Gecko

by Ken Douglas

  The living room was a designer’s nightmare. Plush white carpets, top of the line contemporary furniture, lots of oak. A giant Hitachi plasma TV mounted above the fireplace, and in the center of the room, a steel and glass coffee table, looking very out of place.

  The dining room was also covered in plush white carpet. The center of the room was taken up by a large oak table, surrounded by eight chairs, but what caught his eye was the Hitachi television mounted on the wall, the twin of the one in the living room.

  He checked the half-bath off the dining room and found a toilet, shower, and a small digital Sony, mounted on the wall for viewing while sitting. He chuckled, then went up the stairs. He found three bedrooms and a master bedroom. All with televisions, all Hitachi gas plasmas. The master bath had one too. the bathroom that served the other bedrooms, a smaller one. Odd he thought, every room a television, but no DVD players.

  He went back down the stairs, sliding his hand along the oak banister. He had more rooms to check. It was a big house. He went back through the living room, through a short hallway and opened one of the two doors.

  “ Holy shit!” he exclaimed, staring wide-eyed. A large king-sized bed was positioned in the center of the room. A professional video camera was mounted on a wheeled tripod on both sides of the bed. An array of professional track lighting and microphones were hanging from the ceiling. A four by eight soundproofed window was cut out of the wall opposite the bed. Beyond the window, in the next room, he saw a soundboard that would put any recording studio to shame, a rack of state of the art sound equipment and a rack of Macs and DVD recorders.

  “ Mrs. Monday what kind of man have you gotten yourself involved with?” he mumbled as he backed out of the room. He went down the hallway to the recording studio. The door was locked. He tried to kick it in. He gave it a good blast but the lock didn’t give. He took a closer look. Although not a double deadbolt like he’d encountered on the back door, it wasn’t the cheap interior lock he assumed he was facing.

  He got the ax. The first blow caved in the lock. He went through the door.

  On a desk next to the soundboard was a stack of DVDs in plastic cases. He went through them, read the titles written on the cases with a felt pen. Jim and Jenny, Carrie and the twins, The twins and Linda, Bill and Bill, Carrie and Linda.

  Pornography? That didn’t make any sense. You don’t kill for that. Not anymore. That stuff flooded the internet and it was free, well free for the most part anyway.

  He saw a short stack of CDs on the soundboard, picked them up. Under the stack was a letter printed out on plain bond paper.

  Mohammed,

  I think you’ll find this one to your liking. She’s just turned forty, I think you’ll approve. She’s half off because of her age. A bargain and I think you’ll agree after seeing her in action that she still has several good years left.

  It was unsigned.

  “ Son of bitch,” Washington muttered. The bastard was selling people. He picked up the discs, read the labels. Julia M #1 through Julia M #7. “Oh, Mrs. Monday,” he said, feeling genuine pain, “your lover boy is about to ship you off to some guy named Mohammed.” Washington could just imagine what the rest of her life would be like.

  He took out disc number three and stuffed it in his inside jacket pocket. Then he turned to get a closer look at the recording equipment and the Macintosh computers. Expensive. Professional. He raised the ax and brought it down on the soundboard. Not necessary, but it made him feel good. It only took him five minutes to demolish every piece of equipment in the room. After the equipment, he started hacking up the discs. Then he went next door and took care of the cameras. Normally he wasn’t so destructive, but Kohler was turning out to be the kind of man that he really didn’t like.

  On the way out of the place, he took care of all the flat screen panels and on the walk back to his car he reached the inescapable conclusion that Monday was innocent. Walker had been right. Glenna was safe. He didn’t have to call the police in the morning. All he had to do was what Walker wanted. Prove Monday innocent. That would be easy, all he had to do was prove Kohler guilty. He would enjoy that.

  He stopped, ears tuned to the night. There was a cricket chirping up ahead. It stopped. He heard an owl hoot, once, then it went quiet. The only sound was the wind rustling through the trees. Something was out there. He heard movement behind the brush on his left. Something was there. He saw a dog-like shape in the moonlight, heard a growl, then saw a pair of canine red eyes glaring at him from through the brush. He went for his gun and the animal disappeared, like a ghost dog. Somebody’s stray, he thought, big one. It put him on edge.

