Night Creepers

by David Irons

  She licked her lips, tasted her deep red lipstick, then smiled. 'Pay day, asshole,' she said out loud, making her daughter turn to watch as she pulled a long cigarette from its pack and lit it.

  'Jesus mom! You can't do that in here!' her daughter Kelly, blatted out.

  'I can do what I want! I'm the parent here just remember that. Anyway, it's a celebration smoke.'

  'Celebration? Gregory's dead, mom.'

  Kristi smiled, she turned to her daughter, beaming a fifties noir femme fatale glare. 'I know.'

  Kelly, the daughter from her previous relationship, was only here under the tender loving care of dear old mom thanks to a court hearing that not only gave her 50% of her last husband’s fortune – her Hollywood producer ex-husband – bagging her a residual income from him until the kid turned eighteen.

  Now he was just a crumbled mess of his former self. Like it mattered anyway, if his daddy's bank balance could afford to send his pencil neck producer son to Harvard, it could also afford a few years of therapy for him.

  And little Kelly, luckily, she had Mom's Disney eyes and full lips. You can't deny good genes, Kristi thought. But the kid's attitude was something that needed working on. The kid liked the green and brown stuff outside; the kid had empathy for nature. Empathy schmempathy: bulldoze it all, put up a mall or plaza, add a champagne bar, and concrete over anything small and furry for a valet parking lot.

  Kelly leaned forward, dropping the book she was reading into the limo's foot well. 'Driver, tell my mom she can't smoke in here!' The dividing panel between passenger and chauffer rose, cutting off any future whines from the girl.

  Kristi let out her devil-like laugh. 'See, he doesn't care! You're gonna have to learn, babe. You look after number one. The world's not there to help you with every bump on the ass you have.'

  Kelly looked at her with seething anger. She pushed a button on her door handle and the blacked-out window next to her automatically rolled down.

  'There you go, you're learning. Help yourself kid, that's how to do it.'

  Kristi took a long drag on her cigarette and eyed her daughter. They both had on matching black Chanel dresses with fur-lined jackets. Kristi's, real fur; Kelly's, not.

  Kristi reached down and grabbed Kelly's book, reading the cover out loud: 'The Grey Fairy by Andrew Lang,' she sneered. 'Fairy stories? Jesus, kid, how old are you? Make believe, it's all made up; it's not real. Why the hell do you want to read this junk for anyway?'

  Kristi rolled down her window, flicked her ash out, perched the lipstick smeared red butt in her mouth, then readied herself to hoist the paperback out the window.

  Kelly, brimming with rage, glared at her. 'Don't do it, Mom. What have you got to prove by doing that? I thought today was a happy day. Right?'

  'It is,' Kristi said as she tossed the book back at Kelly, who quickly sunk it back into her old, worn, black satchel.

  'Oh, my dear it is,' she sneered to herself.

  *

  Ahead, Alex Lomax sat central in the rear bench seat of the limo, dressed in a black suit and tie. Not his best, but an expensive one. He felt the supple black leather seats underneath him and took in the aroma of its new car smell. 'Son of a bitch,' he said under his breath, thinking how even in death Blitzer still went out in style.

  Kristi contacted Alex Lomax, a local lawyer with an axe to grind with Blitzer over a sour deal involving the building of the local mall twenty years ago. Blitzer, knowing the financial gain of the mall, cut all his previous partners out of the action, this included Lomax. So, when it came to the court hearing, Alex Lomax made sure Kristi Montague was given half of Blitzer's estate.

  When at first Blitzer seemed non-compliant with any information to fast track their divorce, that's when the accusations came into play; Kristi using good old-fashioned street smarts went to the police with claims at how good old, Gregory Blitzer had tried to be a little more than a hands-on stepfather with his stepdaughter, Kelly. With the cops in his private life and the public smearing of his name, suddenly Blitzer became more of an open book in their divorce case. And as soon as he did, magically, the more touchy feely allegations went away, and his stashed away cash was cut straight down the old middle. Lomax, knowing how Blitzer operated, dug down deep to find even the remotest bank account to drain 50% from, like a bloodthirsty B-movie litigation lawyer from hell.

