Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance

by Michael Paul Gonzalez

  Another pop, the pressure in my head dissipates. I don’t resist when they pull me from the van. Even if I knew kung-fu, now wouldn’t be the time for the Bruce Lee routine. I dart my hand into my coat pocket and seize the list, the only evidence they could have, and I start to eat it, fast as I can. The paper tastes horrible, sweat and mildew and brass. One of them latches onto the corner sticking out of my mouth, and manages to tear it free. I hope I swallowed the right people. They lay me out on some outstretched coats, a makeshift gurney. If I could take my eyes off of the broken whore, I would resist a little, maybe.

  I want to kill her. The stupid little bitch…Joe’s a professional. He’s going to stick to his plans. If Big C’s club blows tonight, if he dies, I will have nothing to do with it. You take one piece out of the puzzle and the whole thing is worthless.

  They’re taking me to Delia. I know they are, or else they would have killed me. I can’t do this out of order. He has to die first. Chaos in the streets in a matter of hours. Killing Delia would have the same effect, but not on a large enough scale. Sure, some fights would break out, people will race to fill the void her death leaves, but it would be a blip. Drugs are the fuel of the underworld economy, not sex. Delia gives to everyone, Caligula deals and networks selectively.

  My van is in the middle of the road. They didn’t even close the door. Anybody could walk in there, and with a little bit of nosing around, come across my arsenal. I should have read some more books. Self-defense. That kind of thing. Not that I can’t handle myself, but they had the element of surprise, and one of my legs fell off in the accident, and all of my weapons are back in the van. I feel like such a pussy. Two of them toss the broken girl in the back of my van and move it off into a side street.

  I’m carried aloft towards the cracked façade of the cemetery. My heart is a strange electrical lump spasming in my ribcage, that kind of sickening heartbreak normally reserved for teenagers on the verge of a breakup.

  I had plans. This can’t be finished. Not yet.

  The inside of the cemetery is warm, glowing in pockets from the sparse fires that Delia’s children keep burning. We wind our way through some skinny side paths and towards an Italian mausoleum. Down through an open door at the foot of a sunken staircase. Very Indiana Jones. I’m carted through and set down on a large velvet pillow, crusted and stained with God knows what.

  I roll over and see a pair of bare feet, the ankles loaded with huge beaded bracelets. Remarkably clean.

  “Mrs. Robinson!” she exclaims. “My, my. It has been too long.” Her syrupy drawl makes me want to sleep. Her lower legs are wrapped in thin strips of purple fabric. The rest of her is a combination of glitz and garishness. It doesn’t matter how nice your clothes are if you have to live in a graveyard.

  It’s her. I can feel what’s left of my lower jaw trembling. I need to take this woman’s life and it’s impossible. I can’t do things out of order. There is a reason lists are made. It’s all numbered. I can’t…

  “How have you been?” she coos to me.

  Fine, I reply. Twice. Then another time, and then she understands.

  “Oh, Mrs. Robinson…you have such a gift for conversation. I had almost forgotten your melodious voice.”

  Her smile is amazingly white, and in it I see the thread of memory, and I try to grasp again. I’ve met this woman before. We’ve had dealings. But apparently she thinks I’m someone else. My last name can’t be…

  She pulls a huge book from beneath a cushion and shuffles over to me. She’s wiry. Skin so dark, she sits next to me like my shadow come to life. Caresses my left thigh. I feel like I’m about to die. Why did I write her name at number six?

  Delia runs her hand along my jaw. She traces the odd shape of my lips two or three times before opening the book on her lap. In a strange way, it feels like a mother/daughter kind of thing.

  “It’s always so nice when family can get back together,” she says. “Even the black sheep.”

  Inside the book are carefully arranged newsclippings. There’s some random pieces about Delia and her children, her philanthropic efforts, her less legal activities. Then she turns the page and I choke. I literally heave and swallow and I can’t breathe. It’s me. It’s that same picture from Shakes’s office. Smiling, sexy me.

