The Good Kill

by Kurt Brindley

  “Another black chick, right?”

  “Nothing but,” McKnight said as he straightened his collar and smoothed down his shirt. “But I’m not too sure this one will last very long.”

  “Why’s that?” Henderson asked in a serious manner.

  “Well, DeBlanc’s a strange dude. He buys these young sisters straight from the hood and…” he considered something briefly, “You ever seen that old musical from the Sixties, My Fair Lady?”

  Henderson shook his head and laughed. “Seriously? Dude, I’m having a hard time imagining your big black ass sitting in front of the tube watching old Hollywood musicals.” You sing along with them, too?”

  “Fuck off. Anyway—”

  “Okay, I can see it now,” Henderson broke in, laughing as he spoke, “Big Mack sitting on the couch in his underwear and tee-shirt, a big-ass bowl of popcorn on his lap and big-ass fuzzy pink slippers on his big-ass feet, singing along with the TV at the top of his lungs. Dude, you’re fuckin’ killing me.”

  “Anyway,” McKnight continued forcibly, “this flick’s about how this old upper-class British dude, played by Rex Harrison, makes a bet with a friend, some other old upper-class British dude played by… Wilfred something or other, that he can turn some poor, dirty cockney girl off the street, played by Audrey Hepburn, into an elegant and proper young lady who could fit right in with their aristocratic society.”

  Henderson’s eyes went wide and his head went back in surprise at McKnight’s thorough explanation. “Sounds interesting, Siskel. Or are you Ebert?” he said sarcastically. “So what the fuck does this flick have to do with Petite Louie? Is he going to be singing show tunes to us all day or what?”

  McKnight chuckled. “No, thank god. But I’ve been with the little fucker for close to three years now and I’d bet a paycheck that he gets off on trying to turn all these nasty-ass hood girls he’s buying into high-class chicks. Except instead of transforming them through song and dance like Rex Harrison, he does it through rape and psychological abuse.”

  “Damn, dude,” Henderson said. “You’ve really thought this shit through, haven’t you?”

  McKnight nodded slowly in sober agreement. “If you’re around long enough to see him go through as many girls as I have, you’ll begin to think about it too.”

  “So, what’s the problem with this latest chick then?” Henderson asked with studious interest.

  “Well, she’s pretty sharp and seems to have already figured out the role she’s supposed to be playing. Already going around acting like she’s some high-class, queen of the castle bitch. You’ll see. Takes all the fun out of it for DeBlanc.”

  McKnight turned from his new partner toward the distant whir of the incoming helicopter. “Okay, it’s almost show time.” He pulled out a set of car keys from his pants pocket and handed them to Henderson. “Pull the Escalade around and get it cooled down.”

  As Henderson began trotting off, McKnight hollered out to him. “Hold up. I need you to grab my backpack out of my car and put it in the Escalade.” He fished in his pocket again for another set of keys and tossed them to Henderson.

  Henderson pulled the Escalade around and parked it next to the helipad. He left it idling and walked back over to where McKnight stood and handed him back his keys. They watched as the helicopter flew by the island and headed straight toward them.

  McKnight gave Henderson a once over and then said loudly, in an effort to speak over the sound of the helicopter bearing down on them, “Okay, rookie, go stand tall next to the Escalade. And try not to drool on DeBlanc’s lady friend while holding the door open for her, got it?”

  Henderson laughed and rushed off toward the SUV.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BEFORE

  Diego Santiago stood outside the hospital room and tried to collect himself one last time. He took in a deep breath and slowly released it as he smoothed back his wavy, once black but now mostly gray hair. He then removed his overcoat, shook off the melted snow, and folded it neatly over his left arm. Even though the door to the room was open, he knocked lightly and waited to be invited in. Ever since his days of ministering to hospitalized members of his congregation, he had never been comfortable with walking into a hospital room uninvited. He had great empathy for how exposed and undignified some people felt lying helpless in a hospital bed while so many well-meaning doctors, nurses, technicians, and others walked in and out of the room at will and at all hours of the day.

