“Whoa!” I called, for Pete’s sake. “Who is this?”
“What’s that?” Pete asked from the kitchen.
I walked to join him, picture in hand. “I said: Who’s this?”
The picture showed a young college girl—she couldn’t have been twenty yet—sitting naked on a bed. A Goth chick, and stunning looking, a work of dark beauty.
“Oh,” he smiled sheepishly, “that’s Bloody Angel.”
“Come again?”
“She’s this girl I met online; a real head case. Says her father and mother rape her all the time and stuff. Anyway, we’ve been talking for about six months now, and she sends me pictures like that.” He paused, hesitant to go on, then decided to take me into his confidence. “I’m supposed to meet her this weekend.”
“She’s from around here?”
“Yeah, she’s from Little Rock.” He lowered his voice as if someone were trying to listen in.
I whistled conspiratorially. “It’s too bad, though.”
He looked confused. “What’s too bad?”
“That you won’t be able to meet her.”
“What?” His confusion deepened. “What are you talking about, I….”
He didn’t get to finish. He was too busy falling down and clutching his broken nose. I followed up my initial punch with a sharp kick to his ribs. Air swooshed roughly from his lungs. While he lay there on the kitchen floor, curled up and bleeding, I searched through his drawers, finding a good-sized kitchen knife in the third one I checked. Pete realized what I was doing and cowered defensively into a corner of the cupboards.
“Why?” he cried. ‘What’d I do?”
“I told you I wanted to read my book in peace.”
Pete died after the first stab. Still, I gave him about ten more for good measure. Finished, I searched his pockets and took out Precious’s number.
I started to leave but caught sight of Bloody Angel’s picture and stopped. Something about her drew me in. I picked up the picture and strode to the computer. Among the litter of the desk lay three more shots of her: one of her with a bottle of Knob Creek, one of her laying naked on a couch, and another of her in a leather skirt and fishnet top.
I flipped on the computer and looked over the pictures as it booted up. AOL loaded without being told to, and I hit the icon to connect to the Internet. I found her name on his Buddy List as BlooDyAnGL and read through the emails she had sent him. They contained some seriously sick shit.
The file where he kept his pics delivered fifteen more of Bloody Angel, all pornographic, amid hundreds of other shots of naked girls. I deleted the pictures of Angel and went back to the Buddy List. On a whim, I sent an instant message to her. In seconds, she replied.
BlooDyAnGL: hey lover
PETE3952: Hey, what are you doing home?
BlooDyAnGL: my old man felt like fucking me this morning so I skipped class…my ass hurts J
PETE3952: Oh, yeah? He likes that, huh?
BlooDyAnGL: fuck yeah he never fucks me normal anymore not that I care
wanna help me kill him?
PETE3952: Sure.
BlooDyAnGL: cool you still coming down this weekend? i’ll make it worth your
while
PETE3952: Why not today?
BlooDyAnGL: i thought saturday was the soonest you could make it
PETE3952: Nope, today’s free, where do you want to meet?
BlooDyAnGL: how about brookside mall by the tacobell?
PETE3952: Sounds good. About two?
BlooDyAnGL: works for me J
PETE3952: Ok, I’ll see you at two. Then we can kill your dad.
BlooDyAnGL: hahahahah J
I deleted all of her email messages and removed her name from the Buddy List before signing off. I shut down Windows and restarted the computer in DOS. Once the command prompt was ready, I typed in C:FORMAT and hit enter. I assured the machine that I did, in fact, want to format my hard drive then left it to erase itself. I took the pictures of Angel to the kitchen and burned them. While I was at it, I kicked Pete in the head a final time.
After that, I left.
I made a quick stop at the hotel to check out and pick up my UPS package, then headed for Little Rock. Once I got into town, I hunted down Brookside mall and pulled into the parking lot, finding a space near the food court to park. I still had three hours to go so I checked through my package. Everything was there: my .45s and their holsters, an ounce of bud, a couple of grams of coke, my Spec Plus fighting knife, and an FBI badge and ID.
