Requiem

by J. B. Turner

  Stone lit the candles, and light washed over the dark interior of the hut. “This will discourage a lot of the mosquitos from hanging out in and around here,” he said. “At least that’s what my friend found.”

  “It’s real buggy,” she said, spraying the chemicals on the bed.

  Stone placed the bottles of water in the cupboard. He handed one to her. “Go on, drink.”

  Beatrice said, “I must be out of my freaking mind.” She gulped down the warm water. “Tastes funny. Funky. It’s not Evian, that’s for sure.”

  Stone gave her a sleeve of crackers, and she scoffed five in quick succession. “That good?” he said.

  Beatrice nodded. “My blood sugar levels were plummeting. Always get grouchy if I’m hungry.” She looked around. “So you mind telling me what the deal is with this friend of yours?”

  “My friend survived out here for months by himself. He started from scratch. You can handle one night.”

  Beatrice sat down on the bed. “I feel like screaming. But what good would that do?”

  Stone kneeled down beside her and held her hand. “Sometimes you need to dig deep and be strong. That’s all I’m asking from you. You can do this. You might feel like you’re in hell, but trust me, you’re not. Not by a long shot.”

  Beatrice nodded. “I’m just very scared. I feel alone.”

  “Think of this. You could scream all night and no one would hear you. Out here, not a living soul can hear you. Isolation can be liberating too.”

  Beatrice swatted away a mosquito. She looked at him, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m hanging on by a thread. I’m so tired I feel like I’m going to die. And I’m stuck out here with a guy who kills people for a living. I’m fucking scared.”

  Stone nodded. “You’re not in your safe space?”

  “Fuck you.” But she laughed.

  “I promise, Beatrice McNally, I want to get you back to where you’re from. But you’ve got to trust me. We need to be resourceful. And we need to work as a team to get back to civilization.”

  Beatrice nodded.

  “Do you trust me?”

  Beatrice looked up at Nathan, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m not a naturally trusting person. People let me down. They lie. They cheat. They hurt.”

  “You need to trust me. Can you trust me?”

  “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  Fourteen

  It was a long night in the sweltering makeshift shelter on the key. Stone lay on the uneven wooden floor while Beatrice tossed and turned on the bed. The citronella candle surrounded them with its sickly chemical scent, but it seemed to keep most of the mosquitos at bay.

  Stone stared at the rough wooden ceiling. He thought about the days and weeks and months that his friend had spent alone in this space. He thought about the loneliness, the desperation that would lead someone to head to such a place. But in a way, Nathan admired the fact that the guy had claimed a little piece of America for his own. Most of the tiny islands were owned by the government and designated for wildlife preservation. Others were owned by wealthy individuals. Stone had once read that there were nearly a thousand islands in the Keys. But only around forty or so were occupied.

  He imagined what the early pioneers headed west must have endured. Blistering heat. No mosquito repellants. No air-conditioning. No nothing. Just the desire to live free. To strive. To fight. To endure the unendurable. To put down roots. To live and die as free men and women with their own bit of land.

  Stone had always admired that pioneering spirit. The indomitable resilience and desire to survive. He remembered as a boy, in the shithole one-room dive he called home, reading The Call of the Wild by Jack London. He had read it over and over again, eager to find out what was going to happen to Buck, the dog that was stolen and had to survive in the rugged wilderness of Alaska. He marveled at the way Buck had to fight to stay alive. Then Buck had begun to dominate the other dogs.

  Stone had always felt like an outsider. Someone who had to fight to survive, just like the dog. Fight on the streets when neighborhood bullies threw their weight around the old Lower East Side. Feral, wild beasts, just like Buck had become.

  “Are you awake?” Beatrice’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m being eaten alive.”

  “It could be worse, trust me.”

  “Why aren’t you getting bitten?”

  “I am. Stuff like that doesn’t bother me.”

  “I stink too. I haven’t showered in an age.”

  Stone sighed, exasperated. “You’ve got to learn to roll with it.”

  “I like being clean.”

  He smiled. “Who doesn’t?”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “First-world problems, right?”

  “Jimmy, I wish you wouldn’t make light of this. I am literally freaking out, and you’re making jokes.”

  “It’s a good defense mechanism. You need to learn that.”

  “Do you mind me asking a few questions?”

  “Depends what it is you want to know.”

  “I was told you’re from New York. Was all that stuff about the Lower East Side true?”

  “Yeah, that’s where I’m from. Bowery. And that was when it was pretty rough and scary. Not like now.”

  “And you and your sister grew up there?”

  “We did.”

  “I lived in New York for a few years.”

  “You did? Whereabouts?”

  “Up on the West Side.”

  “Nice part of town.”

  “I attended Juilliard.”

  Stone whistled. “That where you learned to act?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. Won an acting scholarship.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Don’t make fun. It was my dream since I was a little girl.”

  “Bet you weren’t ever taught how to survive out in the Everglades with a trained killer, though, were you?”

