Jacob opened the cap.
Logan’s cell phone rang.
“Hurry up, Jakey.” The blare of an electronic bell drowned out what Logan said next. “Goddamn it.” He pointed at Jacob. “You stay right there.” Logan turned away. “Yeah, I’m here.” He glanced at Jacob. “Now? That’ll take hours.” He clenched a fist. “Yeah, I’ll be there in fifteen.” Logan stormed toward the door. “Yes, I’ll be there. Fuck.”
Mike loomed over Jacob.
“Let’s go. I want to get back before midnight.” Logan grabbed the knob with his bandaged hand then jerked back with a hiss. He opened the door with his other hand.
Mike followed his boss.
Distance made it impossible to hear Logan’s phone conversation, but the tone didn’t sound positive.
The door shut. A lock clicked.
Jacob dropped the tube of lubricant and rushed over to Ben. He went to his knees and put his ear to his lips. The barest puff of air warmed the shell of his ear.
“Thank you.” Jacob petted Ben’s cheek. They had to get out of there. Somehow, some way.
The crimson band of sunlight slipping through the window cut a strip across the floor in front of Jacob and up the door. Jacob walked over. Like most long-stay motels, the window didn’t have a way to open or shut it. But also like a lot of long term motels, they used cheap glass. And this place had been built long enough ago it was unlikely safety glass.
Shattered, it would become a deadly obstacle course.
Even without the danger, Jacob wouldn’t have been able to lift Ben through the window.
Jacob went into the bathroom and gathered up the towels he could find and ran them under the coldest water from the tap.
If they were going to get out of here, Ben would have to be sober enough to at least stand.
The phone rang.
Marcel stood on his back porch, and the sun slipped lower than the trees on the other side of the fence where shadows already consumed the backyard. A roll of black rubber sat by the hole he’d started for a water garden.
Marcel took a draw on his cigarette.
The phone continued to ring.
There was a chance Jacob forgot his phone. There was a chance he was with Ben in his motel room.
There was a chance, but instinct told Marcel it was neither of those things. He cut the call and slipped the phone into his pocket.
Marcel pinched out the cherry at the end of the cigarette and carried the butt back into the house to throw away. Once he’d disposed of his trash, he washed his hands, dried them.
Marcel walked into his bedroom, stopping at his closet. He pushed aside the door.
The wooden box sat on the top shelf beside a dark green sweater Alexander had given Marcel almost twenty years ago. He’d called it a birthday present, although Marcel had no idea what year or month he’d been born.
But eating cake and blowing out candles had made Alexander happy, so Marcel had indulged him. The sweetest of gifts came later, when they were alone in the villa on the hill, with nothing but the countryside and the night.
Marcel took down the box and set it on the bed.
While birthdays had been important to Alexander, Marcel’s life did not begin at his birth. His worth could not be gaged until the day he’d been gifted with acceptance into his House.
Until the moment the blades touched his hands.
He opened the box. The silver knives lay nestled in the folds of black velvet, positioned in opposite directions of one another. Pristine edges gave no hint as to how many lives they’d claimed. Gifts given to him, like the weapons that took their lives, from the men and women who did not know they belonged to Marcel.
He undid his old belt, pulling it free, and left it on the bed.
Marcel removed a different belt tucked into the top of the box with two sheaths. He slid the length of worn hide through the fingers of his good hand, testing the condition from one end to the next.
A routine he did with weekly cleaning and oiling of the leather and the blades.
He slipped the belt through the loops in his pants, then removed the sheaths from the box, positioning them so they followed the curve of his spine, each one countering the slope of the other to allow for easy extraction.
He slid the blades into place. The caress of metal over the suede lining whispered death.
Marcel closed the box and left his room. His jacket hung on the peg near the front door, his keys on the hook by the door to the garage. His cane waited propped in the corner on the other side, and he carried it down the steps.
The rumble of the engine joined the clatter of the rising garage door.
