by Thomas Laird
‘I have to tell you the truth.’
‘And what’s that?’ she asks.
‘I have to wear these things because I get mauled if I don’t.’
‘Why do you get mauled?’
I pull her closer to me. The jukebox is playing ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ at the moment. We’re one of the few couples still left on the dance floor.
‘I’m an actor.’
‘No! You’re not!’
She shoves me away playfully. But I pull her back to me. Red and green and blue lights twirl over our heads as if it’s a goddamned prom instead of a nightclub.
‘Please don’t talk so loudly. That’s why I have to wear a hairpiece and a mustache ... I’m Aaron Jacobsen ... You know, from The Heartbeat of Love ... You know, the daytime soap opera?’
She watches my eyes. Then she decides to lie in response to the false television show I’ve just made up.
‘Oh my God! I watch it all the time!’
‘Not so loud.’
‘I’m sorry, Aaron. Why didn’t you tell me your name before?’
I look at her with an evil grin, and then she realizes the stupidity of what she just said. She’s going along with my story. She seems to be a lot friendlier now than she was when we began talking. It appears that she might not watch a lot of daytime TV. Perhaps she spends her afternoons in the air, working, or at the pools of all those motels she’s compelled to stay at while she’s on the job.
I remember your name now. Aaron Jacobsen —’
I put my finger to my lips.
‘People hound you that badly?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘I’ve seen movie stars on a few of our flights. People can really be obnoxious to them.’
‘How long are you scheduled to be in town?’ I ask her.
‘Oh. Until the end of the weekend. It’s a long holdover until Monday, and then I’m headed back to the Coast.’
‘Do you have time to spend any of that weekend with me?’
1 pull her close again.
‘We’ll see. Maybe.’
I love a prick-tease. They are so much more fun to work on.
‘Why aren’t you sure?’ I ask her.
‘I don’t know. Actors. I’ve dated actors before.’
‘I’ll bet you have.’
‘What color is your real hair?’
‘The same as it is on television,’ I tell her. It shuts her up. She doesn’t want to drag herself any deeper into the lie she’s kept alive.
‘Oh,’ is all she can muster.
I walk her back to the bar. I order a double tequila for each of us. She throws the drink down like a pro. One swallow, no lime or salt. So I order another. She puts it down in the same manner and doesn’t notice I’ve left my own drinks untouched on the bar.
‘Another?’
‘Sure. I’m not driving tonight.’ She grins hazily.
‘Does that mean you’ll let me take you back to the hotel?’
‘I don’t know. Can you be trusted? What with that disguise and everything.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like to have a lot of people looking out for you.’
‘No. I guess I don’t.’
‘It’s awful. I can’t go out to eat. I can’t walk the malls or go to a movie. Being in acting’s not as much fun as you might think it is.’
‘I guess so.’
I order her another double tequila without asking her first. One more round’ll get the coy out of this cunt.
She’s getting toward the end of her flight attendant’s career, no matter what the airlines appear to be doing about age discrimination. They all want youth on their flights, and Dee Dee Tremont, the stewardess who sits on the stool next to me, is headed into the twilight of her career. But she’s closer to the end than she supposes.
She downs the next drink as she has the first few. She handles her liquor better than most women I’ve known, but tequila will have its way on anyone. She’s beginning to slur her speech, just noticeably. Her head seems to snap toward me whenever I tell her anything. It’s only barely noticeable, but it’s there.
‘Maybe we should head on out into the fresh, cold air,’ I suggest.
She nods. It’s over. That nod was the last decision she’ll ever make for herself.
We walk out of the bar and out of the exit and then out onto the street. Earlier I managed to find a parking spot three blocks from the lounge. She wobbles a bit as I lead her by the arm toward my ride.
‘I want you to know that I don’t believe your bullshit story,’ she says.
‘What bullshit story?’
‘You’re not an actor and there is no such television show and I know it because I’m a big fan of the soaps and there is no such goddamned show ... But I like your face. Shitty wig and all, you have a very nice face ... Are you as good in bed as you are with the bullshit?’
‘I’m better.’
‘So what’s your real name?’
‘Peter Arnett.’
Once I get into a lying mode it’s impossible to stop.
‘That name sounds familiar.’
‘I’m a correspondent for CNN.’
She stops and stares at me.
‘You ... you’re not gonna tell me who you are, are you?’
‘Then the mystery’d be over, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yeah. It would. Okay, so well play it your way. It’s kind of a turn-on, isn’t it? Pretending to be someone else ... What do you say we stop and buy me a wig and I’ll be Farrah Fawcett. You can be that Ryan O’Neal — before he got all fat and puffed and old.’
‘You don’t think I’m fat and puffed and old, do you?’ I ask her.
She stops and looks at me with the aid of the overhead streetlamps.
‘No. You look good. But that wig’s got to go.’
‘It will. Once we get out of here.’
‘You taking me home?’ she asks.
‘Sure. You’re halfway there already.’
We get to the car. I unlock her side and let her in.
‘You’re a gentleman. Don’t get much of that anymore.’
