“What’s that mean? Stop pacing. What happened to you?”
I stood right in front of him. Rage was making me curl my lips. “Where’s Victoria?”
“I don’t know. Why? She took off today with your painting and never came back. I called her phone and told her I was firing her if she didn’t have a good excuse. I may just fire her anyway. What’s wrong with you?”
It was a good answer, it sounded legit.
I tried a new tactic. Cheap and old, but I needed to know what he’d say. I pretended to lighten up. “Sorry, Barry. I’m in some trouble and I lost my phone. I was searching for a payphone but couldn’t find one. Just by luck I was driving around here and saw your car. You’d think there’d be a payphone around here.”
“You want to use mine? What kind of trouble are you in? Tell me what happened to your face.”
“Nothing big, just a private client thing.”
He studied my broken nose as he talked. “Working around me. Thought I had your contract.”
“I’m free to work outside of the gallery, you know that. Where’s the nearest payphone?”
“How the hell should I know? I have a phone, just use mine.”
How the hell should I know? There it was, the lie I needed.
I grabbed him by his shirtfront and slammed him into the wall. The painting near his head fell from its hook and clattered on the hardwood floor.
“Roger! What the fu--”
“Shut up. Who’d you call on the phone at the liquor store?”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“Tell me or I swear I’ll punch your teeth down your throat.”
“I didn’t call anyone.”
“Bullshit. The clerk saw you.” I took the cell phone from my pocket and held it up. “You call this?”
For the briefest of seconds I saw recognition in his eyes. “I don’t know--”
I slammed him backwards again, smacked his head against the wall. This time he shoved back, but I kneed him in the balls. He sank to his knees, hands holding his dick. I lifted his head up and pressed the phone to his face. “You call this? It’s a simple question.”
“I’m calling the police. You’ll never work for--”
I hit him in the mouth with the cell phone. He grunted and cowered beneath me. Seeing him like that made me cringe, gave me flashbacks of killing Skinny Man. But in some distant part of me I was only beginning to understand, it felt damn good.
“I’ll ask one more time, Barry, then I’m throwing punches. Tell me what’s going on. I know you were on the payphone at the liquor store. I know that payphone called this phone. I know this phone was in the possession of a man who kidnapped Victoria, your employee. That person who had her, by the way, is very much dead now. Fill in the rest, Goldilocks.”
Now he looked up at me and met my eyes in a different light.
I said, “You’re involved in this, aren’t you, Goldilocks? Too many coincidences here. It adds up.”
He chuckled and leaned back against the wall. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, Roger.”
“Too late, I’m already in it. Where’s Victoria?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ll kill me. And they’ll kill you.”
“They already tried and failed. No more secrets, Barry. No more vague nonsense.”
“Then kill me. That won’t get you anything.”
“I’m weighing that outcome based on your cooperation.”
“Ha! You talk tough, Roger. Did you really kill someone today? I doubt it.”
“Big fucker named Walt. One of your three bears. Yeah, he’s dead. Want to try me again?”
The name meant something to him, I could tell. He remained silent though. I decided to let him know I meant business.
“You get things for people, Barry. Remember? That’s what you do . . . you get things for people. There’s no way you can afford this house and that car and all the shit you have just by selling my paintings. I know the rents in this town. They’re steep, too steep for the way you’re living. This phone connects you to some very bad people. There’s a camera outside that store. Bet we could play connect the phone call time stamps pretty easily. Figure out how you manage this lifestyle.”
That part about the camera was a lie, but I was willing to play the bluff to scare him. And, for the hell of it, I punched him square in the mouth. His lip split and poured blood down the front of his shirt. My hand throbbed from the force of the blow, but I didn’t let on.
“Stop hitting me!”
“Where is she? What’s going on?”
“Roger, you really don’t want to get involved in this.”
“Try me, Goldilocks. Next time, use a name not so close to your own.”
“I didn’t come up with it. They did. They pick something close to your character. I’m Jewish, so they thought it was funny.”
I pulled my hand back, balled it up, and went to hit him again.
“Wait! Okay. Dammit. I don’t know where she is exactly, only that she was being taken up to Rancho Vaiella. Some estate.”
“Give me a name.”
“Worthington.”
“You’re lying.”
“Of course I am. I’m not going to tell you their real names, idiot.” He started laughing.
“You’re the idiot.” I left him lying on the ground and went out to my car. I’d always dreaded the idea that I’d have to use my gun on someone, but tonight I was feeling more than justified. As I walked back up the walkway Skinny Man was there, smiling at me. I walked through him like he was smoke. When I returned, Barry was crawling toward the phone on the end table near the sofa. I kicked him in the stomach and he rolled into the wall.
“Gonna shoot me now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
BANG!
I shot him in the knee.
Man, how he wailed. The shot echoed throughout the entire house. My time was limited now; neighbors would be calling the cops.
“Get up.” I hauled him to his feet as he screamed in protest and dragged him into the nearest hallway, pulled him down it until I found what I was looking for.