  “There you go again. I don’t think you have any idea how you come across.”

  “I don’t worry about things like that.”

  “Well, maybe you should.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset about what’s going on. Where I come from and what I’ve been taught, empathy was never my thing.”

  “Lower East Side have a part in that?”

  “Yeah, along with my father. He was a bastard.”

  “My mother was the bane of my existence.”

  Stone contemplated his fleeting memories of his own mother for a few moments. He wondered where she was at that moment. Was she still out there somewhere, waiting for him? He hoped so.

  “I don’t think I ever went to the Lower East Side,” Beatrice said, cutting into his thoughts.

  “You kidding me?”

  “No. You believe that?”

  “It’s changed from when I grew up.”

  “I used to go to clubs and bars in the East Village. That was pretty edgy back in the day. Avenue D for death, right?”

  “I know that area well. Still a bit sketchy out on Avenue D.” Stone sighed. His mind flashed to images of him and his sister crammed into their one-room apartment on the Bowery, dreading the return of their psychotic, drunken father. He let himself remember the beatings. The excruciating pain as his father’s leather belt lashed his puny body, his hands up, trying to defend his face. He sometimes wished he could have defended his sister. The reality was that she had been the one defending him, killing their father. If he had been bigger and older, he would have gotten his sister out of there before it was too late.

  “I miss New York. I moved out west thinking I was going to make it in movies. Guess I was wrong.”

  “You might one day. Life is never a straight line.”

  “That’s true. That is so fucking true it’s not real. But directors are looking for younger women. Girls, ideally. High cheekbones.”

  “Hollywood is a crazy place, or so I’ve heard. You h
ave to be strong to make it there.”

  “You better believe it. I’ve gone on auditions where I’ve been asked to strip naked, have sex with a casting director, give blow jobs to all manner of scumbags. I told them all to go to hell.”

  “Good for you. You have to have integrity.”

  “Hollywood? Integrity? They’re all sharks. And the ones that aren’t get eaten alive. It’s not for the fainthearted. The number of friends I’ve had who ended up drug addicts, suicides, or flat-out crazy after trying to earn a living in Hollywood is no laughing matter.”

  “Shit. Makes my line of work look tame.”

  “Everyone is obviously desperate for parts. We’re all holding down three or four jobs and heading to auditions when we can. It’s insane. And it’s always promises, promises.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve lost count of the number of times people have made promises about parts or auditions. And it was just bullshit. Managers, agents—everyone just wants their slice.”

  Stone listened but said nothing. He didn’t know anything about the film world. Or actors.

  “I thought I had hit rock bottom in LA. But this is just batshit crazy. Can’t believe I’m holed up in such a pit.”

  “Trust me, I’ve been in worse.”

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Nope.”

  “Where?”

  “My home.”

  “In New York?”

  “When I say home, it was really a room. A stinking room. Cockroaches, mice, and occasionally rats crawling inside the walls. Sometime inside the room. We were filthy. So, when you say this is the pits, trust me, this ain’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

  “Or crazy.”

  Stone sighed, knowing that was what had happened to his sister.

  “I’m sorry, I’m saying the wrong thing again. Shit. I’m an idiot, sorry.”

  “You don’t have to say sorry. It is what it is. But we got out of there. Thanks to my sister.”

  “How did you get out? Did you guys sneak out in the night?”

  “My sister killed my father with a pair of scissors. He was drunk and beating on us. I couldn’t protect us. And she took matters into her hands.”

  “That’s so awful.”

  “My one regret is that I couldn’t protect her and deal with it myself. The fact is I owe her my life. She sacrificed her freedom and probably her sanity to save both of us.”

  “You said that they, the people who hired me, kidnapped your sister.”

  “That was a year ago or so. They took her from a psychiatric hospital. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic, I think. Drugs control some of the symptoms.”

  “Is she okay now?”

  Stone sighed. “It’s a struggle for her. She looks a lot like you, actually. But she’s got a different temperament.”

  “How so?”

  “She’s very placid. The drugs have made her that way. And her condition.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t like talking about her.”

  “Why not?”

  Stone closed his eyes, wishing Beatrice would just fall asleep.

  “You know, it’s okay to talk about things. Things that hurt us.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Why not? My therapist says it’s vital to be open and bring out our thoughts and desires.”

  Nathan was silent.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m cool with that.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Where you from? I mean really from?”

  “Midwest. Small town. You wouldn’t know it. My dad left when I was a kid. And my mom, who was also an aspiring actress, decided we needed to move to Long Island. Then she married a lawyer and I moved out.”

  “Tough.”

  “I live on the beach now. One-bedroom apartment. Loud neighbors. But it’s not bad if you want to go to auditions but also work in bars and restaurants. A girl’s gotta live.” She swatted a couple of mosquitos. “Goddamn!”

  “This ain’t Rodeo Drive.”

  “Where I live sure isn’t Rodeo Drive, let me tell you. That’s up in Beverly Hills. Don’t be so goddamn snarky.”

