by Daniel Jeudy
Callahan claimed he’d used the money square his outstanding gambling debts, then he pleaded for an extension, promising to come up with a more lucrative outcome. The situation confirmed there were no limits to the foolishness of some folk. Narek likened it to a person charging toward an incoming tornado with an umbrella in hand.
So, now the mick fuck needed to be dealt with. It wouldn’t be clean with a slug to the back of the head, either—not after the way he’d insulted the boss. Besides, the asshole deserved what was coming after agreeing to hand his wife over to a bunch of Mexicans. If a man wanted fast money, then all he had to do was buy a shooter and steal it from someone else. Narek was going to enjoy spreading the pain load around his body.
The boss expected Callahan to be gutted like a hog and left on the driveway so his wife could observe his disgrace. Should Davit ever happen to toss a person his leftover bone, they best be grabbing it with both their hands, then burying it someplace where nobody would ever find it.
Narek watched grease dribbling down Bedros’s chin and quickly turned away, unable to escape the harsh sound of his chewing.
“Can you try to eat a little quieter?”
Bedros grinned with meat-flecked teeth.
At least he wasn’t talking Narek’s ear off; there was nothing worse than being stuck in a car with someone who babbled on about everything they’d been doing for the past week.
Both men stiffened when a black SUV came up the street, watching as the vehicle slowed before turning into Callahan’s driveway. Bedros wiped the grease from his hands on his trousers and quickly opened the door.
“Come on, let’s go kill this chent,” he said, pulling a ski mask over his face.
Narek gripped the handle of his blade as he entered the killing void, readying himself to unleash some Armenian justice.
“Make sure you take him from behind,” he instructed as he stepped into the sunshine.
I’m gonna carve him up real nice.
Narek intended to extract every dime from Callahan’s body, and he didn’t have the responsibility of cutting the chent into pieces when they completed the job. They still needed to take a drive over to Watts and kick the color out of some African gang banger later tonight, so it was going to be an asshole of a day.
The sound of Jamie Callahan’s car door set them into motion like a pair of hungry lions tracking prey. Narek smiled hatefully beneath his mask and fell in behind his partner as they made their way across the peaceful suburban street.
Nine
Late afternoon shadows crept across Sean Brody’s front porch as he looked out at the suburban street in Melrose Hill. The familiar smell of summer floated through the air—a fragrance he once found soothing. His colonial bungalow was positioned on a leafy, oak-lined street in the neighborhood’s historical zone. The simple front garden featured a hedged lawn and wooden planter boxes that ran adjacent to the driveway. Sean was dressed in short pants and a white LAPD shirt while he reclined in a chair with wide armrests, feeling like two halves of the same person—one alive and spirited, the other dead and weighty.
There was nothing remarkable about his physical appearance to leave a lasting impression inside a stranger’s mind, except perhaps his eyes. They were pale blue and contained a glassy coldness that contradicted the innocence of his face. Sean’s sandy hair, sun-freckled skin, and average height just didn’t stand out in a crowd. Though not handsome in a traditional way, women would often become attracted to him over time, drawn by his character’s quiet intensity. His mother told him he’d come into the world composed, and maybe that’s why he was so accomplished at killing dangerous people.
The details of his last shooting were becoming hazier by the day. Like a scene from a movie, he’d watched while intoxicated on the sofa. Sean frowned as he tried to recall Mario Bocelli’s face after he fired the first bullet into him. He could remember laughing while the fat asshole pleaded for mercy and the way his hands groped at the air in search of something to catch onto, but everything else was clouded and fuzzy.
Each execution had numbed his inner torment for a brief period, exchanging antipathy for a fragile stillness that enabled him to get through the next few months. However, the disgust never failed to return, as if committed to infecting the base of his soul. Sean embraced this inconvenience without much bother, and it simplified certain things that might otherwise be perplexing. He’d already chosen his next target—handpicked the piece of shit right off the LA court records before commencing his research.