‘The least you can say about me, Dee Dee, is that I know my manners. I had a very strict upbringing.’
My last words almost lodge themselves at the top of my palate. I feel as though I’m going to gag, but the sensation passes.
I drive out of the Rush Street district and head west on the Stevenson once I’ve got us out of the Loop.
She’s nodding as if she’s halfway unconscious, so I get no argument from her about why we’re not headed toward O’Hare and the hotel adjacent to the airport.
We’re headed toward home. But not hers.
*
There is a cornfield, minus the crop, directly south of my house. We are fifty miles west of the city. My nearest neighbor is eight miles from my farmhouse.
My significant other is in the city this evening, taking care of business. Just as I am.
I stop the car and I turn off the engine. She wakes as we come to a complete halt. She looks out the window and sees the single light shining from a lamp in my front window. The house is only a hundred yards from this field where we’re parked.
‘Where in the hell are we?’ she wants to know.
‘I just took us for a ride. It’s a nice, crisp, early winter’s evening, and you like to go for rides, don’t you?’
She nods, but she’s still half out of it.
I open her fur coat.
‘Anyone ever throw blood on this thing?’ I crack.
She moans something or other, but it’s not a sexual moan. Not yet.
I unbutton her silk blouse. She’s a very well-dressed flight attendant. I remind myself to save her coat and clothing. My significant other will like Dee Dee’s taste.
‘Oh, you,’ she grins.
She’s awakened and she’s got the idea now.
She surprises me by going for my fly. She’s got her cold hands on me and it shocks me, so I shake her.
‘You want to play rough, Aaron?’
‘Sure. I love to play rough.’
So I slap her. She looks at me strangely, and then she strikes me on the face. I hit her back with equal force, and she returns with an angry swipe that smacks the bridge of my nose. I think I’m bleeding.
She comes up to me and kisses me savagely and buries her hands in my crotch. She finds me and begins to mold my flesh into what it is she wants me to be. I find that I’m almost distracted by what she’s doing.
The stewardess bends down and takes me. She stays there for a long time and I can’t find it in me to stop her.
Then she jerks herself upright.
‘Turn the heater back on. It’s cold in here.’
I do as she commands. Then she takes off the rest of her clothes. She is as I imagined she’d be. The very image appears before me in this dim light of a full moon and the slight glow from my house, those three hundred feet away. But I can see her in this moonlight and she is as lush and perfect as the first two.
She helps me slide my pants off, and then she straddles me. I’m sitting on the middle of the front seat. I’m watching her eyes, trying to remember what it was that I had in mind for her.
Dee Dee rips my hairpiece off. Next she tears off the mustache, and it sears my upper lip as she does so.
I slap her on account of the pain, and she responds in kind. This time I know I’m bleeding. But she bends toward me, her breasts brushing against my hands, and she licks the blood from my nose and lip. Then her tongue jams its way into my mouth and she’s slamming at me as if there’s no time left. As if she’s got to get this thing over now.
I was raised in a very strict household. I told her that, or something like that. I was referring to her indirectly, but I knew what I meant.
She was a beautiful woman. More beautiful than any of these three. More beautiful than that ripe geology instructor I took. She had all of the attributes that photographers look for when they seek models to photograph. That’s what she did, in fact. She was a model. And the more mature she became, the more popular she became with all those cameramen.
Dee Dee continues to thump at me. She almost slams into my balls and I grab hold of her and slow her crescendo.
‘Take it easy. We have a tank full of gas and we’ve got all night,’ I tell her.
She bends to me and takes a nip at my lip. But no blood, this time.
I squeeze her breasts until she squeals, and I’m thinking maybe it’s time I replaced my significant other, the woman who lives with me. Dee Dee would be suitable. She’s more beautiful, she’s got a much better body, she’s got a taste for violence ...
But she’s not like me. Or like her. She wouldn’t have an appetite for what it is we do. Which cuts the field down considerably when it comes to potential mates and partners. My line of endeavor would likely scare her off.
And besides, I have her out here for a reason.
She continues to jolt against me, and then she releases a genuine shriek. She’s finishing. When she ceases to throb on top of me, she looks into my eyes.
‘You’re still all there, aren’t you?’
I nod.
She dismounts, bends over, and then she makes certain my climax is imminent. Just as I’m about to end it, she jumps atop me and sways on me as it comes to a conclusion.
Dee Dee quickly puts her coat back on. I reach over the seat and grab hold of the bag. I put it on the seat between us.
‘Extra underwear?’ She smiles.
She reaches out and grabs hold of me again, and I respond even though I don’t want to. It is all subconscious, but this woman has taken control. And I cannot have that. She may not dominate. When I allow the other to bind me atop our bed, I know I can rip away the feeble knots that tie me. She may think she’s in control, but I am always the one in charge and she knows that.
Dee Dee’s head is bent over me again and she is preparing me for her. But just as I’m readied, I turn her around and I force her face against the glass of the passenger’s window.
‘Hey! Don’t play so —’
I ram my way into her and she squeals.
‘No! Don’t do that! No!’
