by Tim Green
"Marty," he whispered, touching his agent on his bare shoulder. It was cold. Cody realized Marty was lying in a pool of his own blood. He could see where it had leaked from his mouth and out onto the bed, soaking the white sheet. Marty's eyes were open, but he was clearly dead. There was a chair beside him as if there had been a priest present, administering last rites. Beside Marty and the white sheet, the bed was bare. A battery lying at the foot of the chair had orange wires connected to Marty in a bizarre way.
Cody's eyes drifted instinctively to the phone book that lay open on the night table next to the bed. Amidst this carnage, the book meant something. That was as clear to Cody as if he'd heard a voice telling him so. Cody looked down at the book.
He jumped for the phone almost before the realization became a conscious thought. The book was open to the page where Madison's address and number could be found. Cody dialed frantically. He got a busy signal. He tried again and cursed out loud at another busy signal. She had two lines. He called her office phone. It was busy too. That was impossible. He called the operator. He told her it was an emergency. He needed to break through on the line.
"I'm sorry, sir," the operator said pleasantly, "there seems to be a problem with both of those lines. Would you like me to call customer service?"
Cody dropped the phone and ran.
Striker drove past the house that was listed as belonging to Madison McCall. Striker knew how Marty felt about the female attorney. Striker could always tell the sentiments a man had for the people he was tortured to talk about. People a man loved required a level of pain and psychological manipulation that was ten times that of someone for whom they had no real feelings. Pollgraft, for instance, hadn't been difficult at all compared to the pain he had to deliver to get Marty to talk about Madison. Striker kept going down the street in his Pontiac until he found a dead end off the main road with a vacant lot between two large houses. He backed the old car up off the road and barreled slowly into the brush, making as little noise as possible. When he got out he was careful to close the door without more than a subtle clicking sound.
Striker looked carefully around to make sure no one had been watching him, then set out down the street wearing a dark green sweat suit as if he was one of the neighbors going out for an evening stroll. He knew better than to skulk around the bushes. When he got to Madison's house, he simply turned up the driveway like he was paying her a visit. When he got to where there was some foliage, he turned slowly to scan the area before he darted into the shadows. He quickly found the phone box, and with a tool from his pocket he jimmied it open and cut the lines. That done, he walked back toward the driveway. He stopped on the edge of the shadows to carefully study his surroundings. He was looking for neighbors walking their dogs or taking a jog. He was concerned with the house diagonally across the street that had a view of Madison's doorstep, but after a careful assessment, he presumed they weren't home. Everything else looked quiet, so he crossed the driveway and started up the walk. As he was climbing the steps, Striker sensed some movement behind him, and he spun instinctively, ducking at the same time.
Joe's bat hit Striker level with his waistline, shattering the tip of his hip bone. This knocked Striker sideways to the ground. He rolled with it and came up in a crouch despite the pain in his hip. Joe was too quick for him to avoid the next blow either. He had redirected with Striker and was smart enough to swing the bat in an arc that was parallel to the ground and stood a much better chance of connecting than a swing that came straight down. The bat caught Striker in his left shoulder, knocking it painfully out of its socket and sending him sprawling again.
Striker didn't bother trying to rise, he dug his fingers into the mulch bed where he lay and advanced toward his attacker on his belly, like a lizard. He got to Joe's feet when the third blow hit his buttocks, doing little damage. Striker pushed and then yanked Joe's left ankle, sending the bigger man into the air. He flipped his hands over like a car in a high-speed crash, keeping his hold on Joe's foot and snapping the bones and ligaments in his ankle with the crack of a woodsplitter. By the time Joe's body hit the ground, Striker was within reach of his groin, and he grabbed his testicles with an iron grip and yanked down hard. Joe saw stars and lost his breath.
Striker used his grip on Joe's groin to pull himself forward. He got his other hand high enough to hook a finger behind Joe's eyeball and yank it out of its socket with a bizarre sucking sound. Joe let out a primal roar when he felt the eye being ripped from his skull. During the fall Joe lost the bat, but it fell fortuitously beside him. He grabbed it by the fat end and slammed it like a pool cue into the side of Striker's head, knocking him senseless.
