Trust Me

by Paul Slatter

  The woman being at the club just as she’d told him she would be and instead getting all worked up and accusing him of attacking some dyke when all he’d been doing was having a quiet chat.

  Fuck, he was an idiot, he thought. But fuck, the business with the dyke stripper was done now, and truth was how many times had he heard Suzy break off their relationship in the past? Many times.

  He sat there for a moment trying to think it through as he rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the gun sitting on the passenger seat. Remembering Chendrill lying there on the ground bleeding. He thought, I’ve done it now. Suzy was the least of his problems at the moment. Now he was in real trouble, even if he could pull himself out of the shit with Suzy, he’d shot a guy out in the open and left a witness, and for what? So, he could look like a big shot in front of some shithead guys who ran a tow shop? After all, what had this guy in the stupid shirts done to him? Gotten physical that’s what. Then given him a cashier’s cheque for $250,000 after, that he couldn’t cash at the moment anyway, but would as soon as he hit the Cayman’s with Suzy, but even that was on hold now.

  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! he thought as he tried to calm down and think it through. “Okay, okay,” the Italian said as he sat there in the car and looked at himself in the rear-view mirror. “That freak never saw your face.” In his mind, he’d done the right thing. Everyone hated that big fuck Chendrill so it could have been anyone waiting in line to shoot the prick. It’ll blow over, like it does. Tomorrow he’d go over to the house and tell Suzy she’s coming to live here with him, along with the kids. Fuck her weedy idiot loser husband—he could fuck off. She’s coming here and from now on there’d be no more bullshit, no more disposing of drug-addicted losers. He’d fill the pit in with dirt and in the future they could fall on their own swords. Done, that’s it. Decision made, he thought as he took a deep breath and opened the glove box and stashed the gun above it, tucking it in the hole he’d cut in the plastic at the top. Then he got out and looked into the back of the garden and saw in the darkness that the door to the pit was still open.

  Jesus Christ! He was such a fucking idiot, he thought. What the fuck was going on with him today? He was sure he’d closed it and locked it. Now he’d attracted raccoons again as they were lying next to it in the grass as they liked to do. He walked to the side of the driveway and picked up the long gaffing pole with the spike and hook at the end that he’d found at a flea market and brought home so as he could do target practice on these stinking black eyed fucking overgrown rats that passed through the garden, throwing the pole at them whenever he could—just as he had when he was good at the javelin in the old days back at school.

  Taking the pole and balancing it in the palm of his right hand, he stretched his arm back so the pole’s rusting metal hook and spike sat right next to his cheek, twisted his body to the side, took a few quick steps forward, and in one fast, practiced movement he launched the pole through the air in a direct line 200 feet down towards the bottom of the garden and watched it land in the center of the group of raccoon’s laying by the pit.

  “Yes!” he said out loud, he’d got one for certain. The boy still had it.

  Then one of the raccoons stood and dusted itself off. The Italian stared into the darkness as the shape of a small woman in a cocktail dress slowly became apparent. Shit, this wasn’t good—they must be kids, he thought. Kids out looking for a quiet place to fuck and then they’d come across the open pit in the darkness. Now he’d have to kill them all and throw them down there as well. But what about when they went missing and they brought tracking dogs in as they liked to do? Then he’d be fucked, those fucking mongrels with their big fucking ears and droopy chops would be all over the backyard like flies’ round shit. He needed to play it by ear.

  He called out, “You need to be careful sneaking about in other people’s yards—you could get hurt.”

  Daltrey had watched as the long spear, suddenly propelled through the air, came towards her and had moved quickly at the last second as it landed, almost sending herself back down the pit. Fuck, she was pissed. The fucker, she thought, as she looked at the spike sticking in the ground only inches from where she’d been laying. A few weeks ago, she’d run from a madman, but she certainly wasn’t going to run now. Not from this fucker. Slowly she stood and for a moment wondered if the Italian had a gun. Maybe, but if he used it then there’d be neighbors calling the cops and then the RCMP would be here and that’s all this prick needed when he’d been fertilizing the lawn with junkies.

