Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance

by Michael Paul Gonzalez

  I remember watching the air go out of him. That confused, angry puckered face he made. I almost laughed. But then there was another noise, breaking glass.

  “Clarabelle thought the whole deal had gone south at this point. He smashed a bottle in half. Mrs. Robinson tried to fight him. Her husband hadn’t moved a muscle the whole time. He just looked at her. Could she read his eyes, do you think? Did she know what was going through his head?”

  I remember that punk yanking my hair down quickly. He threw this weird uppercut. I saw the jagged brown circle of glass coming at my face and I tried to pull back.

  “By this time, even the folks at the bar were concerned. Seeing a woman with half a bottle sticking out of her lower jaw could melt the hardest heart, I suppose. They tried to help, but she refused. At this point, Mrs. Robinson was in a rage. She followed Clarabelle out into the street. And do you remember what happened next?”

  No. No, I shake my head. No, I say out loud. No. No. No.

  I don’t know if I’m mourning this memory or if I just don’t remember. Am I repressing again? Do I want to know this? I don’t want to know anything. I only want to know steel and bullets and blood and vengeance.

  “You remember nothing?”

  No.

  “Good.”

  And the circus tent goes black.

  Chapter Twenty

  When I wake up, I’m back in my van, safe and warm. My neck stings. With my eyes closed, I run a finger along my lower jaw. The skin is wrinkled and scored. Rough. But I think I can feel the ring of tissue the bottle left. There’s some dead skin on one of the scars and for a second it feels like a piece of label stuck in there from the bottle.

  I check myself out in the mirror, hating the way my mouth looks. There’s too much damage there for just a bottle. But still…back towards my neck, a perfect circle. I must have gone to a crappy doctor. A professional wouldn’t have left a scar. Or maybe there wasn’t time between that night and the explosion to fix me. I remember that picture from Shakes’s office, how I couldn’t see my chin. I wonder now, when they took that picture, was I being vain, covering up my disfigurement?

  My neck looks like it has a small boil on it, an angry red dome of skin with a small dark dot in the center. A spider bite? A bad syringe job?

  It feels different in here. Some things in my van have been moved around. There are some large bags in the back, a suitcase or two, and my weapons stash. There’s a little parchment scroll wrapped around some dried twigs and two purple roses sitting on the dashboard:

  Mrs. Robinson,

  I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to meet you again. If the sun is just setting, then Sweet Death didn’t keep you down for long. We gave you a shot of Morning Sunshine to help perk you up. You’re quite resilient! Would you please do me a favor of favors and pay a visit to Caligula? He should be at his club underneath Satan’s Inkwell. He’ll probably be going into hiding after tonight, so haste! He’ll no doubt be delighted to see you. Don’t tell him your name, Mrs. Robinson. See if he can guess!

  The doorman owes me a favor. He’ll be looking out for you. I’ve left you some clothes in the back. Perhaps seeing you again will be too much for Caligula’s poor heart to take and he’ll perish at your loveliness. The Doctor is quite close with Caligula. I think it’s a partnership that would be better dissolved. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side of Sweet Death with the truth.

  D-

  Great. So now I’m off on a choose-your-own-adventure. Looking out the window, I see three of Delia’s children milling around the streetlamps. She’s a smart one. This whole run will keep me inside of Red Light. So my choice is to either buck her orders and die, or do what I want to do anyway and nail big C. Call me selfish, but I don’t like others sharing in this.

  I’m on auto-pilot, winding down the streets of Red Light, pulling through alleys and backlots until I see the spot I’m looking for. It’s a long, wet alley that shrinks the farther it goes. I pull the van over by a dumpster, far enough back that the goons milling by the entrance don’t really pay me much mind. I climb over the seat to the back of the van and open the suitcase that Delia left for me.

  Should I laugh or scream? What the hell am I looking at? It’s like a tangled ball of twine, sort of like what Christmas lights look like when they’re unpacked the next year. I’m supposed to wear this? Why? And how?

  I’m not doing this. Not her way.