His home office.
I shoved him into the chair in front of his computer. Blood from his leg was pooling on the floor. “Turn it on.”
He was crying, tears running down his cheeks, the pain of his shattered knee cap too much to bear. “It’s already on, asshole.” He tapped the mouse to bring it out of sleep mode.
“Call up sales from the gallery. I know you, Barry, you’re an anal jackass so I know you’ve got records here. Call up everything.”
I placed the gun against his other kneecap. “Wanna go for two?”
“They’re going to kill you. And these people do not kill quickly.”
“Do it now.”
He obliged me. The screen cut to an invoice record for the last year’s worth of gallery sales. There were two addresses listed in Rancho Vaiella.
“Which one is it?” I asked, cocking the hammer on the gun still pressed to his good knee.
“Figure it out yourself.” His right arm came up so fast I barely had time to see it. The carved rock paperweight that had been next to the keyboard caught me in the neck and knocked me backwards.
Reflexively I fired the gun but the bullet hit the computer tower under the desk. Sparks flew out like cheap fireworks. Barry was up and hobbling and grabbing something from the drawer of the desk.
I saw the gun come up at me just as I hit the wall and fell to my ass. The bullet from his gun went over my head and shattered the mirror clock above me. As the shards rained down I fired my own gun and saw half of Barry’s neck explode outward. He dropped to his knees in front of me, staring a hole through me as he fell forward into my lap.
A few shards of reflective clock face twinkled as they fell from my hair to the back of Barry’s head. The warm blood from his bullet wound seeped into the crotch of my pants.
“Why’d you do that, Barry?” I kicked him to make sure he was dead. Dr. Marsh would not be surprised to learn I didn’t feel much of anything right now--not that I had plans to see her anymore.
I looked back at the computer, saw the bullet hole in the tower. The monitor was black. Shit.
It didn’t matter. I’d seen the address for the house in Rancho Vaiella. I had a name now. I knew the man, because everyone knew the man. And I’d seen him in the gallery before . . . flirting with Victoria.
Marshalll Aldridge. He owned the chain of Golden Sun Spas, which was really just a euphemism for plastic surgery and cosmetic makeover clinics. He was in the news at least once a month. Local philanthroper, sat on the board of the Art Museum, right wing conservative. The usual for these assholes that lived in Rancho Vaiella.
Worse, he bought my stuff.
CHAPTER 12
Okay, when I mentioned I didn’t feel anything about killing Barry, that was kind of a lie. I felt a ton of things, all swirling around my head as I drove.
Barry marked the second time in my life I had killed someone. Most of you know the first time--Skinny Man. Shoved an ax into his head and split his skull. That had me fucked up for years. Still does. The scary thing about killing Barry was that it almost felt familiar.
I can’t describe the feeling that reels inside you when you take a life. It’s bigger than words. It’s why I keep that crucifix in my glove compartment. Because there’s a deifying quality to killing. Not a good one, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing good about it at all, even if it’s self defense. You’ve just ended a life, the most precious gift of humanity. If you believe in God, and I wrestle with that still sometimes, then you’ve undone the work of a higher power. We’re not meant to have such a right.
I suppose if you believe in simple evolution, then you believe we are the only gods that exist. That we are the most intelligent beings on the planet--what a scary thought that is--and therefore have no one to answer to.
Then why both the first time I killed and this time, did I feel like I needed to atone for a sin?
Because I know the difference between a superhero and a supervillain. Cardinal rule: you don’t kill. You bring villains to justice. That’s why Batman, Spider-Man, Green Lantern, the X-Men, all my boyhood heroes . . . that’s why they have endured for so long and are so important today. Because people need to know that the notion of a hero is still worthy. It’s like believing in a different type of higher power. We need these stories because we need to believe that society is not just a newsreel of twentieth century archetypes: rapists, murderers, arsonists, thieves, pedophiles, mind-warpers. Justice is noble, but flawed, yet heroes at least strive to prove justice is attainable. They let us know we still have a semblance of humanity left in us.
I am not a superhero. I have taken lives, and I have learned to be okay with it. Why? Because the real supervillains are not men made of blue light or beings from other planets: they’re humans who think they’re gods. They are men who live above society’s rules. When Batman brings a true psychopath to justice, said villain is given a padded room and three square meals a day. And if you read comics like I do, you know they just break out and do it again. This is why justice is a hero’s pipedream. It’s why superheroes don’t really exist.
I stopped trying to be a hero when I killed Skinny Man, when I failed to bring him to justice but instead put him down like a rabid animal. He deserved it. And no one argued against my actions. What does that make me? I am more Darth Vader than Luke Skywalker, more Rorschach than Nite Owl. I give into my rage and pain, because I have come to accept the end result. That some people, plain and simple, are a cancer. And if we let them persist, they continue to destroy. It’s not justice, it’s a new reform.
This is wrong and I know it, but I deal with it. This is why I don’t wear the crucifix, but take it out and hold it, ask for forgiveness, listen for an answer that either doesn’t come or that I cannot recognize. I don’t know if I will be forgiven in the end, but for now, I know I can live with it.
