by Mic Palmer
Chapter Fifty-One
“It’s Bundy,” he told himself. “It’s got to be,” but if Jack was actually going to carry out what he was planning, he had to believe it, commit to it, prepare himself to pull all stops.
Fortunately, Bundy made this easy. Going back over the years, Jack didn’t even know where to begin – such was the breadth of his transgressions.
You couldn’t even play a friendly game of cards with the guy. Whenever people were laughing or eating or in some way distracted, he’d invariably use the opportunity to peek at their cards or to take possession of a wayward chip, all shifty eyed and devious.
Then there were the showdowns where, regardless of the size of the pot, his expression would turn ferocious, even hungry, like a jackal circling an impala. He’d bet without mercy, without compunction, without reason. He wanted to maximize his gain, pound you into submission, accentuate his victory, which would have been fine in Vegas, but for a friendly game among co-workers? It was nuts.
Gomez would call him “Bullets,” after the World Series of Poker champion. The boss, however, was a bit more to the point. “Hey asshole,” he’d tell him. “How’s about keeping your eyes to yourself.”
The sad part was that he thought he was making a statement, proving something, winning over his peers. That’s what really motivated him.
The sickest example of this sort of thing was when the office took in a kitten to deal with the increasingly frequent rat sightings.
Having given up on traps and poisons, Gomez insisted that a cat was the best option, and so he obtained one from a few kids down the street from where he lived. “Nada se escapa el gato,” he declared.
Pretending to be swingers, they named the feline Marilyn, after the deceased starlet, and for a while there she was quite the celebrity.
Although just a typical alley cat, with cornflower blue eyes and brown and white fur, like most kittens, it was difficult not to like – until it started to cry that is. Sounding disturbingly like a new born baby, it was insistent and loud, and before long the men began to complain.
Eventually, they tried to give it away, but no one seemed to want it.
“It was your idea,” Bullick griped to his employee. “Can’t you take it home with you?”
“We’ve already got two,” explained Gomez, “not to mention a dog. My wife would kill me.”
Bullick appeared sympathetic. “What about you Jack?”
“I have enough trouble sleeping as it is; she’d drive me crazy.”
“She’ll grow out of it,” Gomez reassured.
“Let’s give it some time,” replied Jack. “I’m sure if we ask around, we’ll eventually find someone who wants her.”
Bullick patted Gomez on the back. “Well if nothing else, I hear they make good soup.”
“Just say when,” added Bundy, without a hint of mirth. For whatever reason, he truly seemed to despise the poor little creature. The fact that it was an unknowing animal didn’t appear to dawn on him. “I can’t work like this!” he’d shout over the cat’s incessant yowling.
Appearing early the next morning to pick up a camera, Jack looked in at the kitten. After a few hours of high pitched whining, he like the rest of his coworkers found Marilyn to be irritating. By morning, however, he looked forward to seeing her. Scratching her preternaturally soft fur and listening to her purr as she arched her back and closed her pink little eyelids actually made him feel a bit more relaxed.
On this particular day, however, she wasn’t responding, and before long he realized she was dead.
“Bundy!” he immediately thought to himself. Nevertheless, he didn’t say anything. After all what proof did he have?
Showing up a bit late, probably to give the others a chance to appreciate his handiwork, the older fellow was all smiles, as if he were proud of himself.
Jack wouldn’t even acknowledge him, “the sick bastard.”
Bundy hadn’t killed out of impulse or necessity, but out of a distorted sense of fellowship, and so his choice was purely corrupt, purely evil. He knew it was wrong, as would any reasoning creature would, yet he did it anyway, in large part because it was wrong. He did it to impress, to arouse, to live up to his warped sense of power.
Jack was dumbfounded. Could anyone really be that lost?
It was as if all of the accumulated traditions and values of humankind had been wiped from his consciousness, leaving only his ego and the raw need to distinguish himself. The man had no code, no higher calling, no boundaries. All that mattered was the image he conveyed, even while he’d often times find that it didn’t quite have the impact he expected.
Bullick was uncharacteristically emotional. “Who would do something like this?”
Gomez was more direct. “What kind of piece shit of are you?”
“Fuck you,” said Bundy. “I didn’t do shit, and by the way, did you ever think that it might have died of natural causes? It does happen you know.”
“Healthy kittens don’t just die,” shouted Gomez.
“Well then it must have been someone else, cause it sure as hell wasn’t me. Why don’t you go ask the janitor? He’s the one who has to clean up after her.”
“Oh come on,” groaned Gomez.
“What time did you get in?” Bundy asked Jack.
“Take a hike,” he responded, but now, as he sat up in bed, surveying the water stained walls of his tiny little room, the thought crossed his mind, if ever so briefly, that perhaps he had held the fragile little creature a bit too tightly.
“What am I talking about!” he immediately responded. “This whole serial killer thing has got me nuts.”
As crazy as the idea may have seemed, however, it did succeed in firming up his ever wavering sense of resolve. Now more than ever he was determined to force Bundy into a confession.
Chapter Fifty-Two
It was Tuesday, Bundy’s day off. Fortunately, his wife would be at work, but even if she wasn’t, Jack wouldn’t have cared. He couldn’t wait another minute.
