The Perfect Woman

by Abundis, Jesse

  Chapter 47

  STRANGER IN THE NIGHT

  She was smiling, happy, at peace, one with the world. It was a satisfying feeling for Karen, the aches and pains vanished in a mere blink of an eye, a gift from God perhaps, only he and his magic fairy dust could pull off such a miracle. She wonder if she could get him to knock down the giant oak tree that was outside her window, the dead bodies were beginning to smell and ruin the moment.

  She was in her bathtub soaking in thick human blood, which was a great remedy to fight aging, though she wasn’t sure who had said that, but she could fondly remember someone recommending that to her.

  Her butler was a man wearing a rabbit mask, standing beside her, fanning her with the skin of a fresh dead corpse, to keep the heat and flies away. “ Whose skin is that?” She asked him.

  “ Your dear friend Peewee.” His voice alternated from male, woman to child. “ That’s his blood you’re bathing in.” Karen opened her mouth to scream from the horror, only to have body parts hurl from her mouth like vomit. First came the eyes, then the liver, groin, legs, fingers and huge string of intestine that was tugging along, nestle deep her own gut. “ Now, madam, if you don’t chew your food properly you’ll never be able to grow big and strong.” Her butler insisted to her, as she was yanking intestine out from her throat, but it seemed endless. The body parts swam in the blood, like pieces of chicken in soup, she thrashed in the blood, knowing the meat she was tasting was from her friend. “ Stop…“ She managed to say through the carnage. “ Please, not him.” She eyed the Masked man who patted her back.

  “ My dear, lady, this is all you. You killed him.” He said laughing hysterically. “ I saw you eat every bit of him, with a giant smile!” The bath began to bubble, she could see the hollowed out eyes of Peewee staring at him as his head poked from under the blood.

  The image alone was enough to awaken Karen from the nightmare, her eyes opened to see a stranger standing near her bedside, looking at the photos on her wall. “ Nightmare?” He asked.

  Karen jumped back, she wondered if she was still dreaming. The intruder was a tall man with thick rim glasses, who wore an old beaten gray dusk jacket. “ Who the hell are you ?” She said to him, while inching closer for the bat she hid under her bed for such occasions.

  “ Nice collection of photos. “ He said, a bit puzzled what they all meant. He comb through his thin receding hairline as he step away from the bed. “ Karen Chernetsky, “ He wagged his finger at her. “ Out of all the names you used in the past, Angie Dillion, Linda Brooks, of course my favorite Lois Lane.” He tip his hat off to her for the comic book reference. “ who would have thought you’d use the one name, that was so obvious, we'd miss. I mean using your real first name and your mother’s Maiden name, that’s a rookie style move, but maybe you got cocky, right? I mean you dodged the best before, what's the odds they'd look for you under that, Fucking amazing. I’m sure your father is heart broken.”

  Karen’s body eased up and backed away from the bat. “ Not a lot of people know that about me,” She said to him. “ Who are you ?” She asked once more, with a colder and more demanding tone.

  “ An old friend of yours, “ He tug on his chin, like a bad comedian getting ready to tell a God awful joke. “ Ryan Moser.” The name sunk into Karen's chest, it must have hit her hard, because her stranger in the night was grinning with joy at her reaction. “ You remember him, don’t you?”

  “ Yes, “ She swallowed deeply. “ that’s how I know he didn’t send you.”

  “ Right, what did happen to Ryan Moser?” He stood against her bedroom doorway, waiting for her to explain it. “ Because for the likes of me, I can’t remember.” He thump his hand against his head.

  Karen let her hand slowly reach down for the bat. “ He died, long time ago.” She said to him.

  “ That’s right, “ He snapped his fingers as though everything was coming back to him. “ A strange fire lit up in the middle of the night, he was asleep, and the fire just swallowed him whole. But, he wasn’t the only victim.“

  “ That’s right.” She nodded playfully, as she grasp the wooden bat, she smiled her perfect white teeth at him, wanting the smug bastard to yammer on, she wanted to prepare herself for the beating he was about to receive.