Sean removed a fresh beer from the portable cooler beside him, watching as two kids raced each other up the sidewalk on pushbikes. He raised his can to the sky, thinking of no one in particular. “To serve and protect,” he mumbled while undoing another button on his shirt. It seemed like a lifetime since he last enjoyed anything normal. Sports no longer made much sense, and reading a book only left him feeling irritable. Even sex was tedious, because he was often unable to get himself out of first gear. At least the rage kept half of him alive. His hatred was set in stone, hard-won inside the trenches of a city brimming with human filth.
The stench of reprobates and scumbags seeped from the cracks of just about every zone in Los Angeles. Worthless murderers resided in almost every neighborhood around the county—corrupting suburbs with the secrets they concealed in their hearts. Killing such people made Sean’s universe smell sweet for a while. Hell, for a few days, it made the godforsaken city smell good enough to eat.
His parents raised him to understand it was always best to withhold judgment whenever possible, a tenet he’d attempted to follow until his partner was senselessly gunned down three years earlier. Nowadays, his attitude was stuff ’em all. Retribution was the best game in town, and he came packing a dirty big Ruger that knew nothing about grace.
When the sun moved behind some clouds, it sucked the color out of the world for a few seconds. The front garden appeared gray as if it were reflecting his current mood. Sean tried thinking of happier times devoid of tragedy and violence, but it was useless. Loathing was now part of his DNA, and it guided him through the gutters of the people he hunted.
When Sean first learned of the young women dumped in the Hollywood Hills, he began toying with the notion of abducting his victims. He’d imagined all kinds of ways to make a criminal suffer but didn’t want to start deviating from his course. It was too risky, and cops don’t usually cope well inside a prison. Besides, why would he begin chasing an abstraction when everything was ticking over like a Swiss clock? He was going to take a drive out to Glendale tomorrow night in the hope of getting up close to his next target. He wanted to look into Narek Avakian’s face and feel the man’s arrogance up close. Smell his aftershave and hear his voice.
Sean thought back to the day he graduated from Elysian Park Academy. He remembered the pride in his father’s eyes, his mother’s gentle smile, and how they snapped enthusiastically on their cameras to capture the moment for all Sean’s relatives; however, it was like he had lifted the details from somebody else’s life.
A desire to help people inspired him to become a cop. Sean had genuinely believed he could make this cancer of a city a safer place—the irony of it all. What a chump he’d been, holding onto such unattainable ideals. The closest he came to fulfilling those ambitions was blasting a handful of crooked assholes off the face of the earth. Now he stood at the center of a paradigm that divided law enforcement and criminality with an untraceable pistol in his hand.
A green Nissan pulled into the driveway next door, and he watched as the married Rachel Munroe waved at him with a flirtatious smile. She performed this bullshit whenever they happened to cross paths. Her blond hair was in a ponytail, and she was dressed in tight shorts and a little pink tank top to highlight the fake tits her husband had provided.
“How are you, handsome?” she called in an inviting, kittenish tone.
Fuck off! “Same as always, thanks, Rachel,” he replied. It was a token attempt at congeniality on his b
ehalf, but it still left him feeling dirty.
“You really must come for dinner soon, or I might start thinking you don’t like me. Wait a minute … is that why you keep declining my cooking, Sean—because you don’t like me? I don’t think I could deal with such a scenario.”
Sean looked away as Rachel leaned into the car by raising her butt in the air.
“How’s Greg?” he asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Rachel snickered.
“As boring and predictable as always. It’s enough to cause a woman’s mind to begin swirling with all kinds of naughty thoughts. You know what I mean?”
Greg was a pompous little prick, but that didn’t make it right for a man to start fucking his wife. Rachel should just leave and find somebody else instead of bleeding him dry for new tits, plump lips, and liposuction. He ignored the question.
“Anyway, the offer is there, honey. All you need to do is take me up on it whenever you’re feeling in the mood. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.”
Rachel winked seductively as she began making her way to the front door of her house with swaying hips and two bags of shopping. Sean took another pull on his beer, thinking how even the law-abiding citizens could be real fuckin’ assholes in LA.