Not quite 2:00 in the afternoon, Teaneck was a ghost town. The kids were in school and the adults in Manhattan, except for Bundy of course. Claiming not to need much sleep, he had probably been up since five and by now looked as though he was strung out. Subsisting on coffee and cigarettes, he was always edgy, always wired, making him quick to react and therefore dangerous.
Up the street from his house was a construction site, which served to produce the only consistent noise in the area, an incessant banging sound, like a pile driver.
“Good,” Jack thought to himself, believing that it might provide him with some cover.
Although not particularly concerned about Bundy himself, he was worried about his knife – a long serrated job with a stainless steel knuckle handle.
Every once and a while he’d sucker Gomez into playing a game called Five Finger Fillet, which involved spreading one’s hand out on a table and rapidly poking the point of the blade between outstretched fingers. Whoever managed to do this the most times within ten seconds, without nicking himself, would win a free lunch, but Gomez was at a disadvantage. Whereas Bundy possessed the elongated fingers of a pianist, Gomez had to play the game with what appeared to be thick Italian sausages.
“You bleed like a stuck pig,” Bundy would tell him. “Maybe you’ll learn next time.”
Now approaching the older man’s house, he took notice of his dated yet immaculate emerald green Impala. Fortuitously, the trunk was open and full of groceries – at least two more trips worth.
Quickly parking about a half block away, Jack raced back in hopes of sneaking in before he locked his front door.
Just a cozy little cape with yellow siding and white shutters, it wasn’t what one would expect from a serial killer, but then there was the landscaping, which from the perfectly rectangular hedges to the evenly placed flowers had all of the signs of a pathological control freak. There wasn’t an untrimmed blade of grass, a wayward leaf, or a misplaced stone on the w
hole plot.
Jumping over the white picket fence, which ran along the perimeter of the property, Jack hid behind an almost perfectly circular bush.
Up until now he had been relatively calm, almost strangely so, but when Bundy finally appeared his heart tripped all over itself; suddenly he realized that he may be confronting a brutal murderer.
The only way he was going to go through with it was to separate himself from the event, to just act and not think about it.
Having grabbed four bags, Bundy hobbled his way to the screen door, which he managed to open by balancing two of the bags on his knee.
Jack patted his pants for the pocket knife he had brought with him. “Don’t be a wuss,” he told himself.
With just two bags left, Bundy would be coming out one last time, and then the door would be locked. If Jack was going to do something, it had to be now. Thus, with a trembling hand he pulled on the screen door and walked in.
The house smelled of cleaning solution and floor wax. It was a tribute to sublimation. One could have searched the place for a week and not turned up a crumb, cobweb, or particle of dust.
Whatever was there was crisp and shiny – only there wasn’t much. The living room in fact didn’t consist of much more than an easy chair and television. There were no carpets, sofas, or coffee tables, and the shelves, walls, and bookcases were all but empty.
“There’s no woman living here,” Jack thought to himself, more confident than ever.
Down the hallway, he could see Bundy’s rather hunched back, as he compulsively sorted and stocked the groceries. Wearing a yellow windbreaker and green slacks, he alternated between humming an unintelligible tune and grumbling to himself about the cost of his purchases. Either way it was nerve racking.
Pressing on his pocket to keep his keys from rattling, Jack slowly walked down the corridor toward the kitchen, cringing with each creak of the hardwood floors.
Whether it was the interminable pounding from the pile driver, the frustratingly noisy floor, or the heavy thumping of his heart, Jack felt as if he were about to explode.
Illuminated by the light of the refrigerator, Bundy appeared sallow, even sickly. His expression was of stoic resignation. After years of bitter disappointment he had learned to be numb.
“What?” Bundy grumbled, causing Jack to stop cold in his tracks. He appeared angry or annoyed, as if he had forgotten something. Rummaging through the bags, he eventually came across a rather cheap candy bar. Suddenly overcome with the urge for something sweet, he gently tore open the wrapper, bit into it, and then placed the remainder in the freezer.
“One bite?” Jack reflected. “Clearly, he’s insane.”
Now reaching for the shelves above the refrigerator, Bundy’s jacket came up, revealing a well polished black leather sheath. Just as always it contained the eight inch combat knife.
In Jack’s initial conception of things, he was simply going to strike him over the head with a brick or wine bottle, but this wasn’t a movie. A blow like that could very well prove deadly, and the truth was he wasn’t quite sure he had his man.
His plan therefore was to catch him off guard. With his own knife already out, he’d tell Bundy to lie on his stomach so that he could tie him up.
Between the incessant pounding from the construction site and the wheezing of his hyperventilating lungs, Jack could barely think. The unnerving din enveloped him, weighed him down, entangled him, until finally he felt as if he was frozen in place.
“Keep moving!” he urged, but with each progressive step, he felt more vulnerable, more naked.
While mentally rehearsing the words, “drop the fucking knife or I’ll cut your heart out,” Jack crept up on him.
Just then Bundy had begun to turn around.
“Now!” Jack thought to himself, but instead of saying what he had practiced, he found himself landing a left uppercut to the older man’s gut.