  “Come on, honey, breathe. Oh…” Delia is up and looking for tissue.

  There’s a picture of me walking. Walking on firm, curvy beautiful…

  Delia comes back.

  “Here,” she shoves tissues under my nose. I try to turn the page, but Delia stops me. “You are like a bad penny, Mrs. Robinson. Red Light always brings so much trouble for you, and yet here you are, playing the hapless moth. You keep turning up. Shall I burn you tonight?”

  I motion for a pencil and paper, maybe I can write my way out of this, but she shakes her head. “Take your time.”

  So I start to tell her the best story I can think of. That I’m tired of being lonely. That it’s not easy being a paraplegic, and that I have needs, and what better place than here, where no one judges…but she’s shaking her head.

  “Don’t lie to Delia. Sugar, Delia can’t abide liars. Why don’t you start with that night above Vincenzo’s?”

  Vincenzo’s. They’ve been shut down ever since I popped Vasili’s head like a party balloon.

  “My colleagues here in Red Light and the Breeding Ground start dying. I’ve been following the news, intrigued by the mystery of it all. And now, you’ve come into my backyard and tried to kill one of my children. Two and two, two and two…”

  No, I shake my head. Accident, I say. But she’s not having any of it.

  “I’m looking to expand. Hell, everyone’s looking to expand. The city’s about to be cut up four ways, there’s only so much territory to go around and too many people angling for a piece. And word’s been getting around about some ambitious little business person clearing room on the corporate ladder. Vasili. Shakes. All of these are your work?”

  She holds up the tiny scrap of paper they salvaged from my mouth. I’m digesting the rest of the list. I can start it again, not a problem. But she doesn’t know that I’m coming for her.

  “You’re making this restructuring very difficult on everyone involved. You’re straining some very delicate relationships. And, for the love of God, you’re in danger of shifting the balance of power back to the police. Do I need to tell you how frightening that will be?”

  I try not to let my face show any concern.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  I nod, try to look hopeful, innocent, wrong girl, wrong girl, wrong—

  Delia shrieks with laughter. She’s literally rolling on the floor, patting her stomach. I start to relax when she springs. She draws a knife from her belt and pounces on my chest, pinning me down. The tip of the knife prods my cheeks, draws circles around the scar on my lower jaw, pokes like a pin at my throat. Her face is a death mask, her eyes reflecting my face, me frightened in stereo in those black pools. And then her mouth breaks into a wide smile, white and dazzling and deadly.

  “Look at your face! I just can’t bring myself to do it. Memories, memories. The little thorn in my side. If I can’t pluck you out, I’ll just have to make some use of you. So start over again. Tell me every detail. Every single thing. Who else have you killed?”

  So I do. Delia has to send for water four times. She has to order two towels so I can keep my chin dry. She runs out of tissues because I keep breaking down every five minutes from exhaustion or embarrassment, I can’t tell.

  The whole time I talk, she moves around the tiny crypt, collecting vials and papers. She takes some dried leaves out of a mesh sack. There’s a stench in the air, a bitter chemical tang. She sprinkles some powder on the leaves and rolls a cigarette.

  As I finish telling the story of my slice-and-dice on Shakes, she’s using an eyedropper to put more fluid on the cigarette. She runs her fingers through my hair. I ask her about the Doctor.

/>   “You know how Robert and I are. Fighting one minute, friendly the next. I stay out of his way, he ignores me. Why would I want to send you to him?”

  Fine. What about Veronica, I mumble.

  “Hmm?” Delia looks puzzled.

  So I repeat myself. Again and again until she gets it. What about Veronica Madden? Where is she? What do you know about Veronica Madden?

  “This is too good to be true.”

  I can’t tell if she’s paid attention to anything I said. She holds the cigarette between steepled fingers, smiling at me. Change-of -subject time, I guess.

  “Well. I suppose I haven’t seen her in quite some time. Maybe she’s moved on to bigger and better things. Maybe she’s dead. Pardon my language, but she really fucked you over, didn’t she?”

