Lustmord 1

by Kirk Alex

  CHAPTER 86

  Olivia hadn’t liked any of it; she hadn’t cared for being bothered by a known druggie like Ace Ortiz and his druggie friend Felix Monk. She just wanted to get to her job.

  “It’s not worth getting upset over—”

  “Who’s upset? I ain’t ‘upset.’ I might be pissed, but I ain’t ‘upset.’ I’m cool. I don’t let a douche like that get to me.”

  “Hey, Ace, he’s one of our customers. Me and my brother wash and wax his cars and do some other things for the man.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your psycho customers, Rudy; okay? Guy’s a fucking geek. Not only is he a fucking geek and a creep, but he’s an asshole. I’m the one should be driving a Caddy like that.”

  “Sure thing, Ace.”

  “How about if you shut your pie-hole, Felix?”

  Ace walked over to the junker of a car and had Felix slide to the passenger side. Got in. They drove off. The rattling, rumbling muffler leaving a gray, choking cloud of exhaust fumes in its wake.

  “I guarantee you that boy gets shot one of these days. You just can’t talk to folks that way. Got no manners, no class. That boy got no respect for nobody, least of all hisself. Fool with junk, end up junk.”

  Rudy couldn’t agree more.

  Bertha glanced at her watch.

  “Come on, girl. We best get on to the diner before Slim throws a fit ’cause we late for the early breakfast rush.”

  Rudy hugged and kissed his girlfriend, and watched her hurry off down the sidewalk with Big Bertha Lenier.

  He stood there awhile, his eyes on his sweetie. Could be that crazy junkie’s got something there, could be he was making some sense after all. He should have bought Olivia a ring, some kind of ring at least. Only he would go about it the right way. He would go to a legit jewelry store and buy her the real McCoy. Nothing hot and cheap like the crap Ace carried around with him. And although he may have been kidding when he made that remark about the grave-robbing, it really was not all that far-fetched to imagine someone like Jesus Ortiz doing something that sick. A user will stoop to any level to get his dope.

  There had been reports that grave robbing was up again. Desperate people will do desperate things—and if Ortiz isn’t desperate, he thought, who is?

  Rudy turned, and walked to Marty Roscoe’s to return the dogs. Could be Olivia had been right about the mutts, though; could be he could do without it. Hell, it was silly, just a little. Only nobody understood when you were trying to do something with your life, when you wanted to accomplish a goal. Only his brother Roe got it because he was part of that goal, part of the dream to open up their own shop, a shop that would be named in honor of their father Gil, rest his soul. So yeah, he could keep walking these dogs a while longer. What else did he have to do this early every morning right after the paper route?

  He said good morning to sleepy-eyed Marty Roscoe still in his underwear and that spare tire of Roscoe’s hanging out over the top of the elastic band. Now that was usually a funny sight. Marty Roscoe had muscles everywhere, big arms, barrel of a chest, tree trunks for legs, larger and stronger than average wrists and forearms, he’d supposed, but he also had a belly from all that cervesa he liked to guzzle while watching wrestling on tv. So what good did the weight-lifting do him, Rudy wondered, if he had a big gut like that? It hadn’t made any sense to him. Then thought: So what? It’s none of my business anyway. I just hope that never happens to me. I hope I never get like that.

  Rudy handed over the leashes, left the pooper-scooper on the porch, and hurried back home in order to get to work repairing cars that sat in his family’s driveway.

  CHAPTER 87

  Tuesday, 8:05 a.m.

  Driving through Pacoima was some ordeal, especially on a day when the mercury was determined to reach triple digits and nearly succeeding.

  It was hot and clammy and the smog, that gray haze that the Valley wouldn’t be the Valley without, if not dense enough to obscure the stucco barrio dwellings in Biggs’s and Marvin’s relative vicinity, at least a great deal of those two blocks off in any direction they happened to look were.

  Pollution was a concern, and Biggs knew it couldn’t be good for his health, but he had the windows down all the same. Kept the AC off in order to conserve fuel.

  Sweat poured from the bishop and his partner the deacon as they drove up Van Nuys Boulevard. Marvin R. Muck wiped his neck and bare chest with a balled-up black T-shirt.