  Alex Lomax was now almost fifty and anything but a humble man. The best of his wheeling and dealing years were maybe all but behind him, a time period where he grew from 189 lbs to 320. His tailor now used so much material for one suit, he could have easily stripped it down and recycled it to make five perfectly fitting dwarf sized ones.

  Unlike Blitzer, time had taken its toll on Alex Lomax, turning him from the skinny, fresh-faced, curly-haired, wannabe lawyer at college, into the balding, overweight, vicious man he was today. Alex Lomax was hungry, not just for bad food, but for the will reading — the main course. For some reason, Alex was in it. 'You bastard,' Alex whispered, 'look at all this, five stretches for your own self-funded funeral.’ The premier funeral at his own newly built elitist chapel and funeral home way out here in the sticks, his jealous ego acknowledged.

  He took Blitzer as a man who would be more in the vein of starting a country club, something with grandeur, but an out of the way luxury church?

  He always had his suspicions about the funeral parlour in town. There was no way José that a business like that was legit.

  'That greasy bastard,' he thought. He could slip and slide through life, but when that dark figure with the cloak and scythe came knocking at the door, no amount of dirty dollars could keep him away.

  Alex smiled, looked at the driver in front and thought about asking him if he could smoke. Nah, he thought, this one's on you, old boy.

  Lighting up a cheap cigar, puffing away contently on it, he flicked its ash on those soft leather seats and when he was down to the butt, stubbed its smouldering end crackling into the leather.

  'Yep,' he said, 'this one's on you.'

  *

  In the second car of the fleet of limos was Kristi's private detective, a man hired to pry into her husband's affairs; a man who had no real understanding of why he was there. He sat in the far corner of the back seat and stared up at the driver in the rear view. And no matter how many times he turned it in his mind, no sense would come of why he was here.

  Matt Cassidy was 37, street smart, well dressed, in good shape and apparently not adverse to being asked to the will reading and funeral of someone whose balls he had been paid to bust. Most people after having him sift through their lives, turning it over and gutting it out, wanted his head on the chopping block. Giving them free rides in fancy limos was something unexpected to say the least. His instinct was tingling, saying, Come on Matt, something's up. This ain't on the straight and narrow.

  In his guttural straight talk, he would have said that the whole thing stank. Inside he knew this was something he needed to do, something he needed to see. Life was full of new experiences waiting to happen, unexpected things, and today was one of them.

  He hated the suit he was wearing, a thing that was purchased seven years ago, for exactly what he was going to today: a funeral. In his mind, he called it his death suit, knowing the only time it came from the closet was when someone had gone belly up.

  He knew it would never be his wedding suit, he just wasn't that way inclined. Yes, he had girlfriends, yes at times some serious. But things in that area just never jelled; a girlfriend's presence always became an annoyance: the routine, the rigmarole, the visiting parents and friends who he never had anything in common with. He hated all that, and it wore thin quickly.

  He'd brought himself up the hard way: in-between life on the streets and foster homes. He just didn't get the regular life most people led.

  At first, he thought it was a problem. And then with time, understood it as an advantage. 'People are soft,' he would say. 'They all want to be wanted, want to be accepted, you
stop that nonsense and you can start living.'

  He was a good-looking man with somewhat chiselled features and slicked back naturally black hair; his body firm, with little to no fat. Under his death suit was a black vest and pair of boxers. He ached to be wearing just those; laid out on the couch of his warehouse studio apartment.

  Even though the girlfriend thing didn't work for him he never had a problem with women. His blasé attitude and good looks were an immediate enticing attraction. He often thought to himself when alone in his apartment, staring at the endless yapping idiot box in the corner, that he could use the company of a woman. Something his old mentor, Johnny Foree, a PI in the Bronx called, 'Getting some cotton candy.'