  I strap my legs on and get my kill case ready. Delia has been very careful to select my tools for me. No guns, nothing that would allow me to hustle away from her watchdogs. She’s given me three options.

  A high E string from a grand piano tied at either end to two sticks. Not quite a professional-quality garrote, but it will strangle just the same.

  One small vial of botulinum toxin A, stolen from a dermatologist’s office. The most lethal toxin known to mankind available at a high cost to the general public for shooting into their faces. And it doesn’t even get them high. Well, not physically, anyway.

  A knife. Quick and easy, but very messy, and definitely a last resort.

  She’s given me no long-range weapons. Meaning when I’m done with this, if I can’t run fast enough, I’m at her mercy. As I finish hiding these things away, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I strike, bringing my elbow up and connecting with something that makes a hollow tok sound, like a little gourd. It’s only when the street punk hits the ground that I notice he’s wearing purple. He’s not alone.

  Two girls, twins I think, are standing a few feet back.

  “Whadja do that for?”

  I point at the thug, then motion with my arm. Look around you, moron. It’s not safe here.

  “Put the outfit on. You have to. Delia says.”

  Have you seen the outfit, I ask.

  They stare at me. I’m not going to say it again. I move again and they click out switchblades in stereo. Debate my case or put the stupid outfit on? I head back into the van as they pick their unconscious mate up from the asphalt.

  I unravel the little fabric ball. It’s all chainlinks and metal loops and fasteners and black vinyl. Which are the sleeves and which are the legs?

  The material is surprisingly stretchy, and covers more than I thought it would. My legs look ridiculous. I look like an old dockhouse with seaweed clinging to the supports. A means to an end, I think. A small movement forward is still progress. Even if I look like a fool. I step out of the van and one of the twins starts to make a remark, but I cut her off with a look.

  The only good thing about the outfit is how easily it lets me hide my tools. The knife is on my left leg, invisible in the dangling fabric against the metal pole of my leg. The piano wire is the same on the other leg.

  Delia also threw in the ultimate Red Light accessory: the junkie’s bandolier. It’s a little crisscross strap that goes around my chest and is loaded down with syringes. These are famous at parties thrown by the bigger cults. They usually have some busty young girl fresh from farm country walking around wearing only the strap. People can fondle her, grope her, and take a little hit with them.

  Caligula’s parties typically cater to the more bizarre crowd, so the only attention I’ll be getting is as one of the staff. But my bandolier is special. There are two needles filled with the Tox, the rest have Delia’s special blend. I’m the happy sample girl at the supermarket. Someone wants to get high, and I think there will be a lot of takers in this place, they’ll be all over me. I just have to make sure they get the right samples. Most of the needles will get them floating. The special ones will stop their hearts. Or get rid of crow’s feet and forehead lines if they shoot up in the right spots.

  I hobble down the alley towards the little sunken entrance, a wave of nostalgia rolling over me. There’s the big hole in the wall where I collapsed in the rain after something or other happened. I know it’s just one dark blotch of shadow among many, but I swear I see my silhouette there, burned in like some day-after Hiroshima victim.

&n
bsp; There’s the dumpster where I collapsed, a dark stain congealed on the street right at the corner of the bin. It could be my blood. It hasn’t been that long. Maybe the rain hasn’t washed it away. Maybe the rain couldn’t do it.

  Clarabelle. I was horribly disfigured by a man named Clarabelle. If Delia’s telling me the truth, that is. She’s the only one filling in the blanks right now, so she may as well be right.

  Mrs. Robinson. I have a name. Well, sort of. I know that name has been attached to me. And I know it’s not my real name. It can’t be. It works for now. I hope Jesus loves me more than I will know.

  It’s only when one of Delia’s kids shouts at me from the end of the alley that I snap out of my reverie and keep moving. I’m going to have to do something drastic to get everything I can out of Delia and get her out of the way. She’ll either string me along forever or kill me when this job’s done.

  To my left is the dim neon glow of the tattoo shop Satan’s Inkwell, a few customers straggling here and there. This isn’t the kind of place cheeky college kids come to raise their coolness quotient. It’s pretty serious. They only do work in black or dark green. Not my business tonight. I navigate towards my goal, down and to the right.