  He put the gun away and continued his trek up the dark road toward his car. Twenty minutes later he was back at the motel. He rented a movie and a portable DVD player in the office and listened with feigned interest while a young man with an asthmatic cough tried to explain how to hook the player up to the television.

  He was glad to be out of the cold. The walk back to the car had tired him more than he cared to admit. He resolved to get up early and take a brisk jog in the woods. From now on, he decided, he would jog every morning and get back in shape. He had made these promises to himself before and every time, without fail, he quit jogging within two or three weeks. But this time, he promised himself, he would stick it through.

  He set the DVD player and the disc on the bed, then shucked off his shirt, shoes and the army pants. He didn’t know if the itchy, crawling sensations he felt all over his body were real or imaginary bugs. Either way, he needed a shower and clean clothes. The clothes he would get in the morning, the shower he would get right away.

  He liked taking showers in motels. The hot water seemed to last forever. He luxuriated in the steam, letting the hot water pour over his head and down his back, soothing the cold away.

  He did his best thinking in a hot shower. He thought about Jane. His marriage was over. He knew that. He didn’t know if he could find someone else, or even if he wanted to. He shivered, despite the steam, at the thought of being alone for the rest of his life. He shivered more at the thought of dating again. Some things were not meant to be, and Hugh Washington dating was just one of those things.

  His thoughts wandered to Walker. Without Walker he was without work, unless he called Long Beach and ate humble pie. They would take him back, but he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself. He was too old, too set in his ways, and too much of a man to come sniveling back like a snot nosed brat. No, he told himself, you have to lie in the bed you make. He moved his head under the spray and watched the water run off his body, wishing his problems would follow it down the drain, but knowing they wouldn’t.

  He turned off the shower, thinking about Monday. How would he react when he found out what kind of man Kohler was and what he had planned for his wife? He’d probably kill the son of a bitch, but he was probably going to kill him anyway, Washington thought, as he wrapped himself in a towel.

  He left the bathroom and went to the bed, where he picked up and shook out the camouflaged clothes, trying to rid himself of any little creepy crawlies that might be left over from his stint in the woods. Satisfied, he folded them and stored them in the closet. Then he dropped the towel and put on his street clothes. He wanted to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. After he was dressed he remembered that nobody knew where he was.

  He drew the curtains, hooked the DVD player to the TV, popped in the disc and lay back on the bed to watch.

  She stared out at him, from the screen, as striking as he’d remembered her. She was sitting on the edge of that king-sized bed. The one in the room with the cameras and the lights. She turned and looked over her shoulder at the camera and smiled. She thrust out her lower lip and blew the hair out of her eyes, the way he’d seen his daughter do countless times.

  It looked like she was cold, the way she was shivering, and his heart went out to her. She turned away from the camera and stretched. The camera followed her shaking
hand to the center of the bed, where it locked around her purse. A small leather handbag. She pulled the purse to herself, then opened it.

  She withdrew a small mirror, then a tiny glass jar, a vial. She unscrewed the lid. His heart ached as she dumped the white powder onto the mirror, trying to hold it without shaking. She took a credit card out of the purse and started chopping up the small chunks of cocaine into a fine white powder. Finished, she used the card to build the powder into two lines, two inches long. It took a few minutes. She was methodical. He noticed her hands were no longer shaking as she rolled up a crisp hundred dollar bill.

  She turned toward the camera, smiled a million dollar smile, winked, pursed her lips and threw a kiss. The camera moved in for a close up as she turned back toward the white powder. She put the bill to her nose, leaned over the cocaine and inhaled, making one of the small white snakes vanish. She repeated the motion with the other nostril, killing the other line.

  She sat for a moment, eyes closed. She rolled her head and sighed. Then she turned toward the camera, cupped her breasts, squeezed, and sighed again. He had never seen anything like this. He wanted to take out the disc, but couldn’t. He was frozen, mesmerized. He had forgotten about why he was here, there was only him and the seventeen inch color screen. The rest of the world didn’t exist.

