by Brian Bowyer
“Are you hungry?” Mitchell said.
“Not yet. You?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I wanna get drunk before I eat. We’ll go out and find some dinner later.”
“Works for me.”
They drank.
There was an ashtray on the table, and Marla lit a cigarette. “This place must be sleazy. I didn’t think you could smoke indoors anywhere anymore.”
“Seems that way, doesn’t it? Most places, anyway.” Mitchell lit a cigarette. “I turned the TV on while you were sleeping, but I turned it off. There’s only about five channels, and all of them are porn. Want me to turn it back on?”
“No thanks. I’m good. I had to kill a couple of cockroaches in the shower.”
“Me too.”
Marla blew a smoke ring. “So how many people have you killed, anyway?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been keeping score.”
“Ten? Twenty?”
“Oh, no. Certainly more than that.”
“A hundred?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. If I had to guess? Over the years? Maybe four hundred. Five hundred. Something like that.”
Marla finished her cigarette and put it out. “Holy shit! So what are you? A serial killer? An assassin? Something like that?”
Mitchell put his cigarette out, too. “I suppose you could say I am a serial killer, but I’m not like most normal serial killers.”
Marla laughed. “Ah, so most serial killers are normal. I see.”
Mitchell shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t kill people for the same reasons that most serial killers do. I only kill people out of compassion.”
“Compassion?”
“Yes.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Mitchell took a drink. “I dream of a perfect world. A perfect world full of perfect people. Perfect people with perfect health and perfect beauty. A perfect society with perfect laws and perfect justice. Perfect equality for everyone. I dream of a place where people’s dreams come true.”
Marla said nothing. The walls of the motel room were thin. They could hear the sounds of two people having sex in the next room over.
Mitchell took another drink. “I can’t change the world, of course. And I can’t change society. But I do what I can to make this imperfect place a better place.”
“By killing people,” Marla said.
“By removing imperfect people from the prisons of their misery. Whenever I see these sad people, all these broken, lost, sick, and miserable people who are being crushed beneath the burden of this cruel, imperfect world, people whose lives will never be what they had always hoped and dreamed, I am filled with unspeakable despair. But when I kill them, I set them free. Their suffering is over, and my sorrow is lifted.”
Marla took a drink. “Until the next time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your sorrow is only lifted until the next time you see one of those sad, miserable people, and then you have to kill again.”
“Well, yes. Of course. But the whole thing really is a win-win situation. I like to think of myself as The Compassionate Killer.”
Marla shook her head. “Dude, you’re fucking whacko.”
They drank until the fifth was empty, and then opened another one.
Around ten p.m., Marla said, “I’m starving.”
“Me too.”
They left in Mitchell’s car.
The night was hot. Casinos, hotels, and restaurants dominated both sides of the neon-lined avenues of downtown. They chose a restaurant called Irishman’s Flat and went inside. Mitchell ordered trout and a bottle of beer. Marla ordered veal and a glass of wine. They ate. Mitchell paid for the food and tipped their waitress stupendously.
“I’m ready to drink some more whiskey,” Marla said. “And smoke a cigarette.”
They left.
Behind the restaurant, a white van was parked right beside Mitchell’s car. A man pushing a wheelchair opened the van’s passenger door. A woman was sitting on the passenger’s side. The couple appeared to be in their fifties. The man lifted the woman out of the van and placed her in the wheelchair. Both of them were smiling, apparently happy to be on their way to dinner.
The parking lot was otherwise deserted.
Mitchell was holding Marla’s hand. They had to walk past the van to get to Mitchell’s car, but he stopped and began looking around. “I don’t see any cameras anywhere,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go say hello.”
He led Marla directly to the couple. “Good evening,” he said, reaching into his jacket.
The couple looked up at both of them, still smiling, but neither the man nor the woman said anything.
Mitchell drew the silencer-fitted pistol from his jacket. “It isn’t fair,” he said. Then he shot them once each through the head in rapid succession, killing them instantly.
He turned to Marla. She looked stricken. “I hope that wasn’t too shocking for you,” Mitchell said. “But I wanted to be myself in front of you. My real self. I wanted you to see my compassion in action.”
Marla said nothing.
“Are you ready to go drink some whiskey?”
She nodded.
They got in the car and went back to the motel room.
They drank. They made love. They each smoked a cigarette.
Then Mitchell said, “I’m going to take another shower. Would you like to join me?”
Marla shook her head. “No thanks. I’m just going to sit out here and keep drinking.”
“Okay.” He got up and walked into the bathroom naked. He closed the door. Moments later, Marla heard him turn the water on.
She got up and got dressed. She grabbed the bottle and sat down at the table beside the bed. She took a drink of whiskey and lit another cigarette.
Mitchell’s box of disposable gloves was on the table. She pulled a pair out of the box and put them on. They were size XL, and therefore too big for her hands, but she liked the way they felt. She left them on. They were the blue disposable gloves like the kind medical professionals wear. Mitchell had said they were made of latex, but they were not. According to the box, they were actually latex-free and made of nitrile.
