The Cherry Pages

by Gary Ruffin

  “Oh, we went out on the town, then back to his place. Once there, I slipped some Rohypnol into his drink. He was pretty heavily dosed, had been all night. He probably didn’t feel a thing at the cabin.”

  I said, “Well, Kenneth. You realize, of course, that once there’s an autopsy, the police and the FBI will realize it was all a setup. You understand that, right?’

  Once again, he gave me the look that said what a pain I was, and said, “Duh, Chief. Why do you think I’m here now? Even though I made sure they would be working on a Sunday, I know they’ll figure it all out soon. They will also undoubtedly find a stray fingerprint of mine here or there, on the pictures and tabloid articles or the laptop I left in the cowboy’s home, et cetera. In fact, they may already be on the way over here as we speak. That’s why I have to sacrifice my perfect virgin, and get the hell outta here.”

  There it was. Time for my winning shot. I rested the Glock on my thigh, and said, “Wait a minute here, Kenneth.” I paused for effect, as I’m wont to do when toying with a lawbreaker. “Did you say somethin’ about a ‘perfect virgin’?”

  He gave me the pained look again, which was really starting to piss me off, and asked, “Are you really as dumb as you look, Chief? I told you. I know all about Cherry Page. All about her. I was inside her computer, remember?”

  That didn’t register, so I said, “Uh, Kenneth, I think I’m coming in on the end of a conversation we haven’t had yet. What’s this about you bein’ inside Cherry’s computer?”

  He looked at me dumbly for a moment, then said, “My mistake, Chief, forgive my rudeness. It was Miss Page who I told about the computer hacker I hired to get all her personal and business information. Anyway, I know all there is to know about her, including the fact that she’s a virgin. Don’t you see? That’s what makes her so special, so absolutely perfect, since any sacrifice made unto Baal must be a—what are you laughing at?” he asked, his face now showing anger.

  It was once again my turn to laugh derisively, and I really laid it on thick. In fact, my laugh was so evil I wouldn’t have been surprised if both Hammond and Cherry had gotten goose bumps this time. Of course, being naked, they might’ve gotten goose bumps anyway.

  When I finally stopped laughing, I said, “Kenneth, old boy. My delusional friend. You’ve been wasting your time here. You see, Miss Page was a virgin, and the operative word is ‘was.’ You’re a day late, and a half million dollars short.”

  80

  HAMMOND LOOKED STUNNED FOR A MOMENT, BUT QUICKLY RECOVERED. “Nice try,” he said. “You almost had me believing you there for a second.”

  Cherry smiled at me, obviously pleased by what I had said. She even looked somewhat relaxed, or at least as relaxed as she could be under the truly weird circumstances.

  “Don’t believe me, Kenny?” I asked with a grin, which grew wider as I watched him steam at the nickname.

  He got that apoplectic look on his face again, then visibly calmed himself. He said with a fake smile, “Chief. Isn’t it just a little too convenient that you deflowered my virgin only hours before I was to sacrifice her? Forgive me, but that sounds a little too perfect.”

  I stretched again, and said, “I really don’t care how it sounds, Ken. The fact is, you kill her now, and you not only go to jail—or die where you stand—but you also get on the wrong side of Baal. You really think he’s gonna give you any power for killing a common slut? Do you? Seriously? I’m no expert when it comes to human sacrifice, but I’m pretty sure a god won’t take too kindly to being offered damaged goods. Am I right, Kenny?”

  Cherry gave me a phony scowl for the “S” word, but I could see the smile in her eyes. Hammond stared at the floor, so absorbed in thought I almost rushed him. But I waited for the next move in our chess game.

  It was a pretty good move.

  He said, “Chief Cooper. You would receive a reward of a half million dollars for my capture, correct?”

  “Correct. It’s already in the bank, the way I see it.”

  He shook his head a little, and said, “Hmmm. That seems like an awfully small amount of money for someone who has done such a good—no, a great job.”

  I could almost see the wheels turning in his deranged, albeit fiscally sharp, mind. Hostage negotiations had turned into financial negotiations.

  I said, “I don’t know, Ken, a half million dollars? That’s a lotta cash for a small-town cop like me.”