  “Gotta be at least a hunnerd.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” The heat and smog had caused Cecil’s head to ache again. “Keep your eyes peeled for that Mexican market where we picked up the live chicken.”

  “What kind of sense do it make to buy a Cadillac when you don’t even be usin’ the A/C?”

  “You trying to be smart?”

  “Smart? I ain’t smart. Just be aksking.”

  “Soup bones. . . . Soup bones. . . .”

  Biggs noticed the familiar large white paper signs with red lettering in the Mexican-type grocery store window that contained ads for chorizo, on sale, hamburger, pork chops—and other meats and sundry.

  He pulled up in front. Had Marvin remain behind to guard the Caddy, and went in. When he stepped back out he had a full shopping bag in one hand, while holding a paper cup in the other. He handed the cup to Marvin, who took a sip—and made a face.

  “Water? Tap water. Warm, too.”

  Biggs walked to the back of the car. “Know what you are? Ungrateful.”

  “How about you? Bet you anything, if I had me coin to bet, you had yo’self a nice, cold Hawaiian Punch in there. Drank it fast, too, to keep me from gettin’ some. Got nerve to give me water—from a store be owned by wetback’. Messican water kill’ peep’, is what it do. Make ’em shit ’till they die.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I ain’t wrong about nothin’.”

  “It wasn’t Hawaiian Punch, it was Hi-C.”

  “Coulda bought me one.”

  “You don’t like Hi-C.”

  “Coulda bought me some hooch. Yo.”

  “Nest needs feathering. Feathering requires money and takes precedence over all else.”

  “Like one goddamn bottle of hooch would keep you from puttin’ feather in yo nest.”

  “If you’re done bitching, how about hitting the trunk release.”

  Marvin did that, and joined Cecil in the back and watched him place the shopping bag next to the metal chest. Didn’t fail to notice how cautious he was not to tip over the plastic jug of blood he had hidden away inside a crevice. Marvin suspected what the jug meant: dude was gonna do some more of that nasty shit when they got to where they was goin’. He said nothing about it. It was best not to. For the time being.

  “We got dead dog’ hangin’ in the walk-in. Coulda used ’em, ’stead of droppin’ good coin on soup bone’.”

  “Greta needs to skin them.”

  “Kick her ass. Make her do it. Coulda bought me a bottle of Ripple wiff the bread you spent on soup bone.”

  “They don’t make it anymore.”

  “They make Boone’ Farm; they still be makin’ Night Train, Cold Duck, T-Bird, Mad Dog. Mad Dog be some good shit. Be like Ripple. One bottle knock a dude on his ass—if he don’t be careful.”

  Having lived with a stepfather who had been addicted to rotgut and recalling the nightmare his childhood had been because of it, Cecil had next-to-zero tolerance when it came to listening to Marvin run his mouth about it.

  Beads of sweat rolled down his neck. Didn’t do much good to wipe, either, because the sweat kept on coming. Pacoima, this time of year, with its smog and heat, was hell on earth. Had to be. There was no need to believe in anything like the afterlife, netherworld, Hades, hell below—because hell was above ground. All you had to do was take a look around. At least having been able to get his hands on the soup bones made him feel better about the trip and the task; not a whole great deal, but enough. Mix the animal bones with the Homo sapiens
ones inside the chest and it just might be enough of a diversion to throw the coroner’s creeps off, should the limbs ever be discovered.

  Never a sure thing, nothing was, but at least it was a way to hedge his bets.

  He clenched his butt cheeks to suppress a fart. Slammed the trunk shut, and got behind the wheel. Marvin had got in on his side already and was pouring some of the water that was in the cup over his head and upper chest.

  “Messican water give folk the runnin’ shit’. That be a fac’.”

  “How do you figure it’s Mexican water? We’re in America, not Tijuana. Might look like Tijuana, but it’s not. It’s America. So far. For the time being.”

  Biggs pulled away from the curb, causing Marvin to spill water onto the upholstered seat. Marvin realized what he’d done and begrudgingly wiped about the area where he sat with his balled-up T.