  I ask her why she calls me Mrs. Robinson. She laughs and points at the picture in the paper.

  “You had…an accident. A quite famous one, but the papers didn’t get the story quite right. They were fed half-truths and red herrings. You were a Jane Doe. But they called you Mrs. Robinson. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous.”

  She sidles up next to me. “I need to come to an arrangement with you. I want to pick your brain, and there are two ways to do it. One is pleasant, the other is not. We’ll try the pleasant way first.” She waggles the cigarette.

  I hope she’s not going to do what I think.

  “We’re going to explore the depths of your mind. You’ll love this. And I think I will too. There are things I’m looking for…If you don’t give me the answers I need, we’ll explore again. But the tools will be sharper. Rustier.”

  Delia lights the cigarette, and the smell that comes is like nothing I’ve ever known. I notice she was careful not to take a pull. Whatever’s on there is going to be more potent than Clearwater. She won’t have to cut my head open. It’ll burst on its own.

  “Sweet Death,” she smiles at me. “It has many names. Wet. The club kids call it Sherm. Illy. Such stupid names for something so poetic and amazing.” She turns serious. “Ready?”

  I nod. What else could I do?

  “We’ll start easy. Who was supposed to be next?”

  I run through the list in my mind. Who the hell was the next target? And should I pick them? Or would it be better to go to the top of the list since she’s looking to make a power grab? I decide to go with honesty.

  “Caligula?” she repeats. “Interesting. Very nice choice. I had plans for him myself. And then who?”

  Was it Hooded Jack or the Doctor? I don’t remember…

  “Were you coming for me?”

  No, I shake my head. In that friendly, retarded-puppy-dog kind of way. Oh, no Miss Delia, I could never harm you never. The things you can say without saying a word.

  “Were you coming to collect me?”

  Her eyes are so deep and honest, I can’t help myself. Or maybe it’s the second-hand smoke coming off the cigarette. I nod. I know why I’m doing this. For the most part. I’m not sure I even care. There are a bunch of shitbags in this town, and I feel like sharing some misery.

  Delia has an oxygen tank, I don’t know where she got it, the mouthpiece pulled tight over her face. Her eyes are starting to get bloodshot, pupils dilating, tearing up. Her eyelids flutter, she draws a deep breath.

  “Clean air for me. Smoke for you until you clear the air.”

  She reaches under the mask with a square of paper. She darts her tongue out to show it to me, a small black snake head darting out of a hole in the ether.

  “Are you ready to give me the truth?”

  I think I smile at her, but I can’t feel my face.

  She smiles. “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?”

  She jerks the mask aside and kisses me, forcing her tongue into my mouth. If I didn’t have the huge gap in my lower teeth, I could bite her, I could make her sorry. But now all I can do is whimper. She licks at the roof of my mouth a few times. It feels like a drill is boring into my skull. Then it feels like my mouth is melting.

  Her saliva stings like acid. Then it tastes like honey. She put a blotter in my mouth. She jerks back from me, collapsing to the floor, pressing the mask over her mouth and inhaling. Her mouth disappears as her breath fogs on the mask. The room swims in smoke from the cigarette, and whatever she just dropped on me is kicking hard. I see colors between the smoke plumes. Whatever is in the air around me, I need it inside of me.

  “Sweet Death,” she says, holding out the cigarette, and I take a drag because it’s all I can do.

  I can’t feel my arms. I can’t feel my legs. I sit back.

  “We’re going to learn a few things tonight. Relax.”

  I want to tell her to go to Hell but—

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’m spinning around inside of a circus tent made of stone. The floor is black and icy. Whatever this shit is, it’s way better than the filth I was taking from the bottle. A light shines from somewhere, and the floor ripples into a different picture. An alley.

  I hear a voice.

  “It’s not the truth, but it’s as close as you’ll come. There was a woman once who loved her husband very much. She followed him to the ends of the earth. To his very end. There was another woman who thought that man was the answer to all of her questions. And neither of the ladies got what they wanted.

