Lustmord 1

by Kirk Alex

  “We don’t have all fucking night, heifer.”

  He lifted the lid now. Indicated the foot and a half length of hose, one end of which had a mouthpiece on it that resembled something used by scuba divers. The other end ran through a hole the size of a quarter, or a mite smaller, in the side, between the two nylon cord handles.

  He pulled the hose out. Had Marvin hold it to his mouth and blow through it to make certain there were no obstructions, then had him find a stick long enough to poke through.

  Marvin located a twig. Handed it to Biggs, and he ran it through. Hose was clear.

  “How come you always be messin’ wiff that shit, Brotha? Ain’t nothin’ in that hose. I done that last time.”

  Biggs ran the twig back and forth inside the hose. He finished with it. Satisfied. Ran one end of the hose through the hole in the chest, and stuck the mouthpiece in the victim’s jaw.

  “I suggest that you do not let the mouthpiece slip out of your kisser. That’s your sole connection to life—between now and our destination. Lack of oxygen could result in your untimely demise—and we wouldn’t want that.”

  They brought the lid down. It took some doing, but they managed to close it. Flipped the clasps in place. Slammed the trunk shut.

  “That’s how it’s done.”

  Biggs got in behind the wheel. Muck got in on the other side.

  “I want to keep her around as long as possible. That’s why I take the time to fool with the tubing. Victims need air—just like you and me and everyone else. You want a piece of that, don’t you?”

  “Said I did.”

  “We have to take certain precautions. Keep her alive until she’s of no use to us. I think I cracked her skull pretty good with that sap. She won’t last long anyway. We’ll hold on to her for as long as we can—until something else comes along.”

  “Yo. Until we get our hand’ on LaBelle of da Ball.”

  “I dream about that. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about Pearleen Bell and Olivia Duarte. Olivia’s older sister is not bad, either.”

  Biggs drove through the clearing. Found his way back to the bridle path, and took that toward the highway. Less than two hours later they were pulling up to the gate.

  CHAPTER 72

  The gray prefab house to the right of Biggs’s church did not have any of its lights on but that did not mean that the Roscoes, Marty and his wife Petunia, whose domicile this happened to be, were both sound asleep.

  The dogs had taken turns yelping, waking the woman, while her husband slept like a log, snoring away, as usual.

  Petunia was full-figured, as some liked to call a certain type of woman built in this fashion. She was a couple of years past forty, stood a shade under five foot four inches. Mrs. Roscoe was not known for her calm demeanor, instead her “claim-to-fame” and/or “infamy,” depending on the individual making the observation, were her enormous “udders,” that her husband rarely failed to boast about, measured a good forty-four inches. Triple E.

  The Boston terrier, Darcy, had first barked about something, then the Lhasa apso named Ziggy had followed suit, and created enough of a ruckus between them to cause Petunia to remain fully awake.

  She had heard Biggs pull up in that boat of a car, and she had rushed to the living room curtains to steal a peek. Saw Marvin hop out to unlock Biggs’s front gate and the Brougham pull into the driveway and disappear behind the church as Biggs drove it on to his backyard.

  Marvin had locked the gate back up, and hurried on foot to meet up with the bishop back there.

  Petunia found herself practically running through the house, across the carpeted bedroom floor, to get to the rear porch door. Was careful to open it and the screen door as quietly as possible. Chewing on her lower lip nervously, she had tiptoed across the porch and cautiously climbed down the stoop. Made every effort to stay silent as she snuck up to the picket fence to peer through a crack.

  She saw Biggs, in that hideous clown makeup, and his sidekick, the one he referred to as “Deacon,” reach inside the trunk for a large, suitcase-type metal chest and carry it inside the church through the rear door.

  After a while, Biggs reappeared and made certain the Caddy doors were locked, closed the trunk quietly enough, clicked on the car alarm, and hurried back inside his church.

  Petunia looked at the watch on her wrist. It was twelve past four. She returned to bed, sliding in beside her husband.