  Biggs dug into a pocket. Produced a can of Hi-C. Held it out to Muck (with the slightest trace of a grin). Muck went for it fast enough. Cracked it. Gulped quite a bit of the Hi-C down.

  “Yeah.”

  “Not bad for ‘cat piss’.”

  “Sometime you the best, other time’ you like the rest.”

  “I’m certainly not one for manners, except in the presence of the congregation, decorum and all, when in the company of fresh meat we’re trying to lure—but it would be nice to hear ‘thank you’ once in a while. It wouldn’t solve anything, wouldn’t make much difference, because the world would still be a pile of fecal matter, but it would be nice to know one is appreciated by one’s colleagues and/or associates.”

  “Do my share. Pull weight. That be my way of sayin’ you Da Man.”

  Marvin had the can back to his mouth. Finished it off. Tossed the empty out the window.

  “You’re quite welcome, Brother Free Ride.”

  “Man, you know my homie on the Boulevard call me ‘Base.’ What they knowed me by.”

  “Free Base/Free Ride—what’s the difference? Doesn’t change the fact you’re a bona fide, free-loading bottom-feeder.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You just tossed money out the window, which proves my point.”

  “Wanna go back and get it?”

  The idiocy never ended. Biggs punched in a funk tune on the FM dial. Thought of the Jolly Dolly out there in Lopez Canyon, lying in sweet repose, waiting for him. Wrists cuffed behind her back. The experience had been so gratifying and left him with such a lasting rush that he’d forgotten to take the handcuffs with him. Handcuffs did not come cheap—and there was no point leaving them with the victim.

  At Gladstone Avenue, Biggs made a left, and they drove to Lopez Canyon Road.

  CHAPTER 88

  It was serene in this part of the Valley—no buses, cars, or people—just a lot of trees and hills on both sides of the two-lane blacktop (save for a retirement compound for the elderly that they passed on their left as they headed deeper into the Canyon). That was, for the most part, about the only sign of “life” out here. This obviously explained why it was such a favorite dump site not only for him and his associate, but for other anti-social types as well over the years. The area was just about secluded enough and convenient enough for discarding a body or two—or, in this case, a load of putrefied parts.

  He and Marvin had been out this way before, dumped a couple of bodies in this neck of the Valley a while back. It was relatively safe out here, only you had to make sure that you parked your car off the paved road and out of sight, that you parked it in the thick brush and low-lying trees in case the occasional motorist drove by, in case the dreaded mailman passed in his US Postal Jeep to deliver mail to the retirement home (as he did so once a day coming down from Glenhaven Memorial Park and the few residences north of it). Only the distance between the memorial park and the retirement compound was so vast and the terrain so varied—a mile or so north of the retirement home the area changed from trees and lush green undergrowth to practically barren, rocky hills—that at times was used by the National Guard for maneuvers and war games. No war games now. Nothing to worry about. If you drove deep enough into the brush (to park and/or carry out your task), you were fine. Concealment guaranteed.

  Biggs stayed north, passing a dog carcass by the side of the road, and then a dead rattlesnake in the middle of the hot pavement.

  The bishop pulled over. Got into a pair of latex gloves. Walked to the shoulder where he picked up a rock and dropped it on the snake’s head.

  “Why you went and did that? Snake be dead.”

  “A dead snake can still bite an hour after its demise.”

  “Ain’t never heard of it.”

  Bishop had the flunky grab a plastic garbage bag and hold it open. Cecil tossed the snake in there. Had Marvin grab a fresh bag and the same was done with the canine carcass, with Muck grumbling and cursing the entire time.

  “Don’t nobody wiff a Cadillac stop to pick up roadkill.”

  “You see roadkill. I see grub. Greta can do wonders with these.”

  “Yo, the only wonder be I don’t get them runnin’ shit’ more than I do. Get ’em enough, too.”

  “Don’t see why. Should be used to it by now.”

  Biggs closed the trunk and got back in the car.

  “I ain’t never gettin’ used to it, me.”

  Marvin climbed in on the other side.