Joe pushed the limp body of the man he still thought was Cody Grey . Off from on top of him. He stood uncertainly, his legs still weak from the damage done to his groin. He dropped the bat, grabbing for his face and whining in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like his own.
"My eye, my eye, oh, my fucking, my fucking eye!"
He felt it, a slippery oblong superball, hanging by what was left of his optic nerve, dangling against his cheek. He heard the high-pitched spitting sound of the twenty-two as the bullet ripped through his chin and tore through his nasal cavity, lodging in his septum. It made Joe dizzy immediately, and he staggered backward, choking on the blood that gushed down his throat. The next bullet hit him square in the chest, piercing the left ventricle of his heart and sitting him down hard on the concrete walk. The final shot he never felt. It struck him between the eyes, killing him instantly.
Joe's body fell backward and the front door opened at the same time. In the split second it took the woman to realize what had happened, and before she could scream. Striker pulled the trigger again, hitting her between the eyes as well. Abby raced through the doorway over the fallen body with her teeth bared and snarling. Striker shot the dog. He kept his gun raised at the ready. He was laying on his belly, half on and half off the walkway. Along with his hip and shoulder, blood was now flowing steadily from his ear. He struggled to his feet. The world spun for a moment, and Striker was afraid he might lose consciousness again. As quickly as he could, he moved carefully toward the open door.
The Mexican couple's lights had gone out a half hour ago, and they hadn't shown any sign of life since. Jenny felt she'd waited long enough. Striker told her to act on her feelings and not worry. "If he was going to cross me," he had explained, "it would probably have happened already. Probably with the first pit. Relax. Be ice. He's like a mean dog, he won't fuck with you if you look him square in the eyes."
Jenny pulled on her jeans jacket, then stuck the pistol into her pants and hefted the suitcase. She opened the door and looked around carefully one last time. When she got to the general's door, she took a deep breath before knocking twice. The door opened wide, and there he stood with a leering grin. He peered past her as if he expected that Striker might have come after all.
"Come right in, little Lucy," he said, closing the door behind her with one last glance out the door. "Oh, I know that's not your name. That's just what Striker likes to call his women, after the real Lucy of course."
Jenny looked at him coldly, showing no emotion, but the remark had hit its target. She couldn't help herself from wondering how this man knew about the first Lucy and how many other Lucys there'd been.
The general was chuckling to himself now,- his eyes roving up and down her body with a freedom he hadn't enjoyed the last time they'd met, when Striker was there. Jenny hoisted the suitcase onto the bed.
"Let's get this over with," she said with contempt.
"Oh, why?" the general said with mock disappointment. "Don't you want to give me any of that poon you've been dishing out to our friend Striker? Hasn't he shared you with any of his associates yet?"
"You're a pig, old man," Jenny said with a snarl. "Where's the pit?"
"Oh, where's the pit?" the general said, mocking her. "Let's see the money, cheesecake, then you'll see the pit."
Jenny stared coolly
at him for a moment, just to show him that she wasn't jumpy. Although his comments about Striker were having some effect on her, she wasn't about to let it show. She reached down and popped open the suitcase, revealing wad after wad of hundred-dollar bills packed tightly in the case. The general stepped over to the bed and picked up a few random stacks, leafing through them as Striker had predicted he might.
"It's all here, huh?" the general said with an evil look.
"Why don't you count it," Jenny said sarcastically. She was inwardly delighted that she had lifted two ten-thousand-dollar packets and stuffed them underneath the driver's seat of her Porsche, despite Striker's warning. She knew there was really no way the general would be able to tell, and it wasn't enough to bother with even if he could, but it was something. Even if it was only in a small way, she was fucking him, and that's what counted.
The general didn't say anything. He went around to the opposite side of the bed and lifted the metallic case from the space between the bed and the wall. He set the case on the bed between them and opened it. He reached inside but instead of the pit, the general extracted a snub-nosed .38. He pointed the gun at her chest. Jenny smiled in disbelief, like it was a bad joke. The general wasn't joking.