  “ Yeah, “ He took off his glasses to clean them with a handkerchief he kept in his pocket. “ Accidental fire, that’s what they called it, wait, you were caught up in the fire too?”

  Karen tilted her head in confusion. “ What ?”

  “ That’s right, you were caught up in the fire too. In fact, you were the only one to make it out alive. They found you crying, telling people that they needed to go back in and rescue Ryan, such a good convincing act of course.” He placed his glasses back on. “ You had everyone in that town fooled, but not the Moser family, they knew for a fact you started that fire. They knew you killed their baby boy.”

  Karen gripped the wooden bat harder. “ I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “ For such an innocent girl, you do run away like you’re guilty. Of course, you have your parents to thank for that, don’t you.” He took a deep sigh. “ Did you really believe you could run for the rest of your life, did you?”

  “ I ran because the Moser’s weren’t in their right mind.” She shouted at him.

  “ Does that friend of yours know who you are, what’s his name,” He reached into his pocket to retrieve his notebook. “ Peewee, does he knew what you really are?”

  “ He’s never asked, and he’ll never know.” Karen voice darkened.

  “ It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell kinda policy with you isn’t it?” He flashed that goofy looking smile at her again, lighting a fire into that demon of Karen’s. “ Everyone I spoke to said the more they poked into knowing what you were, the more you pulled away. Make sense why you’re always running, you’ve been here in N.Y for now what, three years, you must have found a place you can really call your own, friends or at least a friend that you can call your own.” He chuckled. “ How pathetic and sad.”

  “ You don’t know a God damn thing about me.” Karen bitterly said.

  “ That’s where you’re wrong, I know you all too well. Maybe even better then you know yourself.“ He took a step back, fading into the shadows. “ Well, I better leave now, before you think of smashing my skull in with that bat of yours.” He laughed as he vanished deeper into the shadows. “ We’ll talk again, real soon.”

  Karen threw the bat at the shadows, but knew he was gone. Silenced dawned, she hung her head down, clawing her nails into her thighs, knowing all those years she tried to repressed and keep buried as deep below as they could, had finally had caught up. There was no running from what she was or who she was. “ Ryan…” She let his name escape her mouth after so many years.

  Chapter 48

  DEATH TO THE MORNING SUN

  The sun shining brightly, birds chirping, children laughing, old folks holding hands with their loved ones, It was a hallmark moment and how Klecko wanted to murder this day so badly.

  Inside the precinct was no different, cops all yammering about their day, eating doughnut after doughnut, the circle of sad cliches had been fulfilled. All of it was sending him off the rails, he couldn’t help but wonder, if these were the signs of withdraw? Adding a new element into his body was always a risk. It had been forty-eight hours past since his first kill, was this sensitivity all due to the need of another kill that was clawing inside his skin, would one more drop of blood be the pill to ease his mind? He tried not to think about it, he knew he had to be stronger, there was too much heat around to dare something so bold as the last time.

  The only person in the room that seem to share his hatred for this day was Rita Vazquez. She spent the past twenty-four hours retracing Denise footsteps before her murder, grilling people in the interrogation room, calling in leads and favors hoping to turn up something, sadly all of them lead to a dead end. “ hijo de puta! “ Rita said slamming her fist on Klecko’s des
k, walking into his office unannounced, that was one thing he always picked up on her, she lacked common courtesy. How that annoyed the living hell out of him.

  “ Having a rough day, detective.” Klecko tried to sound as sympathetic as he could, only to have the words come out like dry ice.

  “ Rough isn’t the fucking way I‘d describe this ass raping of a God damn day.“ Rita chewed on her lip before trying to speak another word, she always had the habit of cursing when she was in the office, she tried to keep it as minimum as could be, even though many dropped the F bomb like it was a second language in the office. Even as a child, she was used to hearing a bad word slip out in each sentence, if you didn‘t, it just seemed down right wrong. “ I’ve hauled in person after person, grilled the--” She stopped herself. “ Leaving Christ out of them, but they claim Pardo had nothing to do with the murder.” She began to tap her red painted fingers nails on his desk, which was making Klecko upset, he was never easy to agitate, but a part of him wanted to tie her down and rip those annoying red nails off her, just to hear her apologize for causing him such discomfort. “ truth is, they’re all too chicken shit to rat him out.” She slammed her fist once more on the desk, throwing formality out the window.