  She had wanted to tell him that Biggs and Marvin were at it again, that they were hauling that chest around. Something was not right, she felt like telling Marty—only Marty snored on. That was usually his response to most of these suspicious sightings that she felt like discussing, going over with him.

  “I wonder what those two creeps could be up to? Every time I see them they’re either carrying something out of that house to one of his fancy cars, or else it’s the other way around: carrying something from either the Cadillac or the Rolls-Royce into the house. . . .”

  Her husband coughed. Turned on his side. The snoring did not stop.

  “Marty?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Marty, you’re snoring.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Biggs and Marvin carried the suitcase into the basement and lowered it near the pit. The bishop had Marvin stay put and not do anything while he walked in the direction of the Geek Room with the baby blanket.

  Biggs parted the small curtain over the Judas window. Idiot box was on, flickering. Some of the geeks were awake and watching, or asleep, or just plain staring off into space. One of the generic geek males in a lower bunk picked his nose, another one was squatting over a honey bucket. Goodfellow, the diaper-wearer, had his hands inside the diaper and he was fondling his privates.

  Biggs unlocked the door. Sassy, in his bunk, left row, lower berth, was doing the usual: lying on his belly and grinding his forehead back and forth against the metal frame. Some blood was visible along the brow and ’neath the hairline of the scalp he had on.

  “Knock it off, Sassounian. Better stop it, or it’s electroconvulsive therapy time again—an extra helping of it. Plus a week in Siberia. Get me?”

  Sassounian stopped what he had been doing, although he took his sweet time about it.

  “Atta girl, Sassy. Got something for you.” Biggs held the blanket out to him. “Pink. You like pink, right? You love the color pink.”

  Sassounian took the blanket in his hands with the taped fingertips and gently rubbed it against his cheek. His eyes appeared to be misting, only Biggs could not be certain due to lack of light and the flickering images produced by the black-and-white television. Not that it made any difference.

  “You’re quite welcome, you know.”

  Biggs stepped out. Locked the door back up. Drew the curtain closed over the Judas window, and walked back to where Muck waited with the metal chest by the pit in the floor.

  “Shouldn’t a brung that blanket back. ’Cause now, every time I see it gonna remind me of what we done to the kid. . . .”

  “Guess what? I don’t want to hear about it. It’s over and done with. Whacking that kid is no different from you helping me ice those two cunts who were turning tricks for you on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  “Wasn’t none of my idea to ice them hoe’. You put them in the kettle. Said peep’ gotta eat.”

  Biggs was not interested in any of it. Proceeded to undo the clasps on the chest. Lifted the lid open, and watched Dione Aragon shoot out with a great deal of frantic energy bordering on hysteria, anguish, loud gasps for fresh air, air that her (supposedly) long-deprived lungs could not get enough of.

  Why was she acting up? There was no real reason, that Biggs could see. Why did she have to carry on like this? Unless it was more fakery, which vics very often were likely to indulge in. She’d had access to the breathing tube, and she was among the living, for the time being. So what was up?

  “Quit your fakin’.” His advice to her. The tears that flowed did so from that one good eye that
she had left.

  “Ho should be happy to be out of the suitcase.” Marvin was trying to get back on Cecil’s good side. “Instead she still be carryin’ on.”

  “Please don’t make me get back in the chest. It’s so difficult to breathe in there.”

  “Is it? It’s a miracle that you didn’t asphyxiate.”

  She nodded her head. “I thought for sure I would suffocate. I can’t take being locked up like that. Please.”

  “You had access to air. You had the hose to breathe through. Did I not warn you not to let the mouthpiece slip out of your mouth?”

  She continued to shake. Biggs let her. Knew that she would have to settle down eventually. Enough blood had flowed out from the eye wound and that side of her head during the trip that it left quite a bit of her face covered in it. Her message came through loud and clear with all the quaking and nervousness, that she would rather endure anything, anything at all, than be forced back into the metal trunk.

  “No one is going to put you back in it. So take it easy.”