I pocketed the wallet that housed my new credentials, stepped out of the car, and popped the trunk. I’d packed my leather coat in my bag, so I got it out and went back to my seat. Though nice out, the weather was just cool enough for me to wear the coat in comfort—which was good, because I needed it to hide my guns.
I rolled up a joint and smoked it while I waited. Finished, I did two quick lines and strolled into the mall. I still had two hours to go until my rendevous but I’d grown sick of sitting in the car. The coke didn’t help matters either.
Inside the food court, the smell of the fast food joints reminded me of how long it had been since I’d eaten. I looked over all the different choices and opted for a Gyro place.
After downing a jumbo gyro, I picked up a tin of Altoids at the drugstore in order to kill my breath. From there I entered the Fredricks of Hollywood store. Their sales lady was very helpful, and I got just what I was looking for and, as it turned out later, just the right size. I selected a box for the outfit, paid for it, and wandered back to the food court.
I didn’t have long to wait before I saw her. Tiny, she appeared about 5’1” and barely a hundred pounds—if that. Her jet-black hair, just long enough to reach her breasts, framed the porcelain beauty of her face with sharp contrast. Patches of black make-up encircled her eyes, giving them that trademark corpse look, and her lips showed up darkly in blood-red lipstick.
I recognized her leather skirt and fishnet top from Pete’s picture. Ripped fishnet thigh-highs spider-webbed along her legs, disappearing into a pair of shiny black Doc Marten’s.
She was a pale white angel, juxtaposed in deathly black.
Scooping up my package, I drifted straight towards her. “Angel,” I said when she saw me.
“Who the fuck are you?” she snarled.
I tried the obvious lie. “Pete.”
“Bullshit! You think I don’t know what Pete looks like? You….” She stopped in mid-sentence. Her eyes grew wide, and her jaw dropped open a little. “Oh my God! It’s you!”
Now it was my turn to be surprised.
“Who?”
“You’re the one he told me would come.” She grew excited.
“What?” The idea that someone could have told her about me worried me a bit. “Who told you? Pete?”
“Fuck Pete. He’s dead…isn’t he?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh, wow. You’re really here! Un-fuckin-believable. Y’know, I didn’t believe him.”
“Who? Who are you talking about?”
“Satan.” She said the name matter-of-factly, like it just made sense. “He told me to expect you. Said that some guy would show up one day instead of one of my Internet fuckboys, and that he’d help me kill my parents….”
“Satan?”
“Yeah.” She was practically ebullient.
“The Devil?”
“That’s him.”
“He talks to you?”
“Well, not talks so much as emails. Didn’t he send you?”
People started to stare at us, so I decided we should take the conversation outside.
“Come with me.”
Angel giggled. She slipped her arms around my free arm and skipped along beside me as we walked out to my car. I opened her door for her.
“Get in.”
“Ooooh,” she cooed, giving me the wide-eyed, innocent look. “I’m not supposed to take no rides from strangers.” She reached out and ran her hand down my chest. “A bad
man might try to do all kinds of naughty stuff to me.” She finished off with a laugh and climbed in.
What had I just gotten myself into?
I climbed in the driver’s seat, and Angel scurried up onto me, kissing my neck.
Taking her by the shoulders, I forced her back from me. “Hold on a minute.”
“Ummm-mmm, I don’t wanna.”
She tried to return to my neck, but I held her tight and shook her.
“Oooh, violent.” She gave me that innocent look again. “Please don’t hurt me, Mr. Badman. I’ll be good.”
“Listen, damn it. I want to know something. Who told you I was coming?”
“I told you, Satan.”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
That was a relief. A month ago I didn’t even know myself that I’d be going to Arkansas.
“He sent me an email.”
“So, Satan’s his screen name?”
“Uh-huh, but he’s the real deal, the fuckin’ Devil, man.”
“How’d you know I killed Pete?”
She shrugged. “I just figured. I mean, he told me you’d be a dude who killed a lot.”
“Who? Pete?”
