Hair of the Bitch - A Twisted Suspense Thriller

by Jeff Menapace

  Still my nerves were all over the place. Never mind I was in a neighborhood that Robocop would avoid. Never mind I didn’t have a clue where I was, or precisely where I was going in said neighborhood. I had a dead body in my trunk. A body I had killed.

  (Sinking in, is it? Fantasy World must feel galaxies away right now.)

  I’m not sure. I’m more worried about getting caught, I think.

  (More than the fact that you brutally murdered someone?)

  I murdered that freak…

  (Stephanie was different, and you know it.)

  No it wasn’t…I didn’t want to…I was going to let her go.

  (But ya didn’t.)

  She attacked me after. I was defending myself.

  (Please.)

  I was.

  (I’ll give you the freak. But Stephanie? You didn’t have to kill her.)

  Why am I still numb? You promised if I got in the game, took a few hits…

  (How the hell should I know? If you don’t know, then I don’t.)

  What!? You know everything! Where are all your stupid fucking metaphors?

  (Maybe you’re still numb because of what Angela said earlier. Her words keep you numb until she decides to give you more.)

  You think she’s playing me?

  (She’s BEEN playing you. You even unknowingly admitted it to yourself earlier: you’d be quiet and obedient until she gave you more.)

  That’s different; I’m using a ploy.

  (Different but the same.)

  She doesn’t have to fuck me. Why is she fucking me?

  (Keeping the help happy?)

  You saying she fucked all those freaks?

  (You considered it before.)

  That was a while ago. It’s different now.

  (Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…)

  I followed the last line of directions that had me turning into an alley off the main road, the street lamps behind me growing distant as I rolled on, my headlights soon becoming my only source of light in what began to feel like a tunnel.

  The alley was predominantly bare as far as alleys go—a few battered trash cans; plastic bags and newspapers trying to fly. My speed (which couldn’t have been more than 10 mph, if that) taken into consideration, the alley still seemed to go on forever. Perhaps I was lost, was down the wrong alley, hell, the wrong block.

  I reached for the directions on the passenger seat, glanced at them for a tick, glanced back up, and then stomped the shit out of my brakes. A wall to what was a dead end seemed to materialize out of nowhere. I sat there, idling for a moment, heart racing, headlights shining on a stone wall covered with graffiti.

  So what now? Did I wait? Would someone approach me like a drive-thru window? Ask me how many bodies I’d be dumping today, sir?

  I waited another minute, car still idling, headlights still on, reading the graffiti I could understand.

  (You’re going to have to get out of the car.)

  I took a deep breath, held it, switched off the ignition, and got out. A dim source of yellow light about ten yards east was my only beacon. I followed it until I came to a large metal garage door. Above the door jutted a solitary bulb encased in a wire cup, the source of light. No doubt this was my destination. I saw nothing else of significance. Either I was indeed lost, or this was it.

  The garage door was huge and solitary, no adjoining doors on either side. The building that held the door did not look like a building, at least not in the traditional sense. It did not protrude from the wall, did not appear detached in any way. It looked as if someone decided to fasten a giant garage door into an endless wall of brick and stone.

  I rapped my fist on the metal door, light at first, and then a bit harder. The echo that came back was louder than I wanted and made me look both ways. I was very alone. On another planet alone.

  The door rattled and clanked from the other side. Someone was there. Another metallic clank, the sound of a bolt sliding, and the door started to slide upwards.

  I saw dirty boots first. Then dirty jeans. Then a dirty sweater. Finally a dirty face. The guy looked like someone you’d see holding a cardboard sign on a street corner. His beard was a salt and pepper mess, more pepper than salt, though I think filth took more credit than genetics. Gun to my head I’d guess him in his forties, but his leather skin would have made a good argument for fifty-something. He spoke first, and when he did, I noticed his front teeth were gone.

  “You droppin’ something off?” he asked. Without his front teeth, something sounded like sumfin.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “What do you know about it?”

  I was paranoid and scared. For all I knew the guy could have been talking about a stolen car I’d brought him to chop. I needed him to be specific.

  “The sexy lady sent ya,” he said. “You’re droppin’ off another one, right?”

  “Depends. What do you know about it?” I said again.

  He looked annoyed. “I know that if you want somethin’ gone, you give it to me.”

  This had to be it, and this had to be the guy. The odds that I was speaking to some random transient who happened to know a sexy lady who’d sent me to drop off “another one” were slim to none. So I went ahead and started getting it over with.

  “Okay,” I said. “How do we do this?”

  Somehow I saw him smirk through that forest of a beard. I didn’t like it.

  “I’ll open the garage,” he said. “You back in. Then we deal with it inside.”

  I did as told. The dark interior of the building was vast and empty. It had a musty charcoal smell.

  The two of us now standing in front of the trunk, the guy asked, “You gonna open it up?”

  I popped the trunk but looked away. My periphery caught the guy reaching inside the trunk, fiddling with the body.

  “Did a number on her, didn’t ya?” he said.