  Biggs remained amused by her behavior, Marvin less so. Bishop reminded him to keep one hand on her cuffs, in case she got the bright idea to take off up the staircase and they’d have to do a repeat of what had gone down with the Klopp cunt.

  “Yo, where the ho gonna go? Door upstairs be locked. Front door be locked. Back door be locked. Like a fuckin’ crack house in here. Where she gonna go?”

  “Hold on to her.”

  CHAPTER 74

  While the bishop was unlocking the door over the pit, Marvin Muck took the opportunity to run his other hand up between Dione’s thighs. Ran it across her belly. Felt her breasts.

  Biggs lifted the door open. Shined his flashlight down at the murky water. Must have wakened a few flies, or else they were drawn to the sores and smell of fresh blood, because they were buzzing again. Not what he needed.

  Small chunks of something or other floated on the water’s surface. There was an item that resembled a hard-boiled egg, only considerably smaller—or was it an eyeball? Against the far edge. Portion of a tongue, several teeth, bridgework, along the top edge. Fragments of bone, partial fingers.

  Dione’s good eye took it in. It made it nearly impossible to calm down under the circumstances.

  There was a young woman in the pit. Hair and face swathed in grime and blood. Terri Denise Klopp was the victim who’d showered Marvin’s discolored, less-than-appealing face with ammonia a while back. Hardly the “feisty” one presently. Happened with all of them eventually, thought Biggs.

  Her eyes were closed, and remained that way even after Cecil prodded at her with his foot to see if she were at all alive. Her wrists had been handcuffed behind her back and she appeared to be “frozen” in that awkward position against the upper right hand corner of the pit.

  He prodded. It became obvious soon enough, when he saw her blink, that she was indeed alive. She may not have been full of pep, joie de vivre, not entirely the life of the party—but she was blinking and she was breathing.

  Dione Aragon’s mental state was fragile at best at this point, her desperation not easy to rein in.

  Biggs kicked at the woman in the pit. Not to hurt or punish, but to determine how much life there was left in her, and a rat appeared out of nowhere: more-than-likely surfaced from the depths of the pit, scurried up and over his shit-kicker boot, across the victim’s practically motionless shoulder, made it to the top of her head and promptly bounced off into the darkness and disappeared.

  Dione Aragon’s own head was shaking from side to side and she was practically retching. It had to do with the stench, the rat, the pit, and the bits and pieces in it, not to mention the woman in the water and the suffering she must have endured. This was nothing less than a dungeon of depravity that she had been brought to.

  What had it been for? Drugs? Getting high? Why’d she have to get high? Why did she have to accept drugs from Cecil and Marvin?

  They had lured her with drugs, baited her with tips, with money—to use to buy her and Danny’s drugs with. And Danny was dead now; he was dead. . . .

  Where was Clarissa? What had they done to her sweet little angelic baby?

  Tears rolled down from her good eye. She had been blinded in the other eye. Probably sustained a skull fracture. Only they didn’t seem to care. They were cold-blooded and brutal, and didn’t care what they did to people.

  We never should have left Bakersfield. Should never have driven down to LA. It was Danny. Wanted to visit a high school friend. Score some good weed at a great rate. Great deal, easy money, he had told her. Had convinced her to go along. They could come out with enough to put a down payment on a house of their own. Get out from under the roof of her mom and her overbearing boyfriend.

  They’d ripped Danny off. Took their money, their hard-earned money. Left them broke with their broken-down used car. No way to get back. . . . If only they had never left home. . . . If only they had stayed away from LA.

  The regrets piled on. It was too late for it. But she could not stop thinking, could not keep the images from appearing and flashing inside her aching head. She was in so much fear that her teeth rattled. There was no way to stop it.

  Biggs bent down. Turned Terri Denise Klopp around and unlocked the cuffs on her wrists, then recuffed them in front of her. He rose. Pushed Marvin away from Dione. Rechecked her handcuffs. Uncuffed one of her wrists, held them in front of her and clamped the cuff back on.