“What? No, no! Satan.” She looked at me like a woman who’s trying to talk to a retarded child. “Just listen, all right? He—Satan—told me that you’d come one day and say you were one of my Internet fuckboys,” (I guessed Pete wasn’t her only one) “and that you’d help me kill my parents. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
I had to admit that it was.
“That’s why I’m here, but there’s one thing he didn’t tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m planning on killing you too.”
She paused, but only for a second. “Well, fuck, if you gotta, go ahead. I just wanna kill those fucks before I die. I wanna bathe in their blood and piss on their corpses.” Her eyes widened with fury then went back to normal. “After that, you can kill me all you want. Deal?”
I sat there stunned. Finally, I managed to speak. “Sure.”
She picked up my package. “Is this for me?”
I nodded, and she ripped open the box. Inside, she found a black vinyl skirt and top. Chains covered the top, and it had holes where her breasts would show through. A black garter and fishnets finished the set.
“Not bad.” She appraised the outfit. “You wanna fuck?”
“What? Here?”
“Fuck, yeah. Why not?”
She whipped her top off before I could object, and the sight of her firm little breasts with their pierced nipples drove away any argument I had.
She climbed back on top of me, and I took her, there in the driver’s seat, her lithe form and passionate intensity stealing control from me. She collapsed against my chest and lay still, barely moving.
I noticed, for the first time, that we’d drawn a crowd.
I started the car up, pulled out of the parking space, and drove—Angel still straddling me—away from the mall. For the next twenty minutes, I cruised around the town, Angel, topless and intimately connected to me, laying silent and beautiful against my chest. She never moved once the entire time. The smell of her patchouli and vanilla body oils drifted over my senses. A great tugging roiled inside of me.
Before she ever moved again, I knew that I would never kill her. It wasn’t some sentimental stirring of love—or any emotion—that changed my mind. I can’t honestly tell you what it was. All I know is that I found myself desiring her on so many different levels, in so many different ways, that I realized I wanted her around.
I didn’t tell her, though, not then.
With a sudden start, Angel came back to life, almost causing me to wreck the car out of surprise.
“Fuck, that was good!” She slid off of me and plopped noisily onto the passenger’s seat.
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“Fuck, yeah, man. You’re the first dude I’ve ever fucked who wasn’t all old and fat and shit. You wanna do it again?”
“Yes, but not right now,” I lied. “Tell me about your parents.”
“God, we’re really gonna do it, huh? Fucking yeah, man. I’ve been wanting to gut those fuckers for years.”
“Why’s that?” I pulled into a park and cut the engine.
Angel was still topless, so I handed over her tank top. She looked at it for a second with raised eyebrows, then shrugged and put it on.
“Why do you think? My dad’s been fucking me since I was ten. I finally got up the nerve to tell my mom about it, and what does the bitch do? She rapes me too. Now they both fuck me.”
“You’re serious?”
“What? You think I’m making this shit up? Fuck, dude, if it’s not Daddy buttfucking me, it’s Mommy holding my face in her cunt. God, I hate those fucks.”
“How come you don’t tell anybody?”
“I just told you.”
“You know what I mean. Why don’t you call the cops?”
“I tried once,” she said, wistfully looking out the window. “Last year I told my Guidance Counselor. Y’know what he did? He called my dad. He didn’t believe me. My dad told me that he said I was such a slut and a druggy that he figured I was making up stuff to get at my parents. Do you believe that asshole?”
She stopped speaking for a second, and a look of inspiration crossed her face.
“Can we kill him too?”
“Sure.” I patted her knee, and she bounced in happiness. “What does your dad do for a living?”
“He sells insurance. My mom’s a fucking schoolteacher.”
“Really? When do they get home?”
“They’ll both be home by five. Do you wanna wait for them at the house and jump them?”
“No.” I pulled out my FBI wallet and handed it to her. “I’ve got a better idea.”
Chapter Twenty
We spent the rest of the afternoon smoking pot and snorting coke. Angel wanted to fuck some more, but I told her to wait until later that evening. Five o’clock rolled around, and we made our way to her parents’.