  I finally looked. The guy had pulled back the sheet covering Stephanie. Pulled it back and down her torso. Her face and neck were a gory mess, but her bare breasts were still relatively intact.

  “Nice tits,” the guy said. “You get a chance to tap it before you carved her up?”

  I ignored him. My silence got me another smirk through that mangy beard.

  “So what do we do with her?” I eventually said.

  “I don’t do shit,” he said. “I provide the means, you do the extremes.”

  “Any chance you can elaborate?”

  The guy chuckled, started walking deeper into the garage. “Pick her up and follow me.”

  I refused to look at Stephanie’s (lack of) face as I lifted her out of the trunk and followed the guy deep inside the garage, all the way to the far end. He pointed to a hatch on the wall that looked like a big laundry chute. “Well go on, boy—slide her on down.”

  “Where’s it go?” I asked.

  “Incinerator.”

  “You sure?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, boy. This ain’t the first time I done this.”

  I shifted Stephanie’s body in my arms and gestured towards the shoot with my chin. “Well can you open it for me?”

  He scratched his beard as if thinking about it, as if it was one hell of a favor I was asking. Finally: “Sure thing, boy.”

  The guy jerked the hatch open. I instantly felt the heat from somewhere below.

  “Jus’ slide her on down the chute and that’ll be that.”

  I did it quickly. Heard Stephanie’s body clang and bang along the corridors of the chute as it tumbled down. There was a final thud, a sound like gears grinding, and then a blast of heat rocketing up the chute that hit me square in the face.

  “Jesus!” I yelled, turning away from the chute and shuffling to a safe distance.

  The guy laughed. “Almost like a dragon ain’t it?”

  I said nothing.

  “Shame. Looked like a damn good piece of ass, that one. You get a chance to do her first?” he asked me again.

  I began walking back towards the car. He f
ollowed.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said to my back. “You’re a good lookin’ fella. I reckon you’re fuckin’ the sexy lady who sends ’em here, yeah?”

  I continued heading towards my car, doing my best to ignore him.

  “Are ya? Are ya fuckin’ the sexy lady? Yeah—I reckon you are. Every other fella she sends has had some of that.”

  I stopped suddenly. Turned and faced him. “What did you say?”

  “’Bout what?”

  “About other guys coming here.”

  He gave me that smirk again, and I envisioned snatching his beard and ripping the fucking thing off.

  “Hell, boy—you think you’re the only one she’s fuckin’? She’s always sending a new one my way. I reckon your number five this year. Maybe six. Hell, seven.”

  A mix of confusion and anger started churning in my gut. I certainly wasn’t stupid enough to think that a woman like Angela had been saving herself for yours truly, but I was interested in knowing if she had blackmailed any other poor schmucks like me. And if so, where were they now?

  (You’re also a little jealous.)

  No.

  (Yes.)

  “What do you know about it?” I asked.

  “’Bout what?”

  “The other guys she sends here.”

  The smirk again. “Why? You jealous, boy?”

  Rip off the beard, shove it down his throat until he chokes, stomp on his head until purple shit comes out his ears…

  “No, I’m not jealous,” I said, probably sounding jealous. “I’m just curious as to where these other guys might be now.”

  He shrugged. “The hell should I know? I jus’ do what I’m told and collect my pay at the end of each month.”

  “And how’s that work?”

  He smiled. “Friend of a friend of a friend.”

  I headed back to the car. He followed.

  “Just enjoy that sweet pussy, boy. You keep asking too many questions and next time I might be talking to a new fella.”

  Shamefully, I contemplated his words. Would asking too many questions get me in trouble? Angela did say the freak I’d killed had been talking too much. My curiosity was split: half of me wanted to know what happened to the men before me, and the other half was portraying the jealous boyfriend who wanted details about former lovers. The first half was more than justifiable out of self-preservation. The second half was pathetic; it had no business in a fifty/fifty split with survival.

  “Are we done here?” I said. “Can I go?”

  He nodded once, spit, wiped his beard and said, “Maybe I’ll see you again, boy.”

  I grunted and went to get in the car.

  “You give that sweet pussy a kiss for me, alright?”

  This last quip—while no different than any of his previous winners—changed that churning mix of confusion and anger in my gut into one hundred percent pure anger.

  Was it because I felt like he was disrespecting Angela—

  (who cares???)

  —or was it because it felt like he was bullying me with secrets? I didn’t know. I just knew that I wanted to kick-fuck the guy into a coma.

  “You should watch your fucking mouth,” I said, leaving the car, moving towards him.

  He put his hands up in a pacifying gesture, yet continued with that condescending smirk. “Jesus, boy—you lettin’ a woman control your mood and she ain’t even here.” He barked out a laugh. “You must be one pussy-whipped faggot!”

  I dipped to my left and ripped a left hook into his liver. He crumbled to the ground instantly where he let out a sound like a punctured tire.

  “What’s wrong, man?” I said. “Legs give out on ya? Yeah—liver shots’ll do that.” I reached down towards his moaning, fetal body and got a good fistful of beard. “Here, let me help you up.” I jerked, his head came off the ground a few inches, and then my fist came away with beard and skin and blood. The guy screamed. I smiled.