  He advised her to compose herself.

  “I don’t want any over-the-top, needless screaming and carrying on. Ordinarily I don’t mind the noise; you can be feisty all you want—basement is practically sound-proof. Windows have boards on them: inside and out. Thing of it is, some sound probably travels and my neighbors like to bitch and moan at the slightest excuse. They have nothing better to do. That’s how neighbors are. Busybodies. Bunch of grousers. Like that professional ballbuster Petunia Roscoe. Lives in the shack to the right of us. Has to stick her nose in other people’s business constantly.”

  “Yo, you right about that, Cecil. Petunia be nosy.”

  “Chunky pit bull cunt gets on my nerves, as you may have guessed. Even more so than the black couple who live to the left of here. Then you’ve got the limping curmudgeon across the street. Medal of Honor winner. World War II hero. World War II pain-in-the-ass is more like it.”

  “An’ Finger Lickin’ Flinger. That be another one.”

  Cecil did not want to discuss Wilburn Claude, Lloyd Dicker’s raw-egg-sucking grandson; he had other things on his mind. Like the business at hand. Noticed that Dione Aragon’s good eye kept looking down at the nasty water in the pit and its contents and then back up at him. All it managed to do was amuse him.

  “Don’t concern yourself with the pit. It’s not in your immediate future—nor will it be—unless you rile me. Pit Therapy is a form of punishment we resort to when certain individuals get out of line, break the rules.” He indicated Terri Denise Klopp down there in the oblong-shaped hole in the floor. “Strumpet made life difficult for us. Splashed ammonia in Marvin’s face.”

  “Sho did. Had no cause. Coulda been my bottom ho, too, ’cept she done her Mack Daddy wrong.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Somehow, Dione was able to steady her nerves and calm down. There was an inner voice that urged her to settle down, and that maybe, just maybe by settling down she would be able to keep from angering her captors further and that her chances of surviving what was happening to her might be better. She didn’t know; had no way of knowing. The woman in the pit had undoubtedly caused them trouble and this was her punishment. She would go the other way; she would cooperate. She would. She would do her best.

  Dione looked at Biggs. Waited for him to make a decision. Was she supposed to get down there? Something caused a ripple in the water that drew her attention: a second rat swam across at the other end, climbed out, and scampered out of sight. These rats were large and well-fed. Scary looking.

  “Rod
ents.”

  Biggs detached the key to the Fun Room, and had Marvin retrieve a metal collar with the loops on the sides, the same type the victim in the pit had on her neck.

  “Best get used to them. If there’s one thing we’ve got plenty of around here, it’s rodents. All type. Kept a cat for that very reason. The Ripper. Hated to see the mice and whatnot get into the food supply—but the cat, a black male, a big one, called him the Ripper, just up and disappeared a few months back and we haven’t seen him since. Still got plenty of cans of his favorite cat food left. He’ll either show up, or we just might have to go out and pick up another feline to do battle with the vermin.”

  “I be for that.”

  Marvin had returned with the collar. Handed it to Biggs. Cecil unlocked the lock on the hasp, opened the collar, secured it and closed it around Dione’s neck. He flipped the hasp in place, slipped the lock through and locked it.

  “Long as he don’t be messin’ wiff my homie’. My homie’ pet don’t even be safe around them dirty sewer rat’ . Prob’ly it was Norbert ate the Ripper. Fuckin’ Norbert. ’Less it was Rutherford. Before he run off.”

  “Or your pets ganged up on him.”

  Biggs closed the door over the pit. Locked the lock. He escorted Dione to the Mattress Room. Marvin followed.

  “Yo, thought you said I could have me a piece, Cecil.”

  “Later.”

  Biggs unlocked the door to the Mattress Room. There was a long chain that hung from a beam in the ceiling. That end had been wrapped around the six-by-six beam and held together with a lock, the other end was long enough so that it not only touched the cement floor, but also allowed for plenty of slack.