Their house, a nice, two story redbrick, sat smack dab in the middle of suburbia with a chimney, a fenced-in back yard, a small porch, and a well-manicured front lawn—all the standard requirements. A black BMW sat parked in the driveway, a blue Intrepid out front.
I parked behind the Intrepid, and we walked to the front door. Angel rang the doorbell—her nerves apparent—and I told her to just follow my lead. A couple of seconds later, the door opened, revealing a fit-looking man in his mid-forties.
He looked at me first, suspicion in his eyes, than leveled his gaze on Angel.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Mr. Jordan?” I asked—that being Angel’s last name.
He shot me a glare that spoke volumes on how little he appreciated being interrupted.
“Was I talking to you? I don’t know what Chrissy’s told you, but you’d better take your happy little chatroom ass up out of here before I call the cops.”
I brought out my badge.
“I am the cops, Mr. Jordan. Special Agent Parker, with the FBI.”
His eyes bulged, and he seemed to shrink. “Has…has she done something?”
“Hardly.” I gave him a derisive look. “May I come in?”
He nodded, and I stepped into their living room. Angel followed me in and closed the door behind us.
“Is Mrs. Jordan here?”
He looked confused. “Uhm…yes. She’s in the basement working out. I’ll go get her.”
He hurried off to tell his wife about me, and, I imagine, to synchronize their stories.
I turned to Angel. “Chrissy?”
“Oh, fuck you.” She stuck out her tongue and scrunched up her face.
The approaching sound of footsteps put me back in ‘cop’ mode, and the father reappeared, his wife in tow. I gestured for them both to sit and introduced myself to Mrs. Jordan.
A woman in her early fort
ies, she’d aged remarkably well. The beauty, so evident in Angel, reverberated throughout her features, and was, if anything, made stronger with maturity. She wore a man’s wife-beater shirt and boxer shorts, both soaked through with sweat.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her tone sharp.
“Well, ma’am, we have reason to believe that you, or your husband, may have engaged in illegal activity involving your daughter.”
Dad’s face grew alarmed, but Mom’s stayed cool.
“And what in the world gives you that impression?” Mom asked.
I’d already grown tired of the game. I’d only used the badge to get myself inside and get them both together without drawing the whole neighborhood’s attention. That having been accomplished, my patience for pretending to be a Fed waned more and more by the second. Acting like a cop made me feel dirty.
“Oh, fuck it,” I said, pulling a .45.
Mom’s coolness dropped immediately, and Dad practically shit himself.
“Keep quiet,” I said.
“Agent Parker…,” Dad started.
I pulled my gun’s hammer back, and Dad cut his protest short. Mom glared icily at Angel, who, for all intents and purposes, seemed happy as hell.
I stood up and motioned with my gun for the two of them to follow suit. “Get up. Listen, you fucking sickos; I want you to do exactly what I tell you. If you don’t, believe me, I will spray your brains across the nearest wall. Now get downstairs.”
Cowed, Angel’s parents moved toward the basement. I turned to Angel and told her to get whatever she wanted to use on them, then followed Ma and Pa.
The big basement served two purposes, half of it a gym, complete with exercise bike, nautilus, trampoline, and free-weights. The other half, a relaxation area, held a large hot tub, an overstuffed couch, a big-screen TV, and a pretty nice-looking bar setup. I marched them over to the couch.
“Get naked.”
Pop started to strip immediately, but I stopped him.
“Not you, dumbass.” I shook my gun at Ma. “C’mon. Lose the clothes.”
She shot me one last venomous look before pulling her tank top over her head. When she’d finished stripping, she went back to giving me the evil eye. It didn’t really bother me, though; I was going to kill her soon anyway.
Footsteps behind me announced Angel’s arrival, and, soon after, she strolled into sight. She clutched a butcher knife, a length of nylon clothesline, and an axe. She saw her naked mother and whistled a low, mournful dirge.
Sex and Murder Page 16