  Daltrey moved away from the pit; and grabbing the end of the pole, she gave it one hard tug and pulled it from the ground as she called back, “You need to start worrying about who you throw things at,” and then stood there waiting for him in the center of the garden.

  The Italian slowly walked towards her off of the graveled drive and onto the grass, keeping his eyes fixed on the young woman standing there holding his pole in a party dress and boots. He could see her now in the moonlight—she was a looker. And wearing a dress like that, chances were high it was the same woman who’d been hanging about the club. So, he wasn’t losing it, his instincts were dead on and he had been right to almost twist that lesbian’s arm out of its socket.

  He looked at the man he could now see lying on the ground looking at them both with his face all burnt. Recognizing him as the guy he’d picked up and thought he’d just strangled to death, he took a deep breath. Jesus Christ! What he needed to do, he thought, was get his fucking act together. He needed to take the pole from this fucking lesbian and knock her the fuck out. Then he’d stick the sharp end of the big toy he liked to throw around the garden into the fucking loser and throw him back down the pit. Then he’d take this bitch into the garage and give his other smaller toy a bit of action. After all, since Suzy had been out of action in that department, it had been a while. He needed to get mean again, just how he’d been in the old days before he’d gotten soft. Back then, he’d have fucked her until he was bored and then before he sent her to join that other loser in the pit, he’d have tortured her until she told him exactly what she and any other fucking cop in this city knew about him.

  So, that’s what he’d do.

  Then surprisingly, Daltrey came at him, lightning fast, bringing the pole up as she did in a posture that could only mean that the direction it would be heading was his head. Quickly the Italian put his arms up to block the stick as Daltrey, at the same time, let go of the pole, and in one swift move while his arms were up, she dove at his legs with her own and scissoring them at his knee, spun her weight around his body and allowing her momentum to bring him off balance, brought the man crashing helplessly to the ground.

  The moment he was down and winded, Daltrey was back on him, bringing her right arm quickly around his neck and her legs on top of both of his knees. Then keeping him in the choke hold she’d picked up over a long weekend in Port Alberni, she spun the weight of her body around again, rolling the man onto his back, pinning his legs beneath his ass with hers in between.

  And there she held him, feeling the man struggle, unable to move as he fought to breathe. She counted as she felt her forearm jammed deep into his windpipe. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and at eight he was out cold.

  With three jerks of her body she released him from the limpet formation she’d formed around his body and stood. Then wasting no time, she walked over, picked up the long pole the man had nearly speared her with, and with a huge swipe swung it towards the Italian’s left leg and stuck the hook right into the man’s calf.

  Tugging the pole with all her weight, she pulled once, then twice, then on the third felt the man’s unconscious bulk begin to give and slide slightly on the grass made wet by the night air. Then just as she saw the man was about to come around, she began to run holding the pole, pulling the man as she did. With all her might she twisted to one side and swung the Italian around through the wet grass in a semi-circle like an Olympic hammer thrower with hairy legs—and let go,
allowing the Italian’s momentum to take him the last couple of feet, sliding him head first into the death pit of his own creation.

  The girl was definitely beginning to feel better.

  In a flash, Daltrey was at the edge of the pit, kicking the ladder to the side and slamming the lid down. Reaching down and breathing hard, she twisted the catch and stood on top. Pulling out her phone again, she called Chendrill.

  Again, nothing.

  It was time to call Ditcon.

  **************

  As late as it was, Ditcon was still in his office, and strangely so was Stephanie, his new driver. Not that they were working. What it was, was this: word had gotten to Ditcon that Chendrill had inherited a fortune. This information had then been 100% confirmed by a lawyer he knew, who’d called another lawyer he knew, who worked for Samuel. And that’s when Ditcon had decided to get drunk—not only drunk on alcohol though, but drunk on jealousy also. And in this drunken jealous state in which he’d tried to even the odds in his mind somehow by again trying to seduce a girl half his age with a fetish for domination. A seduction that had only once again failed miserably, but this time ended with his ass sore from being whipped and yet another wet nose and aching tongue after having his ears held crazy tight until he’d hyperventilated and passed out.