  Down the stairs, ever so carefully, rocking side to side like a child’s bop bag. The bouncer on his stool at the entrance has a look of sheer terror on his face. He’s never seen anything like me. His hand twitches, alternately reaching for a walkie-talkie or his pepper spray, I can’t tell.

  “What are you?” he asks, then hastens to add, “…doing here?”

  For a second, it almost sounds like he knows me. But that pause gave it away. What am I? Typical. I set my teeth and prepare to speak as best as I can.

  “Prrty grrl. Frrm Geelia.”

  Maybe this guy’s used to having a conversation over loud music, but he actually understands me and motions me in. I stare at him. I love him. Someone I can talk to, communicate.

  “Move it, party girl. First shift just left, and we got hungry customers inside,” he growls.

  The bar is so dark inside that it’s like stepping into a void. Colors swim dull and wavy at the edge of my vision. Red lights sweep the bar. It’s packed tonight, bodies swimming against bodies, orgies in the corners, tripkids on the floor. Nobody in here is level. Nobody but me.

  I step next to a kid on the floor sitting crosslegged and he looks me up and down three times. He slowly pokes a finger out towards my leg. His finger goes through the mesh of the pant leg and into the air in front of my pole. I realize, in this light, it must look like my legs are invisible. The kid starts screaming. Loud and convulsing on the floor. He backpedals into a throng of dancers who angrily push him aside.

  There’s a booth towards the back of the room, a big circular table lined with velvet. That was where he was sitting. My husband. I had a husband. Or maybe I still do. Seeing that table just finished the job of tearing the emotional scab off. It’s bleeding fresh now, and I find I don’t have the strength to walk. I’m just standing, standing. Junkies and tripkids massage my breasts, drawing needles off of my bandolier and kissing my shoulders in tribute.

  All I can see is a man sitting in the booth with two other people, watching, staring when he should have been helping me as I was about to die. He watched and that’s all he did.

  A young girl, probably no more than fourteen, is trying to grab one of the Botox needles. I seize her wrist. She stares at me, ready for trouble. But I can’t start trouble yet. I have to keep blending in until my target presents himself. I lead her hand to my breast, where I plant it firmly, suggesting she should squeeze. She does, and reaches for one of the “safe” needles.

  I can’t let her do this. She’s too young and too pure. She can’t be the next Little Debbie, fighting for life in a hospital bed. I make a move to kiss her, tongue flickering as grotesquely as possible, and it does the job. She squirms away, trying to look apologetic, trying to look like she wasn’t going for a free score. I know she’ll find a hit somewhere else in the next ten minutes, but at least it won’t have come from me.

  One shadow in the corner of the room nods its head at me. It congeals into a man in a trench coat.

  “Chuck told me there was something weird at the door I should check out. What an understatement.”

  I smile at him. I feel like I’ve seen him before somewhere, but I’m not sure where. Something about that buried rage in his eyes is familiar.

  “He said you’re here from Delia. What do you have for me?” Nothing, I shake my head.

  “Straight for the boss then?”

  I nod.

  “Follow me.”

  We make our way to the bar, crossing behind it into a small anteroom. He opens another door that turns out to be a service elevator, smiling at me.

  We descend into darkness, and he warns me, “Caligula’s gonna love those fucking legs. I hope you’ve got some energy tonight.”

  Time for the ampu-tease…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The doors open onto an expansive chamber that was once an old subway station. This one was built sometime before World War II and sealed off shortly after. The tiles are pristine. The light fixtures from an era when people were respectful and wouldn’t steal things that weren’t bolted down or scrawl all over them with paint markers. Everything is draped in velvet, lined in satin, there are about a million candles burning.

  Goth is just a way for boring people to seem interesting.

  This is the great chamber of Caligula. We go down a set of steps that lead to the old tracks, dusty and unused. The place still smells like an underground station, musty air and axle grease fighting to beat back the smell of stale urine. In the shadows ahead I can make out a writhing mass on the floor. It looks like a nest full of baby mice, all pink and squirming, but it’s too big. These are people. Women. Big C. His misogyny hasn’t aged well.