  Klecko stared at her dazed for a few seconds before answering. “ Yeah, well, Pardo has a lot of people scared shitless. He’s the fucking king pin of N.Y, people answer to him and people end up dead because of him, they’re not going to give him up to a cop.” Klecko said to her. “ Word to the wise, if you’re going to curse, just do it, you’re a God damn fucking cop, save the polite shit when you get called into court.”

  “ Yes, sir.” Rita smiled at him. “ I’ll remember that.”

  “ You got a long way to go, kid.” Klecko pretend to go over his work load, anything to make Rita leave.

  “ You know a lot about me, sir?” She asked him, tapping her fingers nails louder on the table.

  “ Not much,” sort of a half truth to what he had said, he didn’t know the whole story of her cases, childhood, but he knew enough to know what he was dealing with. Rita Vazquez was in Vice, worked as a beat cop for four years, rose to the ranks quicker than anyone had seen, it helped to have a father who had made it to the ranks of Lieutenant with Homicide, greasing the hands of many well connected people up in the food chain, until he was gun down by some cracked head, leaving his only daughter to keep his legacy alive. If anything, Klecko could see Rita as her lesser, she didn’t earn her stripes as he did, she coat tailed on her father’s legacy, nothing more. “ Anything I should know?” He plastered his fake grin.

  “ I’m a damn good cop, I won’t give up, no matter what.” He tried his best not to laugh in her face, if she was a good as she said , then it would be clear that the murder of her C.I was standing right in front of her.

  “ I’m glad to know that.” Klecko went back to shoveling his papers.

  “ How do you do it?” Rita caught him off guard with the question. “ How do you manage to come in here day after day, putting people behind bars and see those fucking snakes walk out on a technicality.”

  “ How would I know, I’m just like them, I took a knife and I rammed into your C.I heart ?” Klecko thought to himself. It took him sometime to notice that he was sitting behind his chair all zombie like, with Rita waiting for him to talk. “ It’s our job detective, we took an oath to uphold the law,” Klecko couldn’t help notice how corny the words sounded coming from him, maybe in another time those words would shine with truth ,but he pressed on. “ justice isn’t fair, but we knew that before we got into this line of work.”

  “ You’re telling me for a second, you wouldn’t want to cross the line and just put a bullet between the eyes of someone like Pardo?”

  He wasn’t sure if she was testing his loyalty or was just looking for someone to share her dark secret for vigilante justice. Either way, he needed to play the part of good old detective Brian Klecko, the man that did things by the book, to avoid any suspicion of course. “ No, never.” He said, trying to sound upset at the notion.

  “ It’d save us a lot of paper work.” She gave him a playful little wink.

  “ That’s what makes us different from them. We stay on the moral path,” He had to hold it together, to keep himself from breaking into laughter. “ showing the good people of N.Y that we’re better than them. Even if it is a pain in the ass.” He winked back at her. It was the best he could do, the old Romeo just wasn‘t in him.

  “ I admire you detective, you and your golden rules. It’s what makes you unique.” She straighten herself up. “ I’m glad to have you on my side.” There was something else she wanted to spit out, another kind word or two, though she seemed to debate it in her mind whether to say it or not. “ hope this doesn’t freak you out,” The long pause before a confession.” I’m a fan of yours.”

  Klecko smirked, his record did earn him some respect wherever he went, stories how the young detective brought in some of the most notorious people this world had seen. Some wonder why he never made the jump to the feds, honestly it didn’t interest him. Apart of him wonder if being a cop interested him at all, was it knowing that he’d be able to study the deranged that lured him to this job, see their work of art displayed for him to see, teaching that young beat cop, feeding his dark desire until it was ready to come out, what an interesting hypothesis he had ran into, one that would need to be dissected a later time. “ Surely, there’s someone else in this world that could earn your admiration.” He pleasantly said to her. “ I just put sickos away. That’s all, anyone can do it.”