  He said, “Maybe so, maybe so. But what would you say to five times that? Or, even better, ten times that? Could you turn down an offer that would pay you five million dollars?”

  That was my cue to do some more acting. I attempted to look like I was considering his offer, and then said, “I’m listening.”

  I have to say, it was weird, haggling over Cherry’s life with a certifiably delusional psycho who was wearing nothing but his birthday suit, and her standing right there as his shield, naked as well. It reminded me yet again how bizarre my life has been for the last year.

  Hammond looked confident once more, back in control. I’m sure he thought that once money came into play, the game was his to win. He persisted: “What if you were to let me go—just get dressed and walk right out of here—and what if you were to give me time to get the money together, then get it to you, and stroll off into the sunset?”

  Once again, I have to give the guy credit. It did sound like a pretty good way to make an easy five mill.

  I went into actor mode again, furrowed my brow, and gave Hammond my best “I’m really, seriously pondering your offer” look.

  I finally said, “Mr. Hammond—Kenneth. I must say, that’s a truly generous offer.” A look of satisfaction slowly spread over his face. I went on, “But I’m not sure I can trust you. I mean, if I let you go, you might just walk outta here and never send me a dime. You see what I’m sayin’?”

  “Chief Cooper. I give you my word. No, even better, I swear by Baal that I’ll do exactly as I’ve said. You let me go, and I promise—I swear by Baal—that I’ll pay you. Five. Million. Dollars. Now, you can’t get a better guarantee than that.”

  As I listened to the nut bag, I wished for a moment I had been brought up differently. What if I had never learned about morality? What if I’d been raised by wolves? Five million big ones could have been mine, and all my worries would’ve been over. Except, of course, Cherry would’ve told Penny, so it was a very short wishful moment.

  I looked at Hammond again as if I was considering his proposal, scratching my head, rubbing my chin, doing contemplative stuff, and he seemed to be buying it. He relaxed his grip on Cherry, smiled, and asked, “Whatta ya say, Chief? Do we have a deal?”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say, or come up with an idea of how to keep stalling. I only knew that this discussion was going nowhere. My thoughts drifted off to whether I should just try and shoot the bastard and get it over with.

  I was calculating the odds as to whether or not I could actually hit Hammond in the head with a shot, when Cherry fainted dead away. Hammond struggled to hold her now dead weight up with one arm, and as strong as he was, it was a losing battle.

  81

  ONE MISSISSIPPI, TWO MISSISSIPPI.

  That’s how much time I had to decide what to do, and how to do it. We can debate whether my actions were clever or brainless, but at that moment, I had to move. I’m no James Bond, and am rusty with a gun after years in Gulf Front, so taking my best shot was out of the question.

  I hurled my gun behind me over the sofa, dove at Hammond, and got his right wrist and forearm in a death grip. As I smashed him into the window with my shoulder, Cherry slipped from his grasp and slumped to the floor. I began to bash Hammond’s wrist against the windowsill as hard as I could, and Cherry jumped up, ran into the bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. I realized she had faked her fainting spell, but I didn’t have time to applaud her performance. I bashed Hammond’s wrist on the windowsill several more times, each time harder than the last, but the knife was st
ill securely in his hand. So I tried a new tactic: I stomped down on his unshod toes as hard as I could with the heel of my right sneaker.

  He screamed in pain, but still held on to the knife. I stomped down again, this time even harder, and with all my might, pushed him with my shoulder into the window. I took my left hand off his wrist, grabbed his hair, and began banging his head against the thick window glass. The knife finally dropped as he struggled to maintain consciousness, and I kicked at it, trying to get it away from us.

  Cherry was now doing some screaming of her own into the phone back in the bedroom, and that gave me a new jolt of adrenaline, knowing that I only had to fend off Hammond for a few more minutes before help arrived. I was really glad of that, because I don’t normally wrestle a lot of guys to the death, especially naked ones.

  I still couldn’t quite reach the knife with my foot, so I stomped down harder on his toes and slammed his head into the glass again, and then again. The solid window meeting his skull stunned Hammond, but he managed to thrust mightily and push me away, separating us for the first time since I had jumped him.