I plunge into her again and her face smacks against the window. This is unnatural, I tell myself, which is why I enjoy it.
‘Unnatural beast,’ she called me, all those years back. But there was nothing unnatural about me then. She was the one who contradicted nature. It wasn’t me.
‘Please! You’re hurting me!’
Three more thrusts and it is finished. She slumps down onto her side of the car and turns to me. She has her hand raised as if she’s about to slap me, but she sees the knife in my hand before she can follow through.
‘Oh Jesus! Oh my God!’
I tear her fur coat off after I hit her with my fist. My blow lands squarely on her temple and the force stuns her. She’s still awake. I want her awake. There’s no ether this time. She’ll know exactly what’s happening to her.
I get out of the car and go around to her side. I throw the fur coat in the back seat after I open her door. Then I drag her out by her hair. I stand her against the side of the automobile and I hit her on the side of the head again.
She falls to the cold ground of the barren cornfield. I open the trunk of the car and I remove the box. I walk back to her, I clutch her long blonde hair, and I drag her fifteen feet away from the car. She’s woozy and unable to rise. I remove the stakes and the leather straps from the box, along with the wooden mallet.
I bend down and tie the straps to her feet and her wrists. Then I drive the stakes into the hard, frozen soil. She screams when her head clears. But it is all right. No one can hear her. My closest neighbor is far away, and there are too many trees, too much vegetation, between my farm and the next property for anyone to hear her cries.
She continues to scream, but then she stops and begins to whimper.
‘Why? Why me?’
I bring the lantern out from the trunk of the car and I place it a few feet away from her sprawled-out body. She is so beautiful, so complete. She reminds me so much of the other. Same age, same pure white body —
1 have to have her again, so I take down my pants and position myself between her spread legs.
‘Why? You can have me as much as you want, but don’t —’
I hit her to quiet her. But I don’t want her knocked out. Until I start removing things, there’s no reason why she can’t enjoy the whole spectacle.
I hear myself grunting like some mad animal and it further incenses me. She deserves this. This is justice. She’s had it coming for all this time and now ...
I’m spent. But I haven’t used a condom. I’ll have to clean her thoroughly when it’s done. Can’t have DNA catching up with me.
‘Please ... Why?’ she sobs.
I stand over her. Then I kneel next to her, the knife again in my hand. She watches the tip of the blade as it enters beneath her breasts and the sound she makes shatters the stillness that had only recently enveloped us. She’s still shrieking after the first cut.
I stop and look at the full moon above me. It lights my way, and I begin again.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Billy? Where are you? What the hell time is it?’
‘You got to get here now, coz.’
I looked at the clock. It was 4.48 a.m.
He told me the address. I had no choice because I’d told him I’d look after him. So I hung up after I told him I was on my way. Billy was spooked. Big time. He must have found out who it was who’d tried to waste him with the two shots in the back in that alley where the paramedics scooped him off the blacktop.
I walked into my mother’s bedroom. It used to be our old guestroom. I gently shook her shoulder.
‘I got to go to work, Ma. I’m sorry to wake you up.’
‘I ... I thought it was your day off.’
‘Not anymore. Something came up.’
She groaned. She knew som
ething always came up with my work.
I kissed her and I went back into my room and finished dressing. I should have called Doc, but I was not going to. It was his day off too, and this was my cousin. And Jack was back for another ovemighter at the college where Diane Swanson taught post-adolescents about the history of rocks. It appeared Diane was getting beyond just needing Jack as a sympathetic ear. Wendkos was only recently divorced, so I hoped this was no rebound number for him.
But the way those two had looked at each other when they first met ... Who could tell? Who the hell knew?
I strapped on the Nine and I slapped the .44 against my left leg. I carried that switchblade in my left pocket, just in case of an emergency.
I was out the door and into our Voyager van. I was not used to driving the Plymouth to work, but this really wasn’t in the line of duty. It was family, whether I liked it or not. Even if I had given my word to a semi-thug like my cousin Billy, it was still my word.
He was holed up somewhere on the far North Side. It was damn’ near Wisconsin. The driving was fast because of the early hour. It also felt eerie to be on the road before the sun was up. I worked a lot of shifts in the dark, but I didn’t work too often by myself at this time of day. It made me rethink not calling one or both of my partners for backup.
It wasn’t very likely that this was an ambush — with someone holding a gun to Billy’s head in order to lure me out. The Outfit was not big on shooting coppers. They would rather not have the heat. They were not as open and blatant about what they were willing to do in public. And since I was not on the payroll, they had no beef with me.
It took forty-five minutes to get to his location, just north of Evanston. He was holed up in some condo in a very ricci — rich — part of town. Billy might have been soft in the noggin, but he had expensive tastes.
I pulled the van to the curb and got out. It was still a while until dawn. I checked the slip of paper with Billy’s address, and this was indeed the place. It was an old, wealthy neighborhood with trees and low-slung branches that gave you an idea of how shady and comfortable it must have been here in the warmer months of the year.
I punched the buzzer at Billy’s front gate. His voice came over the intercom.
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s the fuckin’ milkman. Open up. It’s cold out here.’