Ten
The room was pitched in a blackness that ran deeper than night, and a flawless silence made Jennifer feel as though she was detained inside an anechoic chamber. Her breathing sounded rushed, and there was harried desperation to the way her lungs searched for air. The reek of stale urine occupied her nose while the scent of congealed blood remained lodged at the back of her throat. Jennifer’s sobbing was persistent and heart-wrenching, as it spilled out from every fiber of her being. Her soul crushed beneath the conclusive nature of what was to come. As she lay in the darkness, Jennifer thought back to when she first awoke inside the cage after being abducted from the parking station on Sunset Boulevard.
“Shhhh, it’s okay,” Katherine assured in a half-hearted whisper.
“Where am I?” Jennifer shrieked, rattling her handcuff against the steel cage. “What the hell is going on? Who are you?” Her head pounded with unrelenting pain.
“My name is Katherine Schneider, and I’m not sure what this is all about. I’m caged here as well. I was set upon while hiking in Griffith Park on Monday afternoon.”
Jennifer had been feeling untroubled and happy after completing her yoga class on Tuesday morning, emotions that suddenly seemed utterly foreign to her as if they belonged to someone she’d hardly known. Her mind swirled in frightened confusion, nothing about this situation made any sense.
“I think the asshole who kidnapped us is after a ransom,” Katherine uttered.
Jennifer gradually calmed, though not much. “Why do you think that?” she asked.
“Well, he hasn’t tried to rape me for a start. He’s provided a comfy pillow, drinking water, and a bowl of spaghetti. Then there’s the fact my father happens to be extremely wealthy. I’m guessing your folks aren’t short on money, either.”
“No, not really … they’re upper middle class.”
“Well, there you go. I’m sure everything will turn out okay. I just know it will—my intuition has never failed me in the past. What’s your name?”
“I’m Jennifer … Jennifer Hill.”
As the girls talked over the next few hours, they shared a lot about themselves, quickly establishing a bond that created a sense they had been friends their entire lives.
“When we eventually get out of this freaky shit show, you’ll have to come over to my place for dinner and drinks,” Katherine suggested. “We can discuss our ordeal and celebrate arriving home in one piece. Angie is a fantastic cook. It’s another reason why I love her so much. She’s also hilarious. I think she could make just about anyone smile.”
There was a vitality to Katherine that resisted the hopelessness of their position. A liveliness Jennifer was never going to jump on board with.
“You should eat something,” Katherine encouraged.
“The thought of food makes me queasy right now. Maybe later.”
“I’ve had a few mouthfuls … it’s not too bad. I think whatever drug he used to knock us out with must have suppressed our appetites. Hopefully, this nightmare gets resolved soon. It already feels like I’ve been stuck in the dark here for an age.”
Jennifer understood precisely where she was coming from because time felt so subjective. Each second was like an eternity, yet an hour might pass in the twinkling of an eye. It was as if they were under the meter of an inter-dimensional clock, which compressed everything into a ball one moment, only to stretch out the edge of forever the next. There was little relief from the simmering psychological torment.
“How long have you and Angie been together?”
“We started dating in 2016 when I arrived from New York. I met her at a party in the Hollywood Hills. At the house where I modeled for the art class before being abducted from Griffith Park. Angie is like the opposite to me in almost every way. That’s why we blend so well together. She rarely misses a day of work, hardly ever drinks, and wouldn’t dream of taking drugs. Me, on the other hand …”
Jennifer forced a laugh.
“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Katherine asked.
“The last two guys I dated turned out to be assholes. When I broke it off with Damien last year, I decided that I needed to have a season or two in my own company. It turns out single life is a whole lot more fun than I was expecting. I get to go wherever I want, dress however I feel, and there are never any arguments about what show to watch on Netflix.”
Katherine giggled. “Men are assholes: full stop. Some of the gay guys I know give a whole new meaning to the term bitchiness. Angie calls it the curse of having a set of balls.”