  “You need to understand how much worse things could be. I find that helps.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, can you imagine no light? No repellent?”

  Beatrice went quiet.

  “You know who used to occupy this area? Who used to live out here for generations?”

  “Who?”

  “The Seminole.”

  Beatrice cleared her throat and swatted another bug.

  “They survived out here because they had to. The government tried to force them out of Florida, and so they ran into the Everglades, which would offer them protection. Or so they thought.”

  “And how did that work out for them, huh?”

  “They survived. For a while. Bet they never taught you that at Juilliard.”

  Beatrice sighed. “You want to ease up on me a little? I’m feeling kinda fragile.”

  “We need to be tough to get out of here. You’ve got to use your brains. Live off your wits.” Stone got up and took a bottle of water from the cupboard. He handed it to her. “Important to keep hydrated.”

  Beatrice sat up and drank two-thirds of the bottle. She handed it back. “I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.”

  Stone finished the rest. He got another bottle and handed her that. She took a few gulps and he finished the rest. “Better?”

  Beatrice smiled. “Now I need to pee.”

  “There’s a latrine outside.”

  “The hole in the ground?”

  “That’s it.”

  She groaned as she got up. She went outside. He heard her peeing. A few minutes later, she was back inside. “That’s disgusting.” She lay down on the bed. “I want to know more about you.”

  “I think I’ve said enough.”

  “You killed a guy overseas. Who?”

  Stone sighed, not wanting to engage in that subject. “You don’t want to go there.”

  “I do. Besides, if I don’t make it out of here, what does it matter?”

  “I’m working on the assumption that we will get out of here. You don’t need to know this stuff.”

  “Jimmy . . . I don’t even know if you’re telling me the truth. You talk about trust. Well, I’ve told you what I know about all this. About me being hired.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “But you haven’t really told me anything.”

  “That’s not true. I told you about what I do. About why these people want me dead. About growing up in New York. About my sister.”

  Beatrice went quiet for a moment. “You know what I thought might happen?”

  “What?”

  “Thought you’d just kill me here tonight. I was petrified. Can you imagine that?”

  “Like I said before, you’re free to take the boat. Chances are if you took the boat and headed out, someone would spot you. And you would be fine. For a while.”

  Beatrice was quiet for a moment as she thought that over. She turned onto her side. “I need to know who you killed. I sense that it’s someone famous. I need to know.”

  Stone chuckled. “Maybe another day.”

  “Come on. Twenty questions. How did you kill whoever it was?”

  “I used a weapon that induces a heart attack.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “No.”

  “And this was in Europe?”

  “Yes, that’s where he was.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I do. I kill people.”

  “You kill people? Plural? So I’m shacked up with a serial killer?”

  “I’m not a serial killer. A serial killer kills and tortures for his own gratification. I kill for money. I kill beca
use my government tells me to. Because a private organization thinks a man, or woman, has too much influence and is working against their interests.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I hadn’t really considered my feelings, to be honest. It’s not something that bothers me.”

  “Maybe you should think about it.”

  Stone said nothing, just stretched out some more, hands behind his head, knuckles touching the rough wooden floor.

  “How can you live with yourself?”

  “I know what I am. And what I do. And it’s not nice.”

  “All my instincts say to run. To hide from you. But here I am, sleeping underneath the same roof as you.”

  The shriek of a wild animal disturbed the quiet outside.

  “What the fuck was that?” Beatrice asked, sitting up suddenly.

  “Maybe a panther.”

  “They have panthers out here?”

  “A lot of wildlife out here. Maybe it was from an island downwind.”

  “And we’re not at risk?”

  Stone shrugged. “I’ve got a Glock. That might help.”

  “Don’t be so cavalier. So what’s your middle name? Jimmy what?”

  “Not important.”

  Beatrice ran her fingers through her hair. “My daughter will be missing me.”

  “You said your ex is looking after her.”

  Beatrice nodded. “He’s an actor too.”

  Stone said nothing.

  “My life’s been shit for years, to be honest. I mean, down the fucking toilet in luck and love. He was mean too.”

  “How?”

  “I’d rather not go there. Took me two years of expensive therapy to try and put that behind me. He said I was a bad mother.”

  “Were you?”

  “I wasn’t the best.”

  “Why not?”

  “Is this you judging me? Is that what this is?”

  “I’m just asking you a question. Don’t get so touchy.”

  “I’d leave her in the apartment by herself when I went on auditions. When I went to work in a bar. Satisfied?”

  “How old was she at the time?”

  “Ten. Eleven.”

  “You gotta do what you gotta do, right?”

  Beatrice sighed. “That’s what I thought. We lived separate lives. But my husband always berated me about it. He got some private investigator to take pictures of my daughter alone, answering the door to the mailman. Then we divorced and he decided to take her with him, until he got bored with her. She stayed with me for a few weeks when he got a new girlfriend. But then the girlfriend left him, and my daughter went back to my ex.”