  Now though he’d settled down and picked up Daltrey’s phone call only because he’d just ordered a pizza and thought it had just arrived. As he put the phone to his ear, he said, “If the order’s wrong, we’re not paying.”

  We? The tight prick, Stephanie thought as she listened, sitting in Ditcon’s favorite chair.

  “It’s Daltrey.”

  Ditcon went quiet and listened as the girl who’d just taken down a serial killer breathed hard into the phone. Daltrey carried on, not waiting for the man to speak, she said, “I’m in North Van, next to Cates Park, there’s a pit, it’s full of bodies.”

  Fuck, thought Ditcon, as he listened. North Van, Cates Park—he hated driving out there when the doughnut shop wasn’t open, and it was RCMP territory, out of his jurisdiction, so he’d probably have to be nice to some spotty faced cop and work this one hard to take the glory. He said, “Cates again hey?”

  Being a long way from downtown and set on the inlet next to the mountains, the park had been a favorite dumping ground over the years for people wanting to bury bodies and had seen its fair share of skeletons turn up. He said, “Who’s the perpetrator?”

  Daltrey took a deep breath and looked to her feet as she heard the Italian stirring below. “Send an ambulance,” she said, “there’s a guy who’s in a bad way.” Then she carried on, “the guy who owns the pit is in the pit and I’m standing on the lid.”

  Ditcon smiled, this was great—no manhunt necessary, he could take the glory, it had been hard work, yeah, but he’d got the guy in the end, he always did.

  Then he heard Daltrey say, “Chendrill had me follow him, he’s dating an exotic dancer.”

  Fuck, Ditcon thought, that fucking prick, playing detective again while all Ditcon had been doing was trying to fuck him up. And to boot, he was fucking that stripper with the big tits.

  Taking a guess, and this time correct—for once in his life—he said, “Yes, we are well aware about Chendrill’s relationship with Suzy Diamond.” And he was, as after having stared at the woman’s breasts for an hour a few days prior, he’d looked her up online and liked what he’d found.

  Daltrey said quickly back. “No not Chendrill, the guy in the pit.”

  This was good, Ditcon thought, even better. Now he could bring this Suzy Diamond in and give her a one-on-one in-depth interview about this boyfriend of hers he’d just caught. Maybe he could even console her.

  He said, “You next to the park?”

  “On the water—to the north.”

  “Be there in ten minutes.”

  “Call an ambulance.”

  “On it!”

  But she knew he wasn’t, so Daltrey called one herself.

  *************

  They arrived at the same time, Ditcon in a puffed-up state of supreme glory and the first responders from the fire department who went straight to the man on the ground and instantly began to bathe his eyes. Ditcon saying as he looked at them, “What are these guys doing here?”

  Daltrey, still standing on top of the lid to the pit, feeling her own skin burning from the quicklime, and feeling the bumping sensation of the Italian who was no doubt at the top of the ladder she’d thrown down there trying to push it open, answered, “You called them, I thought.”

  Ditcon replied as he looked to his driver, “Where’s the killer?”

  Daltrey nodded to the grass under her feet and said, “Where he deserves to be.”

  Ditcon looked to the grass beneath Daltrey’s feet and then back up to her. “And there’s a pit down there full of bodies along with the guy who put them in there?”

  Daltrey nodded. Raising his eyebrows and trying to hide his smile, Ditcon looked to his watch. Then to the sky to the east, the sun was a long way from coming up and that was a shame, as situations like these looked good on camera in the early morning light. He turned back looking to his young driver first, then to Daltrey, and full of pride said, “Well I got the guy in the end!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chendrill woke in the ward of St Paul’s hospital and for a moment wondered where the hell he was. Then it all came flooding back—the car, the street sign, Sebastian’s message from the afterlife, passed onto him via the strange lady who’d been waiting for him at the undertaker’s. A message which he’d taken no heed of until that last moment, when it had suddenly made sense. Putting him on alert. Just enough to see the Italian appearing from the shadows with the gun, giving Chendrill that split second he needed to spin himself away as the Italian raised the gun, taking the shot in the shoulder instead of the heart.

