Orchard Grove

by Vincent Zandri

  Maybe, just maybe, if I had even an ounce of luck left inside me, I would end up in Burma or maybe Vietnam where I could tend bar and write novels under a pen name, open up a Swiss bank account where I’d receive my royalties. It wasn’t a likely outcome for a man who’d fallen off the bitched-for-life tree and hit every branch on the way down, but just the thought of it offered me a smidgeon of hope.

  Hope… Hope floats like a bloated carcass…

  I closed my eyes, felt myself drifting off, sinking down and down until the world turned black.

  Then a knock on the door.

  I shot up, sweat dripping off my forehead into my eyes. Damned A/C didn’t work any better than my luck. How long was I out? Ten, twenty minutes at the most. I slid off the bed, limped the few steps to the door.

  “Who’s there?” I said.

  “You called the escort service,” spoke the voice, which was clearly female.

  I nodded, as if she could see me through the wood door. Side stepping to the window, I peeked out through the slim separation between the glass and the filthy fabric. I made out a slim, woman dressed in cut-off shorts and a tight T-shirt that ended half way down her slightly soft belly. She sported ample breasts and her smooth, straight blonde hair was thick and trimmed maybe an inch or so above her shoulders, just like Lana. From where I was standing, she didn’t look any older than nineteen or twenty, but I could have been mistaken. The important thing was that she was here now, hadn’t brought any cops along with her, and that she reminded me of Lana.

  Tossing my jacket back over the shotgun, I unlatched the chain, unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door just enough to show my face.

  “Good morning.” She smiled. “Or is it still good evening?”

  I just looked at her, at her blue eyes and her beautiful young face veiled by blonde hair. She wasn’t Lana but she was my Lana for now. She held a plastic shopping bag in her hand. The bag was stuffed with something.

  I opened the door wide enough to allow her to slip on through. When she was in, I took a quick look around outside and saw that the coast was clear. For now anyway. Closing the door, I put the chain back on and reengaged the deadbolt.

  She turned to me, held out her free hand, like we were meeting for the first time at a fundraiser.

  “I’m Casy,” she said, all smiles. “Casy without an E before the Y.”

  I tried to picture in my head how I might spell Casy. I would have put an e before the Y, as in “The Great Casey at Bat.” A silly poem my dad would recite every time he’d get plastered on Genesee Cream Ale while watching a Yankee game on TV. Seemed to me the name should be pronounced Casy with a hard a, as in Lassie.

  I pulled my hand away.

  “Your name is Lana for now,” I said.

  “Oh yes,” she said, holding up the shopping bag. “They told me what you want.” Then, turning for the bathroom. “Do you mind if I slip into this?”

  “How old are you?” I said.

  “Old enough,” she said, unbuttoning her shorts, allowing them to fall to the carpet.

  “You in a rush?” I said. “How much time do I have?”

  She stepped into the bathroom, out of sight.

  “I go to the community college around the corner,” she said. “I have a class in an hour. Hope that’s okay?”

  “You asking or telling?”

  “Neither silly.” She came back out, wearing a red kimono, and not much else. It wasn’t exactly like the one Lana wore. And it was acrylic rather than satin. But it would do. “You’re aware of the pricing?” she added