  When there was no answer to his knock, Diego stepped hesitantly into the room. Killian Lebon lay motionless on his back in a hospital bed too small for his large and lengthy frame. Diego stood there waiting to see if Killian would wake and acknowledge him, welcome him. When he didn’t, Diego took one of the two metal-framed plastic guest chairs from against the wall near the door over to the bed and set it down quietly. But instead of sitting, he stood next to the bed and studied Killian as he slept. Killian’s sandy blond hair, always cut tight on the back and sides and combed neatly over the top, was now thick and wild with a length down to his shoulders. His handsome face and chiseled chin, always ruddy and closely shaved, was now wan and gray and covered with a thick, unruly light brown beard. Feeling disoriented and out of place, Diego sat down heavily in the chair. He could hardly recognize his friend of nearly forty years.

  The thought struck him hard. Has it really been so long, he wondered. Has it really been... he had to pause to do the exact calculations... thirty-eight years since Killian’s birth? He shook his head in disbelief. It seemed to him just like yesterday that he had performed Killian’s sacrament of baptism. It didn’t seem possible that it had been thirty-eight years since Branna, she so young and beautiful and still with the expectations of a full life ahead of her, stood before him holding an infant Killian in her loving arms as he performed those rites. A pang of remorse shot through his heart as he thought about Killian’s mother. He shook his head again, this time in sadness. Branna Lebon. Never had he known anyone more devout, or who had loved God as much, or who had worked so hard on His behalf as she. He closed his moistening eyes, folded his hands together, bowed his head, and began to pray.

  After a loud space of silence, Killian said, not pleasantly and as if to no one, “The last time I saw you, you were praying.”

  Diego lifted his head and smiled, but it was a smile not of happiness. “Yes. I remember. You were leaving for yet another tour to Iraq. Prayer was the only protection I could offer you.” His voice was soft, meditative, and with only the slightest of accent left to highlight his Mexican upbringing.

  Killian scoffed. “Perhaps you should have prayed harder.”

  Diego leaned in toward the bed and grabbed hold of the side rails. He looked at the broken warrior and smiled a sad, sympathetic smile before saying, “Killian, I’m so, so sorry.”

  Killian sighed impatiently. “For what? Not praying hard enough? Not protecting me?”

  “For that. And for what you’ve had to suffer,” Diego said.

  Killian turned to looked at his old friend, exposing fully the vast emptiness in his eyes and the thick scars running along the left side of his face and up into the hairline. The eyes, eyes once icy blue in color, eyes intelligent and piercing, now looked dull and gray, as if their color had been washed away and the light within them extinguished.

  “What do you know about my suffering, Father?” Killian asked roughly. “Do you think I’m suffering because of my injuries?” Before Diego could respond, Killian startled him by pounding a fist hard into his own chest, right over his heart. “These injuries are nothing. Nothing, do you understand? They have nothing to do with my suffering. All they are to me is just evidence of my failure.”

  This visit was far from what Diego had expected it to be. Prior to entering Killian’s room, a nurse, speaking in grave whispers, had explained to Diego the extent of Killian’s injuries, so when he walked into the room and saw him for the first time he was prepared to see a man physically broken. However, what he wasn’t p
repared to see, this of a man whom he had always known to be of the strongest character and of the soundest mind, was a man so obviously mentally broken as well.

  Now was not the time to give Killian the news that had been weighing heavy on his heart for so long, Diego thought to himself. No, he was not about to bring even more suffering upon his dear friend in the state he was in. He stood up. “I’m sorry, Killian. Perhaps—”

  “Yes, Father, you’ve made it very clear how sorry you are for me. I’ve had quite enough already of your sorrow, thank you.”

  “Please, Killian, I didn’t come here to upset you,” Diego said sadly. “Perhaps I should come back after you’ve had some time to—”

  “Some time to what? To get used to the fact that my brain is now a ticking time bomb? Or that one wrong move could release shrapnel into my heart? Well, you know what, Father? I don’t need any time to get used to the fact that I could die at any moment. I look forward to it.”

  “Killian, please. Don’t say such things. Look, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through but—”

  “No, Father, you cannot imagine,” Killian said as he lay back into his pillow and closed his eyes.

  Diego took a deep breath before responding. It was breaking his heart to see his friend like this. “Yes, you’re right, Killian. I can’t imagine. But I would still like to try to understand. To help you in your recovery. You know how much you mean to me.”

  After a long pause Killian said wearily, “You’re right, Father. Perhaps you should go.”