  I wish I could throw some witty banter around with my guide. He introduced himself on the ride down as Nova, saying it with the sort of half shrug that suggested the name was assigned to him. Nova stops by a dais about fifty yards from the mass of humanity on the tracks ahead. There’s an ornate bell on a stand resting on it.

  When Nova rings it, all of the women stop moving, and slowly ooze away, like water scattering from a drop of oil. They form a circle, completely nude, sitting, lounging, smiling their drugged-out smiles. It looks like a Hendrix album cover down here. And there in the center, fully clothed, is Caligula himself.

  “Who rings for me?” he demands, his voice echoing off of the walls.

  What is this, Dungeons and Dragons?

  He stands up, and I must say, he cuts quite an impressive figure. He’s wearing a puffy shirt, tight leather pants, knee-high boots, his hair pulled back into a thick braided tail. Every bad Goth cliché rolled into one. I’m sure when I get closer I’ll see that he’s filed his canine teeth to sharp points. He strides forward laying a gentle hand on the occasional naked woman’s head.

  Nova goes forward to meet him and I’m forced to wait in the half light and dripping silence. They converse for a few moments, then come back towards me.

  It strikes me that Caligula might tend to remember a girl like me. He was there when I got the scar on my jaw. I start to run a finger along the edge of a syringe. Maybe I can get him to shoot up quickly. But I need to get this shot into his chest or his mouth, or a major vein. Then I’ll be contending with Nova and the harpies. I’d like a few answers while I’m down here, but Delia took away my tape recorder with Frances’s monologue. If Caligula knows anything about where the Doctor is or why I hate him so much, I’ll have to find it out the hard way.

  Big C strides up to me, that kind of kicky, overconfident walk usually reserved for men with mullets and fast cars. At ten feet away it becomes obvious he’s bombed out of his mind. There are red marks all over his neck, big splotchy purple finger prints.

  “You’ve interrupted us,” he tells me. “We were riding the ridge of life and deat
h. Finding out if love lies beyond the plane of oxygen and vacuum.” He traces a finger around his throat. “It’s hard to return to the place you’ve taken us from. But Nova rang the bell, so this must be important. He tells me you’ve come from Ms. Sugar.”

  I nod, trying to strike a pose somewhere between indifference and mock-theatricality.

  He eyes what’s left of my bandolier. “All for me? This is quite an offering.”

  Oh yes, I nod. As long as I don’t move around too much, I don’t think he’ll notice my legs. I have to try to walk behind him so he can’t see my wobbling gait. He stalks back towards his pit of women, waving for me to follow. As I move forward I try to check the girls, see if anyone is hiding a weapon or ready to strike. They barely note my passing.

  “Ladies, I don’t think we’ll be finishing tonight. I have business,” Caligula says as he stalks through the girls and towards a makeshift altar near the bricked-over tunnel mouth.

  Most of the women are breathing hard, a few coughing. All of their throats are red, some with the faint outline of a handprint or little crescent moon cuts from where a fingernail dug in.

  “Asphyxiation,” Nova offers as he walks at my shoulder. “They do this about once a month. Take adrenaline, speed, anything to get the heart moving fast. Then they roll around on the floor choking each other. Supposedly the point before blackout is the most amazing high, second only to the shot they get when they huff pure oxygen afterwards.” He jerks a thumb at a bookcase near a column, its shelves loaded with tiny personal oxygen tanks.

  I look at Nova. If I had much of a jaw left, it would be slack, I’m sure.

  “Longtime junkies have to get creative,” he says.

  Caligula has mounted a throne, looming over us. On the passenger platform above his seat is a luxurious four-poster bed. Oxygen tanks of all sizes surround him, like a monstrous subterranean pipe organ. He snaps his fingers and the gaggle of naked chicks disperses, some of them climbing the platform and going behind the veil on the bed, others fading into the shadows. One of his hands rests on a glass-knobbed cane, his fingers tapping impatiently. Then he says something that lets me know he’s completely out of his gourd.