  She scooted off the bed, stood and faced the camera. She had a little girl pout on her lips and she batted her eyes like a whore.

  “ Get on with it,” the doctor ordered, his voice coming from off camera.

  “ Play some music,” she said.

  Washington was shocked, but couldn’t stop watching.

  “ What do you want to hear?” another male voice out of camera range said.

  “ Light My Fire. Play, Light My Fire.” In a few seconds the music of The Doors played in the background and she started to sway when Jim Morrison started to sing. The combination of the cocaine and music seemed to put her into a trance.

  “ I’m going to be oh so good. You’ll see,” she said. “I’m going to fuck and suck you till you’re sore and dry and then I’ll make you beg for more.” She spread her legs and ran her hands between them. “Oh it feels so good, can’t you see,” she said in a sultry voice as she masturbated through her silk skirt. Then she moved her hands up to her breasts and massaged them.

  “ Soon you’ll each have one of these in your mouth. Think about it.” She continued the upward motion of her hands till the fingers found the button at her collar. She unbuttoned it. “One down, four to go.” She swayed with the rhythm and found the second button, her hands were shaking again as she slipped it out of the button hole. “Three to go,” she said, then she looked at the camera and pleaded. “Do we have to do this?”

  “ Just take it off and make it look good. We don’t have all day.” Kohler’s voice from off camera again.

  Her hands, shaking now, found the third button, then the fourth, then the fifth. She closed her eyes, like she was shutting out the world, and took off her blouse, dropping it at her feet. Her hands went behind her back, for the clasp, but then she dropped them to her sides and let the music rule her as she slow danced with the rhythm. She started masturbating again, moving her right hand with a frantic cadence, undulating her hips with the beat of the music.

  She continued like that till the pleasure chased away the shame. She opened her eyes, winked, reached behind her back and said. “I’ll bet you boys want to see my titties.” Then she undid the clasp and the skimpy bra sprang free. She curved her shoulders forward, shucking it off, and the bra joined the blouse on the floor at her feet. She cupped her breasts in her hands, pointing them at the camera.

  “ One for each of you.” She squeezed the nipples. “Oh, I hope your lips can make them feel this wonderful.” She tweaked the buds, pinching herself. She moaned and Washington wondered if she was hurting herself on purpose.

  She ran her hands from her breasts down to her skirt, hooked a thumb in each side, slid it down and stepped out of it. She resumed her dance clad only in sheer white panties.

  “ Come take them off me,” she said toward the camera.

  “ No. Take them off yourself. Then stand and face me and make yourself come,” the doctor ordered.

  Washington thought he saw her flush a little as she dropped the panties, but he couldn’t be sure if she was humiliated or excited. He gasped as she faced him on the screen, legs spread like she was riding a horse, masturbating. Her screams of pleasure filled the room. She wasn’t faking.

  Without realizing what he was doing, Washington slipped open the buttons on his Levi’s and stuffed his hand in his pants, stroking himself. Soft and slow, keeping perfect rhythm with the woman on the screen. And to his amazement when she screamed, “Oh my God, I’m coming,” he came, shooting hot sticky fluid over the inside of his underwear.

  “ Shit! Shit, shit!” He was immediately ashamed.

  He pulled his hand out, trying his best to keep the sticky stuff away from his Levi’s. He wiped his hand on the bed cover, unbuckled his belt and carefully eased the pants off. Then he got up and went back to the bathroom, pulling his sweatshirt off on the way. He took his soiled underwear off in the shower and scrubbed them with soap. Once he was convinced all of the telltale evidence was off the shorts, he opened the shower door and tossed them into the plastic covered wastebasket. Something else to buy tomorrow, he thought. He spent another five minutes letting the heat and steam wash away the shame and guilt he felt.

  When he finished with his second shower of the evening, he toweled off, then went naked out of the bathroom. He bent over to pick up his Levi’s as she moaned in ecstasy. He turned his head to the screen.