  I lost my balance and fell to the carpeted floor, saved only by the fact that he was wobbly and semiconscious. Hammond was a pretty strong guy, but so am I, and I was running on a full tank of adrenaline. He was dazed from the head trauma, and having trouble standing on his crushed toes, but he wobbled and tried to get to the knife, which was almost within reach.

  I jumped up and slammed into Hammond again with my shoulder, knocking him away from the knife. I punched him so hard in the face with my left fist that I felt a bone in one of my knuckles crack. Pain shot up like electricity to my shoulder, and my arm went numb for a second. Hammond was fading into unconsciousness but was still reaching for the knife, his fingers twitching spasmodically.

  I made a grab for his right wrist again, and he instinctively shot his left elbow into my temple so hard that I saw nothing but white light for a moment. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the blow almost knocked me out. Again, he had thrown me down and away, and I ended up flat on my side.

  I got to my knees just in time to see him shake the cobwebs and focus on the knife, which was only a foot or two from his grasp. He was now between me and my gun, which was out of sight behind the sofa anyway. For a moment I wished I had taken a chance and kept my Glock, but it was too late for second-guessing.

  I looked frantically around for anything I could use, and saw something I could reach before he got his hands on the knife: a big crystal vase filled with yellow flowers, sitting on the corner table.

  Just as he unsteadily reached down and grasped the knife, I jumped up, took hold of the heavy vase, and swung it down like an axe right on that bunch of blond curls. Yellow flowers and water exploded around his head, and Hammond went down like a baby seal. Gasping for air, I stood over him, victorious, vase in hand, the undisputed champion of the Lunatic Division.

  82

  A MINUTE OR SO LATER, LEWIS, THE BIG BLACK SECURITY GUARD WE SAW almost every day, burst into the suite, gun drawn and breathing hard.

  Physically spent, knuckle and head throbbing, I considered getting my gun, in order to help Lewis keep an eye on Hammond, but Lewis didn’t need any help. Without a word, he quickly had the prone Hammond handcuffed, and was sitting on him, digging his big knees into the unconscious killer’s back. My heartbeat was still elevated, but gradually returned to normal as I forced myself to breathe deeply and evenly.

  Three hotel security men ran into the room, huffing and puffing, and began acting like genuine cops, asking me and Lewis every question they could think of that sounded cop-like. They stared at the sight of Lewis kneeling on the back of a naked white guy, and the big guard jumped up as if he’d received an electric shock when he realized what it must have looked like to them. Lewis quickly ushered the security men out into the hallway to keep guard of whatever was out there, and closed the door behind them. He then came back over and stood over Hammond, who was still busy being still.

  I walked over to my bed by the window, pulled the topsheet off, and went over and covered Hammond with it; I had seen about enough of him by then. The bedroom door opened, and a barefoot Cherry stepped through, now dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt. Head down, she avoided eye contact as she slowly and silently walked over to me and opened her arms to be hugged. I wrapped my arms around her as she began to cry, softly at first, then in desperate, shaking sobs.

  Holding me tighter, she said, “I’m so sorry, Cooper. I’m so sorry!”

  Acting as if I had no idea what she meant, I said, “Cherry. Kiddo. What are you talkin’ about?”

  Still sobbing, she said, “I’m just so—sorry! I had—no idea—what else to do! I ran like—a scared—child. Not like …”

  “Cherry. Stop. You did exactly what you should have done. What I wanted you to do. The last thing I needed was for you to get hurt. Why do you think I threw away my gun? I might’ve fired and hit you, or missed, and either way he would’ve been able to slit your throat, not to mention, you couldn’t have done anything, anyway. If you had actually gotten your hands on the gun, you could have killed all three of us.”

  Cherry tried to laugh through the sobs, but didn’t quite pull it off. She did manage to stop apologizing, but couldn’t keep from sobbing softly.

  I tried to lighten the situation by saying, “That was a neat trick, Miss Page, fainting like that. Quick thinking.”

  “I really did faint when—I saw the flowers earlier. When you read the card, you’ll see why. It wasn’t—quick thinking, really.” Sob. Gasp. Sputter.