  I tossed the hunk of beard and flesh back into his face, spit on him, then got into the car and drove off.

  Felt good.

  The Bar

  “What’d you do that for?” the bartender asks.

  “Because the guy was a perverted scumbag. He got what he deserved,” I say, gulping what’s left in my glass as though the act of drinking fast and hard and excessive justified my point; proved that I’d been a man acting like a man. I think Hemingway might have understood.

  “I’m not arguing about the guy; he sounded like an asshole, probably did deserve a few smacks…”

  I nod emphatically, reach for the Macallan, but he grabs it first; probably afraid my drunken fingers will knock it over. He pours me a refill and continues:

  “But,” he says. “Weren’t you concerned as to what Angela might do? I mean, you’re trying to get her to admit some big secret, right? What if what you did puts the kibosh on that chance?”

  I sip my refill, shake my head. “At that moment? I didn’t give a shit. Dirty old scumbag had gotten me so worked up; all I could think about was the other guys he kept referring to. Besides, I knew Angela wouldn’t tell me anything when I got back—in fact, it would be a while before I got the real truth out of her. And fuck me, what I had to go through to get it.”

  “What? What’d you have to go through?” he asks, uncharacteristically eager for the moment.

  I sip my drink and shake my head. “Not yet.”

  Besides, pal, if you think I’m full of shit now; just you wait. When I tell you, you’ll ditch the boots and shovel and start looking for a fucking snorkel.

  27

  We were in Angela’s living room. I was slumped on the sofa; she stood in front of me. I didn’t look at her as we spoke.

  “So talk to me,” she said. “Tell me how it went.”

  “It went fine.”

  “I take it you met Manny?”

  “I never got his name.”

  “Eccentric fella, isn’t he?”

  “To say the least.”

  There was a moment of pause.

  “So it went okay then?”

  “Stephanie’s well-done if that’s what you mean.”

  “Humor as a diversion,” she said. “What are you hiding?”

  “I’m not hiding anything. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.” I could feel her stare. “You did dump her didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I dumped her.” I finally looked up, trying to project some measure of confidence. “I also had quite the interesting chat with your buddy Manny.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Well let’s see…first, he commented on your beauty—got a real gift of the gab that Manny does.”

  “He’s harmless.”

  “Then,” I blurted, in case she intended to continue. “He happened to mention all of the men who were under your employment before me.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes, he did. It would appear that even decrepit men in seedy parts of the city know all about your sexual exploits and fetishes for all things macabre.” I sat upright, gaining steam. “He told me there were guys before me. Guys just like me, doing what I was doing. Five, six, maybe even seven—he couldn’t keep track. Five, six, maybe even seven guys you fucked like a porn star so they’d follow you around like puppies, doing whatever they’re told. Or should I say, doing whatever they’re told or else?” I splayed a hand. “You wanna tell me where those guys are now?”

  She remained standing, never lost her composure. “Do you believe everything you hear, Calvin?”

  “Why shouldn’t I believe it? You told me yourself that you’d been following me. Choosing me. You told me that the freak I killed was getting sloppy and you had to get rid of him. Why shouldn’t I believe that there were others before me; men in my exact predicament? How do I know that you’re not planning to get rid of me? Should I feel safe because we’re fucking? You were fucking all those other guys too!”
/>
  “Will you please calm down?” she said. “Please consider the source of all this information you’re getting.”

  “That’s just it, Angela. I know some of it is true. I know about the type of business you’re in. I know about your fetishes. Call me crazy, but with absolute knowledge like that, it sure as hell makes the other stuff easy to swallow.”

  “You mean the stuff about the men before you?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “Why do you want to know? Are you jealous?”

  “No—”

  (liar)

  “—I’d simply like to know if they’re alive or not.”

  She rolled her eyes and took a long breath as though about to explain something for the umpteenth time.

  “First, let’s get something straight,” she began. “I don’t know where the heck Manny got his figures from. Believe it or not, there are people in this world that don’t need to be blackmailed in order to work for me. Some work willingly if I pay them well. I’m sure those were the individuals Manny was referring to. It may have been five or six or seven, or even ten. It may have been two. They were my employees. They did what I told them to do, and I paid them for it.

  “Second, the only one of those individuals that’s dead is Alex, and that’s because he was an idiot with a big mouth. As for the others, some are still working for me, and some are not. But as far as I know, they are all very much alive.”

  But did she fuck them?

  I opened my mouth to ask, but she cut me off, reading me like the open book I was to her.

  “And third, at the risk of giving you a king-sized ego, you are the only employee that I have ever slept with. My risqué behavior and questionable line of work does not make me a whore. I do what I do with you out of enjoyment, not necessity. Clear?”

  Her words sunk in with minor prejudice; she had such a convincing way about her. And her comment about sleeping with me for pleasure did give my ego a stroke. But that feeling, while savored, was fleeting. It was unnerving to think I was so easily manipulated by her words when you considered the complexities of our fucked-up rapport.