  “ I’d kindly disagree, sir. You don’t play politics like a lot of people I know, you focus on one thing and that’s the job. Frankly, I want to learn everything I can from you when I‘m here, I think you can teach me a few things.”

  A killer training a cop, how he found that humorous in it’s own. “ I’ll do my best.” Klecko decided to change gears, all this budding up was making him feel uneasy. “ How are things going at vice? “ He asked, only to have her wrench her face in a way that could only be describe as, shit has hit the fan. “ That bad?”

  “ Getting some cold shoulders, people not buying the cover story, but they don’t have the balls to say it.”

  She had the look of someone looking for guidance, just simple moral to boost her outlook on everything. Which meant Klecko would to have muster up some sort of pep talk to ease her burden. “ Don’t worry, Detective. Cops have a fragile ego, but once you come back with results, this will go away, you just have to weather the storm and keep moving ahead.”

  That was enough to pull her out of the dark circle she was in. “ Thank you, sir.” She said with a hint of a girlish smile underneath that rough looking face.

  “ No problem.” He mustered another polite smile. Rita reminded him a bit like Harkness, only with boobs. People too narrow minded to really understand what this job could do to you, and how cold it could be. But, he needed to keep her on his side if or when Pardo decided to push back. “ We should get back to work, a lot ahead of us.”

  Rita patted her pockets looking for something. “ Shit,” She blurted out. “ I left my phone in the car, can I use your cell real quick to make a phone call.”

  “ Sure,” Klecko reached into his right pocket, to retrieve his phone. Only to pull out the hello kitty phone, his guardian had left him. He decided to bring it with him to work, in case if his watchful angel decided to give him a call.

  “ What the hell ?” Rita giggled, looking at the pink phone. “ Is that your phone ?”

  His heart thunder with panic, he could feel the blood rush to his head. He felt as though everything was over, caught red handed. Relax, she doesn’t know anything, Klecko’s inner voice screamed at him. Make up some bullshit story and move on. “ This isn’t my phone, “ He chuckled. “ My girlfriend has a phone like this as well, and she thought it would be cute if we had our own special phone to talk to each other.” He wondered if being caught was better than
saying that stupid ridiculous story.

  “ Wow, you are. “ Rita made a whipping sound. “ Sorry, I gotta call them like I see it.”

  He couldn’t help but blow a sigh of relief. “ What can I say. “ He shrugged his shoulders, putting the cell back into his pocket. Retrieving his actual phone and handing it to her. “ Here you go.”

  “ It won’t take long.” She promised him, as she walked outside his office to make the call. “Hey, it’s me, tell me what you got.”

  Klecko gave a good shake to his head. “ Get it together.” He whispered to himself, knowing that little slip up could have gone much worst. He sat back in his chair, watching as Rita carried on her conversation, taking a moment to breathe, trying to collect himself, trying to find strength to make it through this day, only to find there was none at all. “ Fuck this day.”

  Chapter 49

  UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEX OF KAREN

  “ Another day, alone, feel like the walls are closing on me, is this how life was suppose to go or I am the only one to suffer a life so blue, sometimes I wonder if there‘s anything worth living, to much despair, to much madness, no force to hold my broken body together.” For a moment Karen would have believed she wrote those words herself, not Cindy Hall. “ I’m just an emotional retard, if my pain was never caused, would I still be the same or would I be beautiful?” She held her heart at those last words, connecting with her pain. “ I know I’m dead, I’m just waiting for someone to bring me back to life.”

  Peewee stopped himself from reading more, he needed to breathe, for the past days this was the only book he had read, hoping to find something to aid their case, instead he was given a view into one girl’s broken world, with each word he was being dragged into a dark emotional state. “ Fuck, why couldn’t she write something about getting off, lighten up the God damn mood, books that have that clever little punch line to break the tension, those are the keepers.” He said to Karen as he sat on the floor right beside, as she was laid out on the couch, listening to him translate the notebook.