  The bishop and his deacon rolled until a familiar clearing appeared on their left. Biggs pulled off the road and drove across bumpy undergrowth, past a pile of concrete chunks someone had evidently dumped a while back, years before, past a more recently discarded large pile of trash. They kept going until they reached brush and tall weeds, trees, and Biggs stopped the Caddy.

  There was an incline that would have taken them down into a dry creek bed lined with pebbles and rocks the size of cantaloupes or larger. Biggs didn’t feel it was worth driving into and risk scarring the paint job. No. He would park the Brougham where they were behind the brush.

  He turned his head to take a look back there at the two-lane blacktop to make sure that they were far enough away and concealed to the point they wouldn’t be spotted by anyone who happened to drive by. Where they were would have to do.

  CHAPTER 89

  Biggs and Marvin got out and worked on dragging the heavy chest out of the trunk. They each grabbed a rope handle, pulled, lifted, and Cecil’s back froze him up as a sharp shaft of pain traveled the length of his spine to the base of his skull.

  “Christ.”

  Biggs let go of the nylon rope handle and leaned against the side of the Cadillac. It was his damned back again.

  “You all right, homie?”

  Biggs did not say anything and remained motionless for a while. Son of a bitch, it hurt.

  “If it isn’t the fucking head, it’s the fucking back. Or the fucking rectum.”

  Marvin was able to drag the custom-crafted suitcase out of the trunk on his own. Lowered it in the soft sand. Biggs tried moving his upper body from side to side, and then bending forward, touching his shins, maybe his toes, with his fingertips—and it felt better. It shouldn’t have, but it did. He would be okay, so long as he did not make any sudden moves and took it easy.

  He reached for a shovel inside the trunk and looked at Marvin, who was busy covering his nose and mouth with his T-shirt, trying to block out the over-powering odor coming from the chest. Biggs handed him the shovel.

  “Get to it.”

  “Still say we coulda just dumped it all in the fuckin’ fire, Cecil.”

  “I told you before: We can’t burn everything. The odor gets in the air, and travels. Not to mention: This way I don’t have to listen to you grouse at having to scrape all the ash off inside the furnace. You complain enough, as it is.”

  Marvin R. Muck tried to hurry up and get the hole dug, but the stench was getting to be too much to take and he had to jump back a few yards, take a deep breath, and return to the task at hand.

  “Goddamn. That be some nasty smellin’ shit.”
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  “So hurry it up and get the hole dug. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we get the hell out of here and get something to eat.”

  “I be for dat.”

  Marvin resumed digging, really putting some muscle into it. As soon as the top layer had been cleared, he reached firm soil and stayed with it, sweating heavily as he worked that shovel.

  “You’re doing fine, Marvin.”

  Dude be talkin’ to me, thought Marvin, but I know where his mind really be at. Jug of blood. He glanced back at the mofo half-a-nigga givin’ him the compliment. Shit. That blood be nasty in that jug, but that don’t never stop him before.

  Marvin was right. Biggs knew it. Suspected what the punk was thinking, not that it mattered, because there was no way to keep his thoughts off of that plastic jug sitting inside the trunk.

  Why’d you bring it if you’re not going to do anything with it? I will. My back still hurts. And he couldn’t stop thinking of the blood and the young cunt it had come from, a young cunt named Pamela Alice Phelps, whom he had bludgeoned to death on top of that ridge the last time he was here. He wondered if the blood was too cruddy at this point for consumption? Blood had a way of turning dark and nasty over time.

  Marvin noticed him looking in the direction.

  “You be thinkin’ ’bout that ho Alice, ain’t you?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Guess nothin’. Man, I can see yo’ dick be gettin’ hard inside yo’ trouser’; an’ you ain’t brung that jug of her blood out here for no reason, Cecil. Bet you anything you can’t keep away from her.”

  “We have to get moving. You got the hole dug?”

  The hole seemed deep enough now and large enough for all the contents in the chest to be dumped in. Biggs gave him a hand unfastening the lid. They each grabbed a handle, slowly tilted the chest, and the entrails and blood, scalp chunks, noses, forearms and feet—all of it, slid down into the hole in the ground. Muck had turned his head away all the while. Tried to keep it that way.