She raised the bottle and took another drink. She smoked her cigarette down to the filter and snubbed it out in the ashtray. Then she reached across the table and pulled Mitchell’s silencer-fitted pistol from his jacket, which was hanging on the back of the other chair.
She remembered how good it had felt to shoot her brother between the eyes with this very gun, right before she had blacked out on alcohol. That was for you, Gwyneth, Marla thought. The next time I pull this trigger, it will be for me.
Earlier, when she had woken up, Mitchell had been cleaning both of his guns, so she doubted that her fingerprints were still on this one, but she went ahead and wiped it down again with the front of her shirt, just in case.
She heard Mitchell turn the water off in the bathroom. Moments later, he opened the door and stepped out with a towel around his waist.
Marla raised the gun and aimed it at his chest. “They’re nitrile,” she said. “Not latex.”
Mitchell cocked his head. “The gloves?”
“And they weren’t sad. They weren’t miserable.”
“Huh?”
“They were happy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The woman in the wheelchair and her husband. They weren’t sad. They weren’t miserable. They were happy. And they loved each other. You could see it in their eyes. They were just going out for dinner on a summer night in Vegas, and you fucking killed them. For no fucking reason.”
Mitchell raised the hand not holding the towel around his waist. “Now just wait a goddamn second. Just look at the quality of life those people were forced to endure. She was imprisoned in a fucking wheelchair, and he was chained to her by the bonds of love. What kind of lives could they have had? Their futures wer
e so limited. They were slaves to a goddamn chair. I did them both a favor and set them free.”
Marla stood up and shot him four times in the chest.
Mitchell hit the floor in front of the bathroom, bleeding profusely.
She walked over to stand above him and pointed the gun at his face. He was still alive, but he was fading fast. “When you get to Hell,” she said, “tell my brother I said hello.” Then she shot him right between the eyes.
Marla turned around. Mitchell’s clothes were on the floor beside the bed. She tossed the gun onto the bed and pulled his wallet from a pocket of his jeans. She took the cash out of his wallet. She didn’t count it, but it was all hundred-dollar bills and probably over ten thousand dollars. She put the money in her pocket.
Then she walked back over to the table and sat down. She took a drink and wondered what the hell she was going to do. The keys to Mitchell’s car were on the table. She had enough money in her pocket to go anywhere in America, get her own apartment, and start over. Or maybe she should just fill the tank up, drive back home to Los Angeles, and ditch the car after she got there. But where was home now, anyway? Her brother’s apartment? Her brother and his wife were lying dead in the desert outside of Vegas, and after their corpses were discovered, the authorities would undoubtedly want to talk to her. Perhaps it would be best to just go back there and pretend that she hadn’t seen them. She could simply lie to the authorities and tell them that she woke up one day and her brother and his wife were gone. She could say that it happened all the time. They were drug dealers, anyway. It shouldn’t be difficult to believe that they had somehow managed to get murdered outside of Vegas.
She would still have to ditch the car, of course. She knew that the owner of The Never Better Lounge had a brother who ran a chop shop. She could just give them the car and tell them to get rid of it. Or maybe she should just leave the car here and walk to the nearest bus station. She had never been to Vegas before, but there had to be a bus station somewhere in the city. She could just pay cash for a bus ticket to Los Angeles—or to anywhere else in America, for that matter.
She took a drink of whiskey. The bottle was almost empty, but there were still a few extra bottles in the trunk of Mitchell’s car.
She could also simply call 911. She could say that the four of them were on their way to Vegas when Mitchell stopped the car in the desert, murdered her brother and his wife, and then kept her as a hostage. She could tell the authorities that she had also witnessed him murder the woman in the wheelchair and her husband. She could say that she managed to get his gun while he thought she was sleeping, and that she killed him after he finished taking a shower.
Marla finished the bottle. She decided not to call 911. There were probably too many holes in her story. And plus she didn’t trust cops all that much, anyway. Besides, the night was still young, and she was already halfway drunk. She would drink some more whiskey, sleep for a few hours later, and then leave early in the morning—long before housekeeping came knocking on the door at eleven a.m.
She grabbed the car keys off the table, stood up, and went outside.
There was a police officer arguing with a woman at the door of the next motel room to Marla’s right. Marla walked to Mitchell’s car, listening. Apparently, someone had stolen some money from the woman’s motel room and the cop was basically telling her that there was nothing he could do about it. Furious, the woman finally slammed the door in his face.
Marla cracked open a fifth and took a drink.
The cop was headed back to his squad car, which was parked right beside Mitchell’s car. When Marla closed the trunk’s lid, the cop turned his head and looked at her. “Beautiful night,” he said. “And I am so glad my shift is almost over.”