  Living the bachelor's life alone suited him though. He had no aspirations to settle down, to procreate, or become an upstanding member of society. He just wanted to live and be left alone.

  He loved his job, getting to hound dog people, pry into their lives, being a private detective did jell for Matt, he had been doing it for nearly fifteen years.

  But right now, those senses he had grown with the job were telling him something was up again, as he watched the limo's eerie driver silently staring ahead.

  'Hey,' he called out. 'Your boss must be getting paid pretty well for a gig like this. Five limos for a funeral, easy money if you ask me.'

  There was more silence from the driver, then slowly the middle-aged man with the thick brunette hair under his cap piped up. 'Yeah, pretty well.'

  'Yeah, you guys get paid pretty well too, right?'

  'Pretty well.'

  'Oh,' Matt replied, raising his eyebrows.

  'You know you should be on danger money driving this thing up here.' He thumbed out the window to the thin dirt road and the cataclysmic drop the other side.

  The driver just grunted.

  'You're a real conversationalist pal, anyone ever tell you that?' The driver's obtuse attitude made the Brooklyn-ite break out in Matt's voice. 'You know the guy who paid you for this job, the guy we're driving up here to bury?'

  'Nope,' the driver called back.

  'Never heard of him before?'

  'Not until today.'

  'You keep yourself to yourself?'

  There was a pause. 'I do when I'm at work, Sir.'

  'Good for you, pal. You waiting around up here for us while we're inside?'

  'That's what I've been told.'

  'Good. If I want out early can we get off this rock and go back to civilization?'

  Silence.

  'Come on, I don't fit into a scene like this. What about me and you take a ride? Cruise down to LA and find some hot to trot honeys? I'll give you the day off, you give me that hat and I'll drive you around for a change.' He said this with his best deal-clinching grin, the one that in the past was either getting him paid or laid. He was hoping to share a bit of mutual humour with the man, break that arctic ice, but all that came again was silence.

  'Yeah, you're a real talker, pal. A-1 sense of humour, anyone ever tell you that?'

  The driver turned his head like a robot to look at Matt in the rear view. 'All the time, Sir, all the time.'

  CHAPTER 3

  In the limo ahead, Jennifer Blu was leaning against the passenger door, legs propped up against the opposite side, bracing herself on the bumpy road as she finished the shading on the last of the storyboards for an independent movie, an '80s throwback thing with a working title of 'Death Beast', a generic tale of man vs. alien oddity; alien oddity killing a high percentage of the film’s disposable actors, then the last lone disposable actor brutally dispatching said alien oddity. Luckily for her, the young director had apparently fallen in love with some of her more dark and morbid charcoal and ink drawings from her online portfolio, commissioning her to complete a set of panels.

  Today was just an inconvenience to her. She had no love for Blitzer. But if the old fart had left her anything in his will, far be it from her to look a gift will in the mouth.

  It was almost ten years ago that she left her parents’ home and made her own life downtown, becoming a real deal LA citizen. Then only two years earlier, she received the phone call that changed it all, the phone call that led her to the last time she stood in a graveyard.

  It was just a simple afternoon flight for her parents in one of dad's friend's light aircrafts, then, with one quick spat of the engine, one slight misfire of carburettor —poof. Presto change'o, they were gone. Jennifer was twenty-seven at the time, her parents in their early fifties and their demise all too sudden.

  Leaving their home and business to Jennifer – a thing she had never expected but embraced – Blu Designs was a company successfully set up by her father, for creating artwork for the corporate world.

  Instinctively, she knew that her way of artistic-thinking didn't fit in with the subdued corporate world of logo design and branding. With the moderate inheritance that she was left with, she hired someone who had experience in doing what she couldn't. That's when she met Keith Connors.

  He was a guy her age with the credentials in marketing and an eye for a good image. So good, she hoped, it would keep her new business afloat. And for the first year he did just that.

