get your keys.”

  Sean stared in contemplation for several moments, wondering what came next. Retrieving the keys from his jacket pocket, he returned to place his arm in a protective gesture around Kayleigh again.

  “The first thing we’re going to do is get in your car,” Martin explained. “And in case you try something stupid, I’ll sit in back with the Glock in my hand, the girl on my side, and the back of your head in splattering range.” He spoke in a calm manner, yet the words he uttered shouted the directive and rattled Sean to the core. “You’ll drive us to my car a few minutes away, park yours, and then we’ll all take the same positions in mine. We’re going to drive a long way, Sean, but somewhere along the line, if Kayleigh’s a good girl, we’ll find a safe spot to drop her off.”

  “Drop her off?” Sean asked. “Where?”

  “‘Where’ isn’t the question that concerns me right now,” Martin replied. “When is what’s important.” Approaching Kayleigh, Martin stroked the uneven hairs on the back of her scalp. “You just might be my ticket to freedom, sweetie.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Sean asked, his voice rising in anger.

  “You ever play poker, Sean? She’s my wild card. I’ve been dealt a bad hand here, but she could keep me in the game.”

  Sean turned Kayleigh away from Martin and hugged her. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”

  Martin stood in front of Sean, his gun held steady. “Now here comes the tricky part,” he said. “You’re going to make one more call. Get on the phone and call Kayleigh’s house. Tell them you’re on your way to the pet store, and you’ll be back in a half hour. That’s all the time we’ll need for now.”

  “No, I won’t d
o that,” Sean answered.

  Martin took a step back and extended his arm toward him, the small, black, circular hole of death at the gun barrel’s tip waiting like an obedient soldier for the kill.

  “This baby staring at you is a Glock Nineteen, Sean. It’s made with a special striker fired mechanism that allows me to keep firing away for up to fifteen rounds. Even the military uses it, that’s how dependable it is. It only took one shot to kill Merissa and I was just a few feet closer to her than I am to you. So I’m going to tell you again, one more time. Call them!”

  He placed his hand over Kayleigh’s mouth and pulled her away, her cries muffled yet piercing Sean to the bone. Pointing the gun at her head, Martin observed and listened to the phone call.

  “No, she didn’t tell me yet, wants me to keep guessing...yeah, she’s funny...Okay, I’ll have her back in time...right, it shouldn’t take long. Bye, Stephanie.”

  “Very well done, Sean. Now drop your phone on the floor and leave it there.”

  Martin released Kayleigh, but instead of hurrying over to Sean, she started holding her stomach, grimacing and moaning.

  “I have to go potty real bad,” she said, crying. “Please? It hurts!”

  Martin studied Kayleigh with an angry expression before relenting. “Listen to me, little girl,” he told her. “Let me show you where Sean will be while you’re in there.” With the ever-present gun in his hand, he pointed his chin toward an area of the floor. “Lie face down and don’t move until she comes out.” Sean hurried to the spot, diving forward through the stiffness in his hip and remaining still as she moved in the direction of the bathroom.

  “Wait!”

  Kayleigh looked at Martin, clenching her teeth and shifting her weight from her left foot to her right as she continued to clutch her stomach. “Just remember,” he said, “if you lock yourself in there and don’t come out, your friend will be killed. Understand?”

  “But I always lock the door when I go to the bathroom!” she cried. “I swear I’ll come out. I swear! I swear!”

  Martin placed a foot on Sean’s lower back, his gun pointing toward his head. “Okay, lock it, but remember what I said.”

  Before shutting the door, Kayleigh blurted something to Sean about “doing what Coby did,” causing him to tear up over this remarkable little girl’s attempt to instill him with courage--the same courage she revealed at that moment.

  “Let her go, Martin,” Sean pleaded, his bottom lip brushing the floor. “She’s just a little girl! A sweet, little girl, fighting goddamn cancer!”

  “You ever think if she dies young, she’ll be the lucky one, Sean?”

  Sean’s body stiffened in fear. “What--what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The pain’s coming,” he answered. “I don’t mean the physical pain, not the cancer, but the life pain.”

  Sean listened, uncomprehending, but sensing the words of a madman.

  “I was once a happy kid in a happy home,” Martin said. “Had a loving mother and father. A younger brother, too.” He emitted an audible sigh, then continued. “My dad was a great man. We used to play ball, camp, fish, you know--all the good things that a father and son do. He worked long hours running a small electric store. Taught me how to fix things from an early age. Now I’ve got a pretty successful business and it all started with him.”

  Sean wondered why Martin felt the need to discuss his past. He didn’t need to wait long for the answer.

  “But everything changed the day my dad and brother were killed in a hit and run. It was a drunk driver, a kid.” Several seconds of silence followed before he continued. “Now it was just my mother and me. My mother. My mother.” Sean heard the heavy nasal breathing of quiet, unhappy reflection. “The way I see it, there were two paths for her to choose. She could have realized I was all she had left and done the right thing by raising me the way my father would have wanted. Or...do what she did, thinking only of herself and her own, depraved needs. Over time, different men started showing up. A couple of them tried to be nice, but they weren’t my father. The others were assholes that didn’t give a shit about me. But the one who was the worst of all, you’d never know it. His name was Freddie, a large boyish faced man with red fleshy cheeks and a perpetual smile. My mother thought he was such a sweet guy, such a ‘kind and loving man,’ that she could trust him to be alone with me when she worked late.”