Fifteen minutes later, Marcel turned into the parking lot of the Sunset Inn and pulled into a spot in front of Jacob’s room.
He cut the engine. Moths flittered against the lights over the walkway. And bits of light escaped gaps in the curtains along with the muffled sounds from TVs.
A woman dressed in a waitress uniform emerged from the door of the neighboring unit with two children in tow. She carried herself with slumped shoulders. Dark half-circles smudged the underside of her eyes. The creases in her skirt were as sharp as razors ending at the frayed edges of the hem blotched with faded coffee stains.
Several doors closer to the check-in office, an older man in fatigues carried a brown paper bag in his arms with all the care of a priceless treasure. He favored his left leg. His buzzcut followed the pattern of sun-weathered skin over his scalp. While his hair was black, his beard was solid white. The soles of his boots slapped the concrete.
He reached for the doorknob to a room. The movement lifted his shoulder and shifted the collar of his shirt, flashing the ink of a green tattoo. Scars marked the back of his hand. On the right one, the little finger was gone.
There were several open spaces in front of the building. Dark spots, shiny enough to reflect the last of the sunlight staining the asphalt between the white lines.
An aging pickup, a newer compact car, an SUV born sometime in the early nineties, and a handful of mini-vans. All of them with chipped paint, dents, and worn tires.
Even the eighties mustang sporting thousand-dollar rims showed the steel belt under the eroded rubber.
More people came and went. When the movement of residents became a repeating pattern, Marcel got out.
Jacob didn’t have credit or proof of a job to secure a long-term room, so Marcel had been the one who signed paperwork and paid the first month. At his request, the super had given him two keys.
Marcel stopped in front of Jacob’s door. Small nicks scarred the metal frame. Tan showed through the layers of cracked blue paint. A tiny dark smudge marked the corner next to the knob. Under the sickly light, the blood was more black than red.
Dried with edges faded from exposure. Two weeks? As long as three. Long enough to coincide with Jacob’s run-in with Logan.
Marcel unlocked the door.
He stepped inside.
Green tea soap, laundry detergent, sex, and the sweat of another man spiced Jacob’s natural scent. Carpet fibers lay flat between the door and the bathroom.
A bedside table separated two beds. The lamp on the wall tossed a spread of golden glow above them. On the left, a bed with turned down covers and the pillows placed against the headboard contrasted the rumpled sheets of the one on the right.
Folds in the comforter cradled a bottle of lubricant near the corner.
Marcel followed the path of worn carpet to where it ran along the bedframe. He stopped. Sheets curved and bunched. Dimples marked the pillows. Two indentations pressed into the mattress. One from years of a body sleeping in a familiar position, the other nothing more than a ghostly imperfection in the fitted sheet.
Marcel dragged his unscarred hand across the imprint, stopping midway. He tipped his head and stepped closer. The pattern of the weave of threads disappeared. They reappeared then vanished again. He scraped his thumbnail over the irregular pattern, dislodging flakes of dried cum. Marc
el pushed back the blankets. A thicker patch marked the imprint in the sheet where the second person had laid.
Marcel went to the dresser. In the center of scattered change, a blank area. Library books. On the right, a stack of disposable cups beside a tiny bottle of dish soap and sponge in a zip lock bag.
Again, Marcel inhaled, this time drawing in a breath deep enough to test the buttons of his shirt. He held it, rolling the flavors of the scents on his tongue.
Musk, sweat, the bitter aftertaste of apprehension, but not the kind born from a man afraid for his life. This had been something deeper. Visceral energy left over from when man existed as a simpler animal.
Ben had been almost as scared as Jacob.
Marcel exhaled.
Even with its contents in disarray, there was no sense of violation here. Just the casual mess left behind by life and pleasure. Marcel exited Jacob’s room.
There was no sign of Ben’s car in the parking lot. A small green compact Marcel had mistaken for grey when it first pulled up in front of his house.