One more thing. When I killed Skinny Man, part of me died and was replaced by something darker and stronger. Some kind of emotional wall made of iron and steel and Teflon, something that coats my soul and makes it possible to be okay with what just happened to Barry. I am able to shut down the need to cry and bang my head against the wall. I am able to lock those feelings away.
I can feel new pieces of the wall growing inside me, erasing what little bit of the old Roger managed to hang on these last ten years. I feel like something new, something wrong, something broken.
But sadly, I don’t mind it.
***
I drove to the 5 and headed north. The blood on my pants was starting to congeal and turn cold, like day-old oatmeal. The knot on my neck was swelling up worse and I was waiting for it to cut off my breathing, but thankfully the bruise was growing outward. My eyesight was still bit blurry from my busted nose.
And I smelled pretty ripe. Trust me, deodorant is an understated invention.
I felt a little bit more alive in a twisted way that would have psychologists scribbling warnings in their pads. Maybe it was the drive, maybe it was the excitement of death still fresh in my mind. Maybe I was just cuckoo for Coco Puffs.
I didn’t know if the cops were on the way to Barry’s house or not. Eventually someone would find him and put two and two together. I hadn’t bothered to clean up and I didn’t really care. If there was any justice in the world his corpse would rot and never get a proper burial. Right now, Victoria was my priority and everything else could be explained later.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Man, I stank.
I flipped open the cell phone and called Teddy. He answered right away.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing you want to hear. I think I know where Victoria is. Maybe.”
“Where?”
“I need you to call the cops and get people to Marshalll Aldridge’s house. Tell them they have a kidnapped girl there.” I gave him the address and hoped he’d hang up, but he was too smart to do that.
“You’re headed there, aren’t you?”
“Yup. Don’t suppose you’ll MapQuest it for me?” “Don’t do this, Roger.”
“Have to. Will you get me directions?”
“No. And why? You’re going to end up dead or in too much trouble for anyone to help you out of.”
“Gotta do it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because I always wait for him to kill her. I never save her. But not this time.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Roger, whatever it is you’re going through right now this is not the answer.”
“You’re wasting time not calling the cops.”
There was a moment of silence. Then: “I’m calling you right back.”
The road was pretty open this time of night. Not like rush hour, where you moved at a snail’s pace. The gun lay on the seat next to me, my new co-pilot. Sad, in a real way. We Americans are so used to solving problems with guns that we tend to forget the whole part about how they bring about death. I suppose if I was a ninja I’d have settled for a sword, something more honorable, but I didn’t have that ability. And without the gun Victoria would likely die. I hated that gun, hated every gun and every weapon that man had ever learned to wield.
Hated that I was good with it.
My easel and half-finished paintings were still in the backseat. I wondered what other painters carried firearms. I wondered if “alligator wrestler” would be a less stressful job.
I went another ten miles north and the phone rang.
“Teddy?”
“I called the cops. They’re on their way now. They know
who this guy is and said they’re not pleased with having to bother him. I had to give them your information, too, Roger. I advise you to cooperate to the fullest extent--”
“Gladly. Just want to make sure she’s still alive.”
“You’re still going there?”
“I already said that. Even without your directions.”
“I’m not helping you get into more trouble. I can’t help you any further. You understand?”
The phone beeped. I pulled it away and saw the battery light flashing. “Phone’s dying. Thanks for everything.”
“Roger!”
I hung up, feeling strangely more focused now than I’d been in ten years. Teddy would be pissed, but I didn’t care.
There’s a very strange sense of comfort that comes over you when you take that final step over the point of no return. Somehow you’re able to block out the rest of your life and accept the inevitable bad ending looming in front of you. It’s like a prize you start to fight for. It’s almost romantic. I don’t know how else to explain what I was feeling right then. Not happy, not satisfied, just resolved, kind of peaceful.
I felt at home with myself. Scared, terrified, angry . . . but fueled by it.
I turned on the radio and flipped around. Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil” was on the classic rock station. It was so fucking cliché I started laughing and yelling out loud. “I don’t fear you! I am not afraid of you!” Crazy Roger at the helm. Enjoy the ride, folks. There’s no telling where it’ll stop.
My speed accelerated and I topped out at 100 miles per hour.
The southern California night whipped by in broad strokes of royal purple and black, just like the bruises around my eyes. The moon was a silver dagger doing its best to chase me in my rearview mirror. Occasionally I’d check the speedometer and see the face of a madman staring back at me. Nose all busted up, face swollen and flecked with blood, lips split like overcooked hotdogs. I could feel the throbbing, searing pain of that face somewhere distant inside me. That face that wouldn’t stop staring back. Could have been me, could have been Skinny Man, could have just been the devil urging me on.
I knew I would see more blood before the night was over. I just hoped it wasn’t Victoria’s.
Born To Bleed (The Roger Huntington Saga, Book 2) Page 10