  “The wife watched him keep late hours with his job. Truly dangerous work, but selfless, and for the good of the community. It was a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees. The very problems he went out to solve were festering under his own roof. She watched him sink into his work for months and months, and tried to pick up the pieces when he came back to her between jobs. If you break something enough, sooner or later the pieces will never fit back together.”

  The whole thing swims in front of me on the floor. Bad trip in Panavision. I see the woman, sort of a version of me, but with legs, and she’s yelling at this guy in a living room, and he’s yelling back. I don’t know why I don’t remember any of this.

  “He can’t quit. There’s something of an addiction in it for him. The rush he gets. Someone in the underworld got their hooks into him. He made a connection he shouldn’t have made, but he wanted to pay the house off, wanted to make sure his wife had nice things. It wasn’t a matter of saying no. It was succeed or die.”

  The dream-me pulls out a little black box, shoving it under the guy’s nose, pointing up the stairs, and he bats it away.

  “She couldn’t see the forest either. The problems she insisted that she had under control were seeping around the house. Infecting the only other person she cared about. She knew the danger this new deal could mean for her daughter.”

  There’s a sickening pause. When she’s not talking, the whole room glides and swirls. Hot smoke cascades into my lungs, melts my stomach, puddles my organs against my spine. I want her to keep talking. So I answer.

  “You goddih rrrigh.”

  “She goes to a bar. She sees her husband in a booth across the way with someone on each arm. Both of them in purple. My children. I believe it was Clarabelle and Jillian, two of my finest.”

  This, I remember perfectly. One woman dressed in nothing more than a fishnet bodystocking, and the other wearing tall boots and a leather coat. The clarity of this memory almost pains me.

  “Clarabelle was a good man.”

  My mental picture adjusts without a hitch. The fishnet lady is gone, replaced by a skinny thug in a jean jacket. This seems just as true, if not more so.

  “Doctor Robert Fortescu had business in this bar. And this man, this hard-working husband, he was just in the middle of something, put there by you. A situation he couldn’t escape, and I don’t blame him for not trying. Then this woman came in, this woman who was so blind to everything around her…Let’s call her Mrs. Robinson.”

  When he was at work, he was gone. His body came home every night, but his mind was somewhere else. And he would leave at odd hours. He would come home in shock, pal
e as a sheet, and tell me nothing. And he would never touch me. Not even a kiss. Even when I grabbed him, that last night, and forced him to kiss me, he gave back all the passion of a baloney sandwich. That’s the part that finally drove me over the edge.

  “Mrs. Robinson came in wearing white, her first mistake. Clarabelle thought it was a double cross; that she worked for the Doctor. She made a beeline for her husband. Clarabelle moved on her. I would have stopped him if I could. But circumstances had me watching from the shadows. To my relief, an angry little Frenchman in a black striped sweater intervened.”

  This part I definitely remember. He stank of cheap wine and clove cigarettes. A walking cliché, no matter his fancies.

  “Caligula. Although back then, he was Pompidou. Bestselling author, self-made paper tycoon.”

  He asked me why I bothered coming…

  “What I saw through the window in the alley: three long, low, white cars pulling up. The Doctor’s men had arrived. I did the only other thing I could do. I tried to stop Mrs. Robinson. But she loved to put on a scene. My words did little to persuade her.”

  Pompidou wouldn’t let me get near them. He tried to calm me down with money, with drugs, with sex. When they started to leave I ignored him and leapt for their table.

  “My children should never have attacked. They don’t draw blood unless that’s what the customer pays for. Or to defend me. They saw white and they attacked.”

  I got about ten feet from the table when Pompidou grabbed me. He spun me around, grabbed my hair…

  “Pompidou dragged Mrs. Robinson halfway across that bar, and her husband could only watch. She pushed Pompidou away, but he wouldn’t let go. When he yanked on her hair, she let him have it. The idiot hadn’t realized who her husband was and the things she had learned from him. Her husband knew how to fight, so she did too. She cracked Pompidou’s ribs.”