Jennifer smiled, momentarily forgetting that she was being held against her will.
“Damien was the most self-absorbed person I have ever come across. He was fine so long as everyone’s attention revolved around him and what he liked talking about. I don’t know what I saw in him, to be honest. He didn’t even have a sense of humor.”
“I’m guessing Damien was easy on the eyes.”
“Oh yeah, but there was nothing below the surface of his skin.”
The girls shielded their eyes as a burst of light came through an opening door; they were unable to make out anything beyond the sudden brightness. When her vision adjusted, Jennifer recognized the man who had “accidentally” smashed his case into the back of her car a few days earlier. The guy insisted on exchanging personal details so he could reimburse her for the damage. She watched in a state of panic as he walked across to Katherine’s cage and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pressing a cloth down over her face while she flailed hopelessly in futile resistance.
When Katherine’s body stilled, he smiled at Jennifer through crooked lips and shuffled his way toward her cage. She attempted to snatch the rag from his hand as it came through the hole beside her head, screaming and crying, pleading for him to stop. Jennifer felt a sting in her eyes and fire in her nostrils. Then her mind drifted away into a heavy black void of emptiness. If only she could have remained there.
When Jennifer regained consciousness, her brain drifted amid a sea of fuzz, and the room was stooped and twisted out of focus. Everything appeared to have been crafted with unnatural curves, seemingly rising out of a liquefied floor. The surrounding area had become spectral shadow with boarded windows and flickering light—photographs of disfigured corpses covered much of the walls, removing all hope of a happy homecoming. A sickening euphoric giddiness gripped Jennifer’s mind, and she felt like a rubber doll, no longer the person she’d always understood. The monster had secured her limbs to a thick wooden chair as Katherine struggled at the center of a goat’s-head pentagram on the floor, splayed like a suckling pig.
“Please stop this,” Katherine pleaded, her words sounding slurred, barely decipherable through pale pink lips. “My father has lots
of money; he’ll pay whatever you want.”
Candles burned on the five points of the circle, and Jennifer knew something unspeakable was about to occur. The psychopath represented evil in its purest form, applying himself in a manner to suggest he’d been imposing this kind of torment for many years. An oily sheen covered his pallid white skin, and the veins in his arms protruded like long purple worms. There was a foulness to the ether around his body as though his impression was tainting the air itself. The muscles on his arms rippled in a molten way, while his callous eyes resembled two black marbles with nothing human inside them. They peeled back her thoughts and piled her in horror like a layer cake of concealed nightmares.
Katherine’s shrieks were unbearable as the psycho pressed a burning iron onto her left breast, singing a nursery rhyme while stroking her face. He smiled at Jennifer, dancing around the room with a bone saw in his hand before taking up a position by the pentagram. Katherine bucked like a prairie horse as he began cutting through her wrist with slow, purposeful motions. The corroded metal stench in the air caused Jennifer to vomit. It was so hard to breathe … then her bladder failed, and the warmth in her tights increased her confusion. His drug gorged upon her senses to make everything distorted, producing powerful waves of synthetic bliss and an erratic form of peace, ramming a toxic mix of ecstasy down her throat while she sat front row as Katherine was hacked up alive.
Jennifer shook her head violently to throw the recollection from her mind, drawing her thoughts back into the here and now. Her mouth was cardboard, and she reached for the bottle of water inside the cage. Gooseflesh crept down the skin on her arms as rivulets of sweat stung her vision. Her body cooked in fever as the air tickled her nostrils, each breath making her want to sneeze. There was a bowl of spaghetti by her side, but she would never even consider eating it. She’d watched him lick Katherine’s blood off his fingers like chocolate sauce. Jennifer wriggled over to where her wrist was cuffed and twisted her body to alleviate the sharp pain in her arm. She examined the restraint for a weakness, for a way to break free of its hold. It was funny, though not in a laughing manner, that despite her knowing escape was futile, she continued revisiting the possibility.