"Get that fucking smile off your face, you cunt!" he bellowed, coming from behind the bed and pistol-whipping her face to let her know he meant business.
Jenny didn't think about the gun in her own pants until the general yanked her head up by the hair and jammed the barrel of the . 38 up under her chin.
"Oh, I'm gonna teach you a few things, you little cunt," he whispered into her ear. She could smell the stench of onions and liver on his breath. The smell and her fear made her think she would vomit. "You don't play in the boy's sandbox unless you're ready to get fucked!
"Now," he snarled, "I'm real nervous, you hear me? I don't want you to make a fucking noise. I don't want you to make a cockeyed move. I don't want you to do anything but what the fuck 1 say, and then you make sure you know what I said. We're walking out of here, you and I. You're going to shut both these cases and pick them up, then you're going to walk out of here with me right behind you. You'll get into the front seat of my Jeep on the driver's side and slide across. The fucking gun will be aimed at your guts the whole time. You got that, bitch?"
Jenny nodded her head and bit the inside of her lip to keep from blubbering. She fought to control herself. If she could control herself, she might get a chance. That's what Striker would do, wait for a chance. If she got it, she would kill him. She would look into his eyes and watch him die. She had no way of knowing then that she wasn't going to get that chance.
Madison was in the shower. She had to get clean, and she had to do what she could to calm down. The hot water helped. She never heard Joe's wail of agony as he groped for his dangling eye. Cody was probably right, she thought. He'd find Marty, and everything would be fine. She had to just relax. She had briefly gone over her plan for Cody's testimony, but was unable to concentrate. Lucia was cleaning the kitchen, and Madison asked her to stay there and answer any phone calls until she got out of the shower because, she admitted to herself, ever since the recent incidents with Joe, she didn't feel safe in the shower anymore unless it was daytime or someone was standing guard. When she got out she dried off, then took two towels off of the towel- warmer and wrapped one around her head and the other around her body.
She pushed her feet into her slippers and pumped some moisturizing cream onto her hand. She assessed herself in the minor as she rubbed the cream into her face. There was the faintest hint of lines at the comers of her eyes, and she wondered if Cody knew she was at least three years older than he was and if it would matter. She couldn't stop herself from thinking that way. She truly believed now that with Alice's match of the ballistics that Cody would be exonerated. They could come out of this and maybe have a life together. A sigh escaped her and she spun around.
She thought she'd heard something in her bedroom.
"Lucia?" she said, stepping warily to the door and putting her ear against it There was nothing.
Slowly she opened the door and peered out into her bedroom.
"Come out."
Madison shrieked and jumped backward, slamming the door shut and fitfully pushing the lock. It was quiet.
"Come out," the voice said. "I've got your boy."
"Jo-Jo?" Madison cried. "Jo-Jo?"
"He can't speak at the moment," the voice said, 'but I'm sure he'll be happier when he sees your face."
Madison stepped back into the bathroom, reaching quietly with a trembling hand into the water closet where there was a phone on the wall. She picked it up. It was dead.
"I'm getting impatient. I'd hate to have to hurt him."
Madison opened the door and stepped out into her bedroom. Jo-Jo lay face down on her bed, knotted up tightly with the sleeves of two of his own sweatshirts. A pair of socks were stuffed into his mouth, fastened down with a third sweatshirt. He was straining his head up to see her, and his eyes bulged so far out that she thought he was being strangled.
"Jo-Jo!" she cried, "Oh, oh, oh, Cod, no ..."
The man was sitting next to her son on the bed. Half of his face was covered in blood that continued to spill from his ear. He looked like he'd walked out of a horror show. The white comforter that covered her bed was stained crimson, and there was a trail across the carpet to the bed.
"Sit down," he said tiredly, "right where you are. On the floor where I can see you. We have to talk."