The damage to his bad eye muted even the brightest colors.
All the units on this end were occupied. There’d been few rooms available when Jacob moved in. The super couldn’t tell Marcel when any of the larger ones would be vacated. Most of the residents paid a month at a time.
If the number of residents didn’t fluctuate more than a few each month, the twenty-odd parking spots at the building were about half the number to accommodate all the rooms on this side.
Ben would more than likely have parked in the open area where there would be less of a battle for a spot.
Marcel could only speculate these events because there were no interruptions in the pattern of human routine for him to follow. But Ben’s wary behavior, level of distrust, his grip on independence gave weight to the hypothesis.
Plus, there was the instinct Marcel carried. One honed to the perfection of the sharpest knife under conditions that would have killed a man, let alone a boy of five.
Marcel stepped off the curb, measuring his steps to Jacob’s stride. When he was nervous, it would shorten. When he was relaxed, it would widen.
From what Marcel had seen in Jacob’s room, he’d been content during his time with Ben. They’d most likely left together.
He stopped at the closest row of parking spaces. Like the ones in front of the building, each showed signs of long-term use.
Marcel tracked the white lines, cataloging bits of paper, cigarette butts, wads of melted gum.
He stopped where a pack of matches lay a few inches from the stripe of paint. Marcel picked it up. The logo for the Starlite motel was on the front. Marcel put the booklet close to his nose. Stout cologne mixed with phosphorus.
Not offensive like something cheap, just strong as if the person wore too much.
He dropped the book of matches and returned to his car.
It was time for Marcel to take what he was owed.
Shivers seized Ben’s muscles. The cold fueled the aches in his bones.
A wet cloth swept over his neck and chest, the tepid water turning to ice under the constant puff of frigid air.
“C’mon, Ben, I need you to wake up.”
He opened his eyes.
Light edged the wild locks of Jacob’s hair with a golden halo.
How fitting.
Fatigue beckoned Ben to return to her gentle arms.
A pat to his cheek broke her lullaby.
“Wake up. I need you to wake up.” Jacob wiped Ben’s face, dampening his skin, spreading the chill farther over his body.
Ben pushed the cloth away. “That’s cold.”
“Yeah, it is.” Jacob brought it over again, and Ben tried to catch his wrist to stop him, but he wasn’t able to get his fingers to keep a grip. “C’mon, Ben. I can’t carry you, and we need to get out of here.”
Because they were in danger. Jacob was in danger.
The hazy image of Jacob naked and kneeling on the bed with Logan watching him like a starving dog could have been a dream, but Ben knew it wasn’t.
And if they didn’t get out of here, it would happen again.
Had it happened at all? The thought Jacob might have been raped surged through Ben’s chest. His anger forced him further from the fog, and the room brightened until his eyes ached.
Ben fought to sit up.
Jacob helped him.
“No.”
Ben furrowed his brow. “No?”
“Logan didn’t rape me.”
The heat in Ben’s cheeks pushed back the cold. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” He touched his temple. The skin bulged with swelling, and the light contact rang through his skull with a hard throb.
“Can you stand?” Jacob got to his knees.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Jacob hooked an arm under Ben’s and heaved. The room tipped, Ben’s stomach lurched, bile raced up his throat, his eyes watered. Then he was sitting on the bed, with Jacob standing beside him.
“Ben?”
He nodded. “Give me a minute.”
“I’m going to break the window.”
Ben squinted at Jacob. “What?”
“I’m going to break the window, and we’re going to climb out. Then we’re going to get out of here. I need you to be ready to move.”
“You break that glass, they’ll hear you.”
“Logan’s gone.”
“Yeah, but someone’s here, he wouldn’t leave us alone.”
“Yeah, Mike or Jimmy. Whoever he left is watching TV.”
Ben looked at the door. The hum of voices and canned laughter disappeared under the shush of air from the AC unit.