  Chendrill had gone down and landed there on the sidewalk looking up, unable to move. The Italian had walked over to him. Then seeing something out of the corner of his eye, he’d moved off quickly into the night at the same moment a woman who looked like Suzy had appeared. The woman with her long blonde hair and big boobs reaching his side and looking down at him as he lay wounded on the sidewalk. Crouching down next to him in her short little skirt, Chendrill had looked at her as the hazy realization hit that it wasn’t Suzy. And as she held him and twisted her knees towards his face, the last thing Chendrill had seen before he blacked out was the woman’s testicles hanging out of either side of her tight little panties. One thing was for certain, he owed the woman—or whatever she was.

  Fuck, he was an idiot, he thought as he felt the wound on his shoulder. Then he heard the doctor coming even before the man, in a hurry, took a peek around the curtain.

  “Hey, are you Charles Chuck Chendrill, the guy who found the dog?” asked the doctor.

  He was. He asked, “Do you have my phone?”

  They did, and the first person he called was Daltrey, who said, “Where the fuck, have you been?”

  Chendrill saying straight back, getting it out the way, “Be careful, Suzy’s boyfriend just shot me in the shoulder.” Then he said, “Maybe it’s time to mention this idiot to Ditcon and have him brought in.”

  Then after a pause, he heard Daltrey say, “You can tell him yourself once he’s stopped vomiting.”

  Chendrill sat there for a moment and listened to movement coming from Daltrey’s end. Eventually, she said, “The guy’s been throwing junkies in a pit at the bottom of his garden. He thought he was going to put me in it as well—but it went the other way. I trapped the prick in there and shut the lid. I called you, but you’d fucked up, so then I called Ditcon. Problem is that the egotistical idiot took too long to open the pit up and when he eventually did, the fucker was gone.”

  And that’s how it had played out. Daltrey on top, the Italian below crawling around in the mud and slime of rotting limbs and torsos, puking as he found the ladder in the pitch black darkness of his own
self-made hell and dragged himself up to stand on his now one decent leg, reaching down to feel the metal spike stuck firmly in the other—the pole now gone, snapped clean at the riveted joint.

  Pulling hard, the Italian had screamed as he felt the metal spike come away from the center of his calf muscle. Then still holding it, he reached into his pocket and felt for his phone. It was still there. Thank god, he thought as he crossed his chest and kissed his hand straight after as his body unconsciously reverted back to his childhood days when he’d stood happy and smiling as an altar boy and wondered why the Catholic priest was always smiling at him in such a weird way.

  He pulled out his phone, turned it on, and looked around as the light from the screen unleashed the horror of what he was smelling and had smelled so bad each time he’d opened the pit to throw in more lime or another poor soul who’d gone too far into the dark side to be able to pay back the money they’d owed.

  There was mud and rock shingle all around three sides of the pit, the fourth, though, had a bottom layer of larger rocks that sealed the pit from the outside. Beyond that was a meter round pipe that ran to the rocks at the side of the inlet that he’d laid in for run off—in case, for some strange reason, the trap door closed and he couldn’t get out.

  Standing on his bad leg, the Italian stuck the metal spike into a small gap in the rocks and started to dig until a minute later they were clear. Then laying down in amongst the filth, he pulled himself into the pipe on his belly and began to crawl through the slime and stench.

  Three minutes later, he was batting away from his face the rats that fed on the rot. He pushed away three big rocks that he’d placed on the secluded shoreline himself and pulled himself out completely from his own handmade tomb.

  Crouching, he looked at the lights around the place he once called home and then made his way down to the water, stepping in quietly, submerging himself in the dark cold water, and beginning to rub the slime from his body. Then standing again, he looked down at the wound on his leg. It was bad and still bleeding heavily. Kneeling down, he washed the rotting filth still stuck to his hands off in the water then did the same with his leg.