The cop looked to be about ten years older than she was. Mid-thirties, perhaps. He was unusually thin, though. Freakishly thin. Thin to the point of emaciation. He was so skinny that Marla thought he was probably sick. If he was sick, however, he didn’t appear to be debilitated by his illness. Marla thought that his eyes and smile were kind. She decided that maybe his presence in her life at this moment and this place was a sign from the universe that she should just go ahead and come clean. Well, almost clean, anyway.
Marla had left the door to the motel room partially open. She took a drink and then pointed to the door. “There’s a dead man in that room,” she said.
The cop glanced over at the door, and then returned his gaze to Marla. “A dead man?”
“Yes.”
“How did he die?”
She took a drink. “I shot him. I had to.”
The cop drew his gun. “Is there anyone else in the room?”
“No.”
“Did you call 911?”
“No. It just happened a few minutes ago. I shot him with his own gun. Come on. I’ll show you.”
The cop followed her into the motel room. He closed the door behind him. Then he crossed the room and looked down at the corpse. “Four to the chest and one to the head.”
“Yes. I wanted to be sure that he was dead.”
The cop saw the gun lying on the bed. “That’s his gun? The one you shot him with?”
“Yes.”
“That gun has a silencer on it.”
“Yes. I was his hostage.”
“His hostage?”
“Yes. He killed my brother and his wife this morning out in the desert, and then he took me hostage.”
“What were you doing out in the desert?”
“I don’t know. He just drove us there. The four of us were on our way to Vegas from L.A., but he stopped in the desert. He killed my brother and his wife. Then he took me hostage. He also killed a woman in a wheelchair and her husband behind a restaurant tonight.”
The cop cracked a smile. “I heard about that earlier. So there were four of you, and you’re the last one left?”
“Yes. He forced me back here, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was just getting out of the shower.”
“And you managed to get his gun, and then you killed him. Right? That’s your story?”
Marla took a drink. “Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“And you never called 911?”
“No. I guess I panicked.”
“You panicked, but you took the time to put on a pair of latex gloves?”
Marla looked down at her hands. “These were his gloves. Not mine. There’s a whole box of them on the table. And they’re nitrile. Not latex.”
“Does anyone else even know that you’re in Vegas?”
“No. There was only my brother and his wife, but both of them are dead.”
“Put the bottle down on the table, turn around, and put your hands behind your back.”
Marla set the bottle on the table. “Am I under arrest?”
“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
She did, and the cop handcuffed her.
“Do you have any weapons on you?” he said.
“No.”
“Do you have a cellphone?”
“No.”
He patted her down. “I’ll be damned. No cellphone. I thought everyone had cellphones these days.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, but I am going to take you downtown for questioning.”
He took her outside and put her in the back of the squad car. Then he drove her to a police station downtown.
He killed the engine. “Be right back.” He got out of the car.
Marla heard him lock the doors. Then she watched him walk inside the building.
She needed a drink. The handcuffs were uncomfortable. The cop seemed to be gone for a very long time.
When he finally came back out, he was dressed in street clothes and carrying a gym bag. He unlocked the car and got in. He set the gym bag on the passenger’s seat and started the engine.
“What the fuck is going on?” Marla said.
“My shift is over. I’m officially off duty.” He drove out of
the parking lot and put the car back on the road.
“So where the fuck are you taking me?”
“No more questions.”
“I want an attorney.”
The skeletal cop laughed. Marla saw his eyes look at her in the rearview mirror. His face looked like a makeup-covered skull. “God Almighty couldn’t help you now,” he said. “Fucking white-trash piece of shit.” Then he cranked up the radio so that further conversation was impossible.
He took her to a derelict-looking house at the end of a dirt road somewhere on the outskirts of Vegas. Marla didn’t see any other houses around. There was a one-car garage beside the single-story house, and the garage looked just as shabby as the house did.
There was a nice-looking pickup truck in the driveway, however, and the cop parked the police car behind the truck. He killed the engine and grabbed his gym bag. Then he got out and opened Marla’s door. “Get out.”
“I want an attorney.”
He grabbed her by an arm and yanked her out of the car. Then he dragged her into the one-car garage. Marla thought he was strong for someone who looked like he’d been starving in a concentration camp.
The cop turned on a light. Other than a few tools and some boxes on the sagging shelves, the garage was empty. There was a drain with a metal grate over it in the center of the cracked concrete floor.
“Can you take these handcuffs off?” Marla said. “Please? My wrists are killing me.”
He set the gym bag on the floor. Then he forced Marla down onto her knees.
She said, “Why are you doing this to me?”
He pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans and placed the muzzle against her forehead. “I told you no more questions.”
“Listen: there’s over ten thousand dollars in my pocket. You can have it.”
“I would have found it anyway,” he said, “when I go through your clothes later. Now shut the fuck up.”
“Listen. Please. Just listen to me. I don’t know what—”
BAM!
He smashed the gun against the side of her head so hard she saw stars. She fell over onto her side, bleeding, with her hands still cuffed behind her back.
“I’m going to strip you naked,” he said. “If you say one word, I’ll introduce you to more premature pain. Nod if you understand me.”