  Her mention of the card didn’t register with me because I was still thinking about how she had apologized a moment before. I had acted like I didn’t know what Cherry was talking about when she was apologizing for her actions, but I did know what she was talking about: she meant that if she had been Penny, things would have gone a little differently. If Penny had faked a fainting spell, the nanosecond she was free, she would have run over behind the sofa, grabbed my gun, run back, and emptied it in Hammond’s ear hole. All while naked. I thought yet again just how exceptional Penny truly is, and I also asked myself, what the hell was I thinking, even considering a life with Cherry?

  The problem was, I wasn’t thinking. Not with my brain, anyway.

  Cherry said quietly, “You deserve a woman who can be there for you when needed, Cooper, not some so-called sex symbol.”

  The scent of her peach shampoo, the feel of her famous body against mine: the moment I thought I wanted had come, and the only thing I felt was protective. Not stimulated, not sexy, not crazed. Simply protective. I only felt what one would feel for a friend, or better yet, a little sister. That had been my original feeling for Cherry, and as it turned out, it was also the appropriate one.

  The second mystery was solved, and I had my answer to the question about what I was going to do about Cherry Page: I would be her friend, and nothing more. It was a bittersweet moment, the feeling more sweet than bitter, but like I said, appropriate.

  Lewis, clearly embarrassed by Cherry’s emotion, said, “Y’all excuse me, folks. I need to call some people. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  He went out in the hall and closed the door behind him. Cherry went over and picked up a small white card that had fallen to the floor near the corner table. She handed it to me and said, “See? This is why I fainted.”

  As I read the card, Hammond stirred, groaned loudly, and opened his eyes. When he spotted me and Cherry, it all came back to him, and he glared at us. Even though I was glad to see I hadn’t killed the sick freak, I couldn’t resist giving him a little more grief.

  “Kenny, you know what?” I asked.

  He continued to glare, and once more his top lip curled up. Psycho Elvis.

  I said, “Tell me one more thing, Ken-Ken. Why didn’t you put the latch on the door? That was really dumb. If you had put the latch on the door, I might have opened the door, and seeing
that I couldn’t get in, decided that Cherry was in the shower, and gone back downstairs to wait. You might have been able to get away, or sacrifice her, or something.”

  Hammond said with a growl, “What’s your fucking point?”

  “My point, Kenny, is that if Baal is so almighty great, he would have reminded you to put the latch on the damn door. God certainly would have. Not only that, you brought a near lethal weapon for me to use on you, you dumbass. Don’t you think a plastic vase would have been a better choice? I mean, come on. Talk about petards. Talk about hoist. Yep, Ken, the way I see it, you need to face facts: Baal really let you down. You might wanna seriously think about changing teams, buddy.”

  Hammond commenced to hurl abusive language and foul curses towards me at an alarming rate, and I covered Cherry’s ears as she giggled.

  I wasn’t finished, “Yeah, Kenny, you might wanna consider worshipping the real God.”

  More cursing, more blistering abuse, more name-calling, all of it hurtful, and most of it untrue.

  After Hammond finished cursing me and being really mean, I took my hands off of Cherry’s ears. She looked me in the eye, and said, “Cooper, I really and truly want to thank you for telling our friend Mr. Hammond here about how you deflowered me last night. I feel that it may have been the very thing that saved my life.”

  In my best John Wayne voice I said, “Well, thank ya there, ma’am, but I was just doin’ my job, is all. Just doin’ my job.”

  Cherry carried on, “Maybe so, but obviously, I feel it was essential for Mr. Hammond to know that I am no longer a virgin.” She paused and smiled knowingly at me, and I smiled knowingly right back.

  Then she sighed, and said, “If only it were true.”

  83

  I KNOW, I KNOW. I IMPLIED THAT I DID HAVE A TRYST WITH CHERRY, BUT if you recall, I never actually said I did. I stated several times that “I wish I could tell you,” and “a gentleman never tells,” but I never actually said we did the deed. I was just having a little fun. I don’t really think of it as lying, but you might, if you have no sense of humor. But, in actuality, there was never anything untoward between me and Cherry. Truth be told, Cherry Page is still very much a virgin. That’s the truth. I was always going to tell you, I was just waiting for the right time. Seriously. I was. So I embellished the story a little bit, big deal. I lied. By omission, I guess you could say. There, I said it: I lied.