  The former priest nodded his head in understanding. He put on his overcoat and then left the room, pausing only briefly at the door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Just as Juan Carlos’s decapitated head came to a rest on the floor next to his seated corpse, there came a loud banging on the wall in front of Blackman’s desk. Blackman dropped his feet to the floor and popped up in his chair with his eyes still transfixed on the snuff video. After it ended, he closed the app and began scanning through the video feeds on the computer monitors. By the second split screen, the one showing the feed of the coverage of the bar area, he knew exactly why his boss was banging on the wall.

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” Blackman asked out loud to himself. He grabbed his sport coat hanging off the back of his chair and put it on as he rushed out of his office. Out in the hall, he nodded curtly to T-Rex, the boss’s massive nephew standing guard at the door to his uncle’s office, who, by comparison, made even the six-feet, four-inch, 235-pound Blackman seem small, and who, in response to Blackman’s nod, eyed him suspiciously. Blackman stepped around the bodyguard to enter the office and join the club owner at the expansive, one-way mirror that allowed them to observe the entirety of the club from directly behind the dance floor.

  While Jerome Savage was a half-a-foot shorter than his security manager, he had a presence that overcame any gap in height and, as anyone knew who knew anything about the mean streets of Baltimore, his slender build and piercing good looks belied his strength and toughness. On the streets, he was known as the Hollywood Thug Killa, an honorific he earned through both his movie star looks and through his ruthless reputation for the bloody way he would eliminate anyone ignorant enough to stand in the way of his relentless pursuit of wealth and power. His friends and close associates called him Hollywood for short, a privilege which didn’t extend to Blackman, despite their years in alliance.

  When Blackman joined him at the window, Savage wasn’t looking at the three naked women dancing only a few feet away from them on the other side of the mirror; nor was he looking at any of the lustful men lining the sides of the stage and occupying the tables farther back. He was looking beyond them all to the only fully-clothed woman in the club sitting alone at the bar.

  “What the fuck is that bitch doing back here, Black?” Savage demanded. “Miggy just called saying she’s asking for you.”

  Blackman was staring hard at the same woman. Something about her didn’t seem right to him. “Fuck if I know, Mr. Savage,” Blackman said. “But I’m about to find out.”

  “Damn right you are. That bitch sure as hell better not be fucking up our New Orleans shit.”

  As Blackman was leaving the office, Savage said, “And straighten that tie, mother fucker. How many times I gotta tell you, you representin’ me and my organization. You don’t go anywhere unless your shit is tight.”

  Blackman yanked at this tie in a halfhearted effort to straighten it as he walked out the door opposite the one he had entered. He followed the hallway around the side of the club until he reached the door that opened into the main room next to the bar. As he opened it, the music blasted at him in its full rhythmic fury. Even though it was still early afternoon and there was only a spattering of customers in the club, he gave each of them a quick, habitual onceover to make sure none had a reputation he had to worry about. Satisfied, he nodded to the one-way mirror in the back knowing Savage was watching him, and then walked toward the familiar-looking woman waiting for him at the bar.

  As Blackman walked up behind the woman, he made eye contact with her in the mirror that lined the length of the wall behind the bar and she turned on her barstool to face him. Even from the video feed in his office he could tell, as much as she looked like Ruby, something about her just wasn’t right. For one thing, he had never seen Ruby wearing a business suit. One of the club’s top earners, Ruby, like the flesh professional that she was, was always dressed in the most provocative of clothes. As much as he thought this woman was Ruby from a distance, when the woman turned in the stool to face him, his doubts were confirmed. Where Ruby’s eyes were big, alluring, and of a brown so dark they were almost black, this woman’s eyes, while also big and alluring, were of a sparkling emerald green. But every other characteristic of the woman was exactly like Ruby’s. The same thick, loosely curled afro – though Ruby usually wore hers unrestrained and wild, not pulled back into a restrictive ponytail like this woman was wearing hers. The same creamy, honey-colored skin. The same shapely figure. And even the same mole – Ruby had insisted it be referred to as a beauty mark – just above the left corner of the full lips. While anyone else would have mistaken her for Ruby, Blackman knew for certain this young woman definitely wasn’t she. Which must mean, Blackman concluded, that she was the twin sister he had always heard about.