Madison realized it was Jenny's boyfriend. The gun he held, she imagined, was the same one he had used to shoot Ramon Gustava and Jeff Board. She knew that he was going to kill her. She couldn't let herself think that he would kill Jo-Jo too, but the thought pounded wildly against the closed door in her mind. She fought to keep from being completely hysterical. She could see that her crying was scaring her son even more than he already was.
"What do you want?" she begged, looking up at him through her tears, wiping them dry in an attempt to get herself under control.
"Who else knows?" he said. His eyes closed briefly and then opened.
Madison thought he might pass out. If she could stall him, she had a chance.
"What do you mean?" she said.
Striker shook his head and said, "Oh, no, don't you do that to me."
He raised the gun and shot Jo-Jo.
Madison let out a wailing scream and jumped up off the floor to go to her son.
"Stop!" he commanded. "The next one goes in his head!"
Jo-Jo was thrashing on the bed. The bullet had gone through his forearm. When he saw the blood he fainted. Madison froze halfway across the bedroom. The gun was pointed at Jo-Jo's head.
"No one," she said. "1 only told Marty. The boy, the boy you made shoot the others. He saw you .. . No one knows. My son doesn't know anything. You've got to let--"
"Shut up!" he screamed. He was trying to think. His head was pounding and the room was starting to spin. He closed his eyes for an instant. When he did, Cody Grey sprang from the hallway.
Jenny was bent over the hood of the general's Jeep. She had nothing on but her boots. The general had her put the boots back on as an afterthought. The general had been worried more than anything that he was going to be killed by Striker as he walked away from the motel. He used Jenny as a shield, then took her to an abandoned meadow down a dirt road off of Route 16 that he'd found on his way into Goldthwaite that afternoon.
"You're gonna get the pit," he had told her at gun point, calmer now because he was certain they hadn't been followed.
"I'm gonna give it to you," he had told her. "But first I'm gonna fuck you good, like you want to be fucked. So start taking those clothes off before I get antsy and just gut shoot you for the fuck of it."
"You see," he explained, his eyes greedily upon her as she undressed in the moonlight beside the Jeep, "1 know there's only one thing Striker would come back to me for, that's the pit. I have no doubt that he would fin
d me and kill me if I screwed him on that. So I won't. But I can screw you. He won't like it, but he won't risk his ass trying to kill me over you. It'll be my little good-bye present to him. He won't give half a shit. He's probably got your gravestone picked out already anyway, or haven't you noticed? People seem to die a lot around your friend Striker."
When she was naked, he made her stand there for a few minutes so he could look at her. She began to shiver. He wished he hadn't had to hit her twice already, once when she smirked at him in the motel room and the second time when she tried to pull the gun out of her pants in the Jeep. She wasn't nearly as pretty with a big bleeding knot above her forehead and a gashed and swollen upper lip. Still, he knew she looked better than anything he'd ever put the pipe to. She was outrageously gorgeous. He told her to put the boots back on and bend over the front of the Jeep. She heard the buckle jangle as he undid his pants and dropped them to his knees.
She felt the rough razor stubble of his beard rubbing up against her bare bottom as he started to lick her. The general pressed the barrel of the thirty- eight into the soft flesh above her hip while he worked. Jenny's skin crawled ai the touch of his slobbering tongue. She cringed when he finally stood an'l jammed himself inside her. The general started to pound his hips against her, reaching around the front of her and groping at her breasts with his free hand while he pressed the gun into her ribs with the other. He worked angrily for about ten minutes before he hit her in the back of the head with the pistol once more. She let out a shriek. The general was breathing heavily now, frustrated and sweating despite the cool night air and the gentle breeze.
When he had finally satisfied himself, the general began beating her about the head with his pistol once again, this time flailing wildly until he had her knocked off the hood of the Jeep and into a cowering heap in the tall grass beside the dusty road. Keeping an eye on her all the while, the general tossed the metallic case out of his car into the grass beside her.
"I imagine a nice-looking girl like you won't have any problem getting a ride back into town," he said. "Hell, you can walk it in an hour."