  Keith, a tall conventionally handsome man with combed back hair and almost beard length stubble, was the rudder to keep the business steered in the right direction. He was enthusiastic, talented; more corporate-minded then Jennifer, always polite with her and even more charming with the clients.

  It wasn't long, working in the close confines of the purpose-built office in her family's backyard that she realized his charms weren't just being absorbed by her clients, but by herself as well. In some reflective way, as if history did indeed repeat itself: a couple was born who again ran Blu Designs.

  In total, it was almost two years they were together. For the first year, everything was fine: their relationship, the business, a snap shot of a dream in the making. Until, that was, the cracks started to appear.

  Keith Connors was a climber. Yes, he was good at his job, superb in fact. But Keith Connors’ main interest and concern in life was, always would be — and most probably still was — Keith Connors.

  The first signs of disaster began to unfold when long-term clients started dropping like flies. Contracts her parents kept for years, big well-paid corporate contracts, which kept the lights on and put bread on the table, started to cancel their services. Jennifer tried long and hard to liaise with these companies the best she could, understanding someone was beating her with an equal creative power, and more competitive prices.

  As Blu Designs’ bank account dwindled even further. One night she sat wondering what to do, wondering how not to fuck up her parents' bequest that was left to her. She sat in her office, scratching at the tattoo on her arm as she did some deep-rooted searching around the outskirts of the Internet: key words, phrases, companies; design and print techniques, cross referencing things of relevance. Then, after an hour or so of trawling deeper into the information super highway, she came across something. One of her former clients had uploaded a new logo to their updated website — "Uber-print: Your Only Solution."

  At first, she presumed that they had by mistake used a raw sample image rather than a final polished JPEG, as on the bottom of the image was — "Sample – KC Designs."

  Her fingers instinctively clasped her tattoo; her heart jumped a little as she began to quickly Google "KC designs." There on the web search was a link, one that after clicking samples of all Blu Designs’ new mock-ups and corporate rebranding appeared, but, now all under the banner of "KC Designs." Each one flashing past in a high-definition photomontage gallery for all the world to see.

  Anger reverberated through her, twisting into an almost rage-streaked cardiac arrest. As clicking on the 'Next' tab, there was no wondering who this 'KC' was. There, slickly laid out at the top of the page was the banner "KEITH CONNORS DESIGNS".

  Her blood boiled, scratching at her tattoo as she stared at the screen. With a cool calm composu
re, she called Keith, making up a story of a break in. Knowing his self-centred ass would be there in seconds as he always left his brand new iMac in the office.

  He turned up twenty minutes later, bursting through the door red-faced and concerned, blurting, 'Hun, are you okay?'

  She looked into his soulless blue eyes, seeing now that their interior was filled with so much bullshit, she was surprised it wasn't squirting out of his ears.

  'Yes,' she replied evenly, a long suspenseful pause followed, and then, 'but I think you need to check your computer, something's really wrong.'

  Confused, ruffling his brow, he jumped around her and clicked the computer’s mouse, making the screen burst to life from its sleep mode. There, already loaded in his browser, was his website… with her designs.

  'Oh,' he said simply, seeming genuinely surprised. But before he could start weaselling — slithering in the jelly of his own lies — Jennifer picked up one of her mother's old glass paper weights — the red ruby oval one with a butterfly, its wings spread forever petrified in its innards — then perfectly popped him in the mouth with a full right hook, holding it in her rolled fist.

  A quick sickening 'Chink' was heard, like a chisel being hammered through a china cup. With a bursting plume of red he looked at her, his eyes as wide as full moons, blood dripping from his mouth like a flowing river in their glow.

  'What are you fucking doing?' he sprayed through his two sawed-in-half, top front teeth, their remains now lying on his bottom lip.

  He looked back down at his counterfeit website, wondering how she had found it. Everything she wanted to know about the failure of her business, and her relationship with the rat she had laid in bed with glowing on screen.

  Her final words to him were a repeated 'Get the fuck out now,' as she circled him like a stalking puma. Then without question, without explanation, he did, turning to the door and hauling out of her life forever.