  Julia Monday was on her hands and knees. The Weasel on his knees behind her, fucking her from the rear. Stupid was standing at the edge of the bed. Her mouth was wrapped around his cock. Kohler must have been working the camera. The Weasel was pumping furiously and Stupid’s face was flushed red. Stupid looked like he was going to explode as she worked on him. It looked she was enjoying herself.

  Washington felt disgusted, he jabbed his right arm out, index finger extended, and turned the set off. Then he ejected the disc and got dressed. He didn’t trust himself to sleep naked tonight. He sat down on the bed and pulled on his shoes and socks. The canned beef stew hadn’t dented his appetite. His stomach was growling as he walked out the door. It was only 10:00, something should be open.

  Something was, the diner across the road. He rubbed his arms against the cold night and crossed the empty street. He didn’t notice the gray Mercedes in the parking lot. The hostess smiled shyly and asked him if he wanted smoking or nonsmoking. He said he didn’t care. Something by the window.

  It was smoking. He inhaled the tobacco fumes from the booth behind and wished he had a cigarette. He was about to raise his hand and call the waitress, when he heard the clipped German accent that followed the tobacco smoke. He hadn’t been paying attention. He wondered if they had seen him and if they had, if Kohler had recognized him.

  He saw the waitress approaching. He wished her away, but she kept coming. He wished harder. She kept coming. He buried his face in the menu, wishing she would walk on by.

  She did.

  “ Here’s the damage, thirty-four fifty,” he heard her say to Kohler’s party in the next booth. She was a middle aged woman who had probably worked the night shift for twenty years. When she saw Kohler was going to stiff her on the tip, she said, “Big spender, think you can afford it?”

  “ You’re wasting your time,” a high squeaky voice said. Washington placed the voice with the Weasel. “He’s heard it all before and he doesn’t care.” He laughed.

  “ Please, don’t bother coming back,” she said.

  “ Lady,” Kohler said, “you do your job and I’ll do mine. If you don’t like it, I can always talk to the manager.”

  “ You’re looking at her, and like I said, please don’t bother coming back.” Hugh glanced up. Her jaw was set tight. Her right
hand was balled into a fist, the knuckles white. She was rubbing the thumb against the index finger, hard, chasing the blood away. She looked like she wanted to belt Kohler. Washington figured that Kohler got that reaction from a lot of people.

  “ Then I will go to the owner,” Kohler said.

  “ You’re looking at her too. And it still goes. Don’t come back.”

  “ It’s your loss.” Kohler got up. Hugh pressed his face further in the menu as the doctor stormed by, followed by Mrs. Monday, the Weasel and Stupid.

  After they left the waitress turned to Washington. “You look like you didn’t want that asshole to see you.”

  “ You don’t miss much.”

  “ No I don’t, Hugh.” At the sound of his name he looked up into the big woman’s smile.

  “ I know you,” he said.

  “ You better, you bastard.” She broke out into a laughing smile, showing lots of teeth.

  “ Four Eyes,” he said. Now he was laughing. “You’re Susan Spencer.”

  “ I never really liked that name,” she said.

  “ And I liked Metal Mouth?” he grinned back at her.

  “ I guess I was pretty cruel to you boys, you little wimp.” She laughed.

  “ Not so little any more,” he said. “And we deserved it, always making Johnny’s big sister and her friends miserable. We really loved tormenting you guys.”

  “ And we kind of liked it. Little boys chasing after us. It was cute.” She lost her smile for a minute. “Seeing you here like this reminds me of Johnny. I haven’t thought about him in a long time. When I first heard he was killed, I blamed myself. I thought that if I’d have been a better sister, understood him more, maybe he would’ve stayed in school. It was years before I figured out it was just the times. Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and the war. He chose war. Karma. There was nothing anyone could do.”

  He saw a gecko dart across the floor and was reminded of the one he’d seen in the hospital. And the talk of a dead friend brought Walker to mind. Something wasn’t right. He hadn’t been hurt that bad. He shouldn’t have died.