“Trust me. I asked him for something to eat, and he told me he was busy.” Jacob picked up one of the chairs from the small table in the corner and pushed the back under the doorknob.
“I don’t think that will hold either one of them.” Ben was pretty sure both giants could get through the door if they wanted.
“It doesn’t have to, I just need it to buy us some time.” Jacob gathered the towels laying on the floor and went to the closet. He returned with a standard hotel-issue iron. He wrapped the towels around his wrist and arm.
“Is that going to work?” Ben wasn’t so sure. The windows in these places wouldn’t break easily.
“I hope so.” Jacob put an arm around Ben’s ribs and helped him closer to the window. He started to lower Ben into the remaining chair.
“Wait. Let me stay on my feet. It’ll be faster.”
Worry creased Jacob’s features. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Go ahead. Break it.”
Jacob adjusted his grip on the iron and drew back his arm, swinging the iron point first. The tip pierced the pane, and fractures climbed up the length. Jacob jumped back, and large slices caved from the frame, hitting the window edge, breaking apart into smaller bits. Wicked long transparent blades jutted around the gaping hole. Jacob knocked them from the bottom frame, breaking off the shards close to the edge.
He dropped the iron and grabbed the comforter from the bed and tossed it over the bottom of the opening. “C’mon…”
The door to the room banged open.
“Go.” Ben pushed Jacob away. “Go, go!”
Jimmy stormed across the small room. Ben grabbed the chair and hurled it at the man. By some stroke of luck, the leg punched him in the face, knocking him back with a pain-filled yell.
“Go, Jacob, go!”
Pain crushed Jacob’s expression, but he did as Ben asked and disappeared out the window and into the night.
Good, maybe Jacob would get away. In the least, he wouldn’t have to watch Ben die.
Jimmy pulled himself off the floor. Crimson streamed down the side of his face from a large gash above one eye. Another cut striped the bridge of his nose.
“I’m going to fucking kill you for that. But not until I make you wish you were dead.”
It was useless to run, but Ben tried. One step and he tipped
forward and sent the room into a spin. His hip struck the dresser, but the ache died under the thunder of agony shooting behind his eyes. For a terrifying moment, he thought Jimmy had shot him, but there was no blood when he hit the floor. Glass crunched behind him. Ben crawled toward the bedroom door. The carpet fibers seared his forearms. Each time he pulled forward, a tsunami of pain crashed into his skull with enough force to make the world dim with the beat of his heart.
Jimmy grabbed Ben’s ankle. He kicked and was surprised when he let go. A few more feet and Ben collapsed, heaving up a mouth full of vomit.
Would Jimmy kill him now?
The silence grew heavy. The seconds sloshed. The stillness in the room an unnatural state. Jimmy should have been on him, hitting him, shooting him, but there was nothing.
Ben knew before he turned. And he wasn’t going to look, but the splash of wet warmth soaking through his jeans to his calf made it impossible for him not to.
Terror contorted Jimmy’s face. Color drained his cheeks. Blood surged in a steady pulse from the slit in his throat, drowning the front of his shirt.
Marcel stood with his hand buried in Jimmy’s hair. His scarred face void of empathy, anger, satisfaction.
The knife in his hand gleamed silver where it wasn’t covered in red.
A trickle of blood gurgled up Jimmy’s throat. Marcel turned his attention to the man in his grip, tilting his head back until the slice across his jugular gaped, spraying the back of Ben’s legs, followed by progressively weaker jets.
Ill-coordinated spasms ran up Jimmy’s limbs.
Marcel watched him until his movements fell still and the rapid gush of blood from his neck stopped.
Marcel stroked the man’s cheek with his thumb. “Can you get to the door?”
For an insane moment, Ben thought he spoke to the dead man in his hands.
“I—” Could he? He had to. He had to get out of here. The window would be quicker, but too much glass covered the floor. Heat forged razors thirsty for flesh. “Yes.”
SICARII: Part III Page 6