  Sean remained quiet, feeling helpless as he listened to the backstory of a rapist/killer.

  “Freddy didn’t have any body hair,” he said, “skin as smooth as the day he was born. I don’t think I need to tell you how I know that, do I? I also remember those extraordinarily long fingers--long, hot, swarming fingers wrapped around my stomach and chest every time he took me from behind.”

  Sean listened, the unavoidable image of a boy’s rape pulsating like a gaping wound.

  “He told me he’d cut me into pieces if I ever said anything, or if I stayed away when he came around, but by the time my mother found out the truth--about what he did to me--all those times--what he did to me, that happy kid was dead. Now payback is my aphrodisiac, Sean. Anger’s my erection. I can get it up for anybody, man or woman, because life’s taught me you better be the one doing the fucking or guaranteed you’ll be the one getting fucked. And pretending I’m gay, with a boyfriend who shares everything with me like sweet, naive Elliot, is the perfect camouflage for my...proclivities. In fact, Sean,” he said, a whispered evil coating his tone, “Elliot taught me the card trick I showed Merissa that night.” Martin chuckled. “But after that, it was time for the ‘Hello, Goodbye’ finale.”

  Sean pounded the floor in anger as tears of rage filled his vision. “You’re a sick, fucking asshole!”

  “With a gun pointing at your head.”

  Through clenched teeth, Sean spoke, forcing himself to stay as calm as possible. “Plenty of others went through the shit you did. They didn’t turn out like you.”

  Martin raised his shoe and brought it down hard on Sean’s back, causing him to cry out in pain. “They’re not me!” Martin screamed. He leaned closer, hovering over Sean’s head. “All of my mother’s ‘men friends’ just wanted the one thing, and she was all too happy to give it to them. And do you know why? Because they brought out her inner whore, and all women have that inner whore inside of them, don’t you know that? Merissa was no different. She used her body to tempt me, to mock me, make me feel weak. So after I had my way with her, after I exposed her for the whore she was, I rid the world of another impure, cock-sucking woman. A woman just like my mother.”

  ‘You’re insane!” Sean shouted, tears burning his eyes into watery blindness. “And so fucking clever with your Beatles’ song sign-offs, you piece of shit!”

  “You got it all wrong, Sean,” he said, his voice a maddening calm, “I don’t do it to be clever. I do it because my mother loved The Beatles, sang their songs all the time. But after that horrible day, I never heard her sing a Beatles’ song again--never heard her sing anything again.” Martin applied more pressure with his foot to Sean’s back, leaning down farther before he resumed speaking. “Those songs take me back to a happy time and place. Now do you understand? When I do to women what I did to Merissa, when I expose them for the whores they really are and kill them for their deceptions like they deserve, they’re all my mother. And at that final moment, when the name of a Beatles’ song is written for the world to see, I’m happy again.” After a momentary pause, Martin had one more thing to say. “Every Beatles’ song I choose isn’t my calling card, it’s hers.”

  With the sound of the flushing toilet, Martin removed his foot from Sean and stepped back. “Get up!”

  When Sean rose to his feet, Martin looked at him and smiled. “I’m not the insane one,” he said. “It’s men like you who are fools. The only women I respect are the prostitutes who don’t hide from themselves, the whores who follow their true calling.”

  “Like Lucy?” Sean muttered. “If you respected her so muc
h, why’d you kill her? It’s you who killed her, right?”

  Martin nodded his head and shrugged. “Such a shame it had to come to that,” he said, “but how lucky for me I was with her that night. Imagine my surprise when she showed me the photos from the service and asked me how I knew Roger. What else was I supposed to do, Sean? And the rest, as they say, is history.”

  Kayleigh opened the door, standing with her head down and hands gripped around the sides of her coat collar, holding them closed around her neck.

  “I bet you never even went to that Lakers game and saw Coby,” she said. Looking up, her lips tightened into a disappearing act as the half-mast of her right eye struggled to match the left one in their angry glare. “You’re a big liar! And a bad man!”

  Martin sneered. “That’s a bet you would win, little girl. Now quit wasting more of my time.” Shifting his attention to Sean, he took a step closer and aimed his gun toward his chest. “Let’s go.”

  A minute later, with the gun now pointed at his back, Sean lifted Kayleigh and carried her toward the garage.

  Chapter 38

  The gloomy day produced a dull, lethargic light idling in from the bottom of the garage door, and, as Sean stood there, waiting for instructions, he held Kayleigh close. His thoughts sped at a feverish but failed pace, fostering unreasonable ideas without a viable plan or commonsense conclusion. One thing seemed abundantly clear, however, no matter what Martin said about letting Kayleigh go, logic dictated that he couldn’t afford that gesture. Her existence prevented his secrecy. As did Sean’s.

  Kayleigh wept as she tilted her forehead against the side of his face. At that moment, feeling the unique, course texture of the hairs from her globular scalp, Sean empathized, more than ever, with the lifelong struggle this courageous child warrior endured. He also reflected on the day they met, remembering how her friendship offered him a life preserver from the inevitability of a planned suicide. She took him to a happy place, with conversations about music and basketball, and innocent comments that made him laugh. She also reminded him life was worth fighting for. Without her, he’d be dead--another clichéd rock ’n roll story, discovered on the couch with a suicide note and a body full of pills. Through an act of fate, she’d saved his life, and now, by any means necessary, the time had come to return the favor.