Bundy collapsed in a heap. “Son of a bitch,” he shouted.
Displaying the knife, Jack instructed him to roll over onto his stomach, but before he could even appreciate how smoothly things were going, he felt a stinging pain to his groin, just inches from his testicles.
“Another fucking dog?” Jack grimaced.
Old but game, the huge black and beige German Shepherd nipped at Jack’s inseam. Kicking it as hard as he could in the rib cage, he was surprised to see it collapse onto its side. Nevertheless, it had given Bundy the chance to go for his weapon.
Leaping onto the older man’s back as he stretched for his knife, Jack felt as though he was hovering above the room, watching it all as it slowly unfolded. Oddly relaxed, he for some reason noticed the cuckoo clock on the wall. Built in the manner of Swiss Chalet, it contained a fat man drinking a beer and a buxom waitress holding a pitcher. “I wonder if it works,” he thought to himself, but then, almost at his leisure, he decided he had better get back to the fight, and none too soon.
With Bundy’s hand just centimeters from the weapon and the dog clamping down onto his calf, Jack poked the blade of his knife against the older man’s neck. “Let up of or I’ll slit your throat – and call off the dog!”
At this point Jack’s leg felt like a tenderized piece of meat, but the pain was compartmentalized, leaving his mind unaffected.
Bundy paused for a moment, his yellow green eyes wide with machinations. “RINGO, STOP,” he finally shouted, and with that it was over.
Putting its head down, the Alsatian sulked its way to the enclosed porch, set itself down on a blanket, and stared back at its master, with a look of both perplexity and sadness.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“You taught him well,” announced Jack, as he taped Bundy’s hands behind his back.
“Are you going to kill me?”
Jack shut the door to the porch. “That depends.”
Having been helped to his feet and positioned in a chair, Bundy was defiant. “I always knew there was something not right about you.”
“I know; I saw you on television.”
“What the hell happened to your hair?”
“It’s the newest thing. What do ya think?”
“You look like a fuck’n asshole.”
“You’re just full of compliments, aren’t you?”
Emboldened by Jack’s sarcasm, Bundy went on. “Always alone, always tired, wasting all your time with those silly pictures – now it all makes sense.”
“You’re good,” growled Jack, as he jabbed the knife into the older man’s stomach.
“What do you want?” said Bundy, his voice deep and scratchy.
“It’s funny,” responded Jack. “I’m supposed to be this terrible serial killer, but you don’t seem particularly afraid.”
“I know I’m as good as dead. I’d rather not give you the satisfaction.”
“Shit,” Jack thought to himself. Clearly, he’d have to take it up a notch. “Ok, you asked for it.”
“Fuck you.”
Slapping his former associate across the cheek with the back of his hand, he asked him where his wife was.
“She’s out.”
“Did you kill her?”
“What are you crazy?”
Yet again Jack punched Bundy in the stomach, causing him to vomit.
“You want more?”
“She moved out,” Bundy grumbled.
“You mean she left you?”
“That’s right, ya happy?”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
“Why should I believe you?’
Bundy appeared annoyed. “Look at the place, for Christ sake.”
“Where’s she staying?”
One could almost sense the surge of bile. “What the hell’s the difference?”
“I want to make sure you’re not lying.”
“Well she’s gone. That’s it. I don’t know where she is.”
“After twenty years, she just left – why?”
“She didn’t say.”
/> Jack cocked his fist. “Am I going to have to hit you again?”
“She hated me, ok? She said I was ignorant, didn’t listen, drank too much, smoked too much, was too selfish. Same old shit. What do you want me to tell you?”
Behaving as if he had nothing to worry about, Bundy only reinforced Jack’s suspicions. “You think I’m stupid?” he responded, and then, without even realizing what he was doing, he again found himself punching his former co-worker in the belly. “What did you do with her!”
Writhing in pain, Bundy coughed up blood. “I got a fuck’n ulcer,” he told Jack, as if he expected him to sympathize.
“An ulcer.” repeated Jack. “That’s too bad, but maybe I can help, because in about two seconds I’m gonna cut your guts out.”
Bundy was now the victim and played the role to a tee. “It burns,” he cried. “You don’t know.”
Jack jabbed the pocket knife against his abdomen. “You think it burns now? Wait a couple of seconds.”
“Alright,” he griped. “You want to know the truth.” Averting his eyes, he spoke in a manner both angry and embarrassed. “There were problems in the bedroom, ok?”
“No, convince me.”
“I couldn’t do it, alright? I’m not a well man. What the hell do you want me to say? Between that and all the other shit, she left.”
Having grown tired of threatening the man, but still believing he was being played, Jack tried a different tact. “That mutt of yours, I bet you’ve had him for a long time.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“Have you seen my leg?”
“Please. He was just protecting me.”
“I didn’t realize you were such an animal lover.”
“Leave him alone. I’m asking you nice.”
Jack grabbed Bundy by the hair and placed the blade against his carotid. “What about the cat, huh? How much did you love her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I don’t get a truthful answer in two seconds, there’s no point in my keeping you alive. One…”