  “I’m the security manager,” Blackman said loudly in an effort to speak over the music. “I was told you were looking for me.”

  Ruby’s sister held out her hand and leaned into Blackman. “Hello, Officer Blackman,” she said with a coolness that was hard not to notice even through the pounding music. “I’m sorry to bother you...”

  Blackman took hold of the hand and shook it, noticing that the woman’s fingernails were conservatively maintained, not the inch-long dagger-like fakes that Ruby wore. “You can drop the officer,” Blackman said. “I’m no longer with the force. What can I do for you?”

  The woman smiled. It was a polite but inquisitive smile, seemingly with an ulterior motive hiding behind it. “I look familiar to you, don’t I, Mr. Blackman?”

  Blackman looked her over then nodded toward the naked dancers on the stage. “Not sure. Your clothes are covering the things that I tend to remember most in a woman around here. Perhaps if you took them off for me and did some dance moves, it might jog my memory.”

  The woman’s smile hardened after the comment. “My name is Toni Steele,” she said, maintaining a calm demeanor. “You might remember my mother. Rashawna Steele?”

  “Rashawna Steele,” Blackman said slowly. “Now there’s a name from the past. You mean the old whore who used to work the Lexington Hills neighborhood, right?”

  Her mother being called a whore was nothing new to Toni. However, this man referring to her as one in such a blunt, ugly manner hit her so hard she had to struggle to contain her anger. “Yeah, that’s her. Lexington Hills was your old beat, wasn’t it?”

  Blackman grew impatient. “Okay, Ms. Steele, I don
’t have time for history lessons, so I’ll ask you one final time. What is it exactly I can do for you?”

  Toni took in a deep breath. “Okay, you’re right. The reason I’m here is because I’m looking for my sister, Whitney. Whitney Steele. I was told she was a dancer here.”

  “Sorry. No dancers here named Whitney,” Blackman said. He began to walk away.

  Toni reached out and grabbed his arm. “Wait. Please,” she pleaded.

  Blackman turned back. He looked down at Toni’s hand holding his arm. He then looked hard at her.

  Toni pulled her hand back as if it had just been burned. “Her stage name was Ruby. Ruby Black,” she said as she sat back in the stool and looked up at the large man looming over her, a man whose presence had been looming over her for as long as she could remember. Her pent-up anger at the man surfaced and steered her off point again. “By the way, don’t people also call you Black?” she asked. “It’s quite the coincidence my sister’s stage name is the same as your nickname, don’t you think?”

  “People call me a lot of things, so what?”

  Toni looked around the club. “Look, is there someplace a bit quieter where we can talk? My sister has been missing now for over two weeks. Perhaps you can tell me something about her time here that would help me find her. Maybe I can talk to some of the dancers?”

  Blackman glanced back over his shoulder toward the mirror in Savage’s office. “You say her name is Ruby Black, huh?”

  “Yes, her stage name anyway.”

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Blackman called out to the bartender. “Hey, Miggy, set her up with another one of whatever it is she’s drinking.” He walked toward the back of the club and exited through the door at the end of the bar.

  The bartender set another club soda on the rocks with a squeeze of lime in front of Toni. She took a long drink from it, hoping to relieve the dryness in her throat. After draining the glass, she swirled the ice around inside of it, wishing now it had been mixed with something a bit stronger than lime to help sooth her nerves. This was her first time in a strip club and she hated everything about it. The music was unbearably loud, misogynistic, and violent. The lustful look in each man’s eye was primeval and disgusting. The naked women writhing up on the stage made her heart ache and her stomach nauseous. The fact that her sister’s life had been reduced to the point where she had to get up on that stage naked to try to support herself was too much for Toni to bear. How did their lives diverge so drastically? She gave thanks to Jesus that He never allowed her life to get sucked down that sewer hole into such a hateful and cruel world as did her sister and so many other of the West Baltimore girls she grew up with. She would rather die than have to support herself by selling her body, she thought, a thought she regretted as soon as she had it, for she knew that but for the grace of God she could have just as easily ended up dancing naked on the stage like her sister; or even worse, selling her body for drugs like her mother. Instead, she found herself to be blessed enough to be a freshman at Georgetown University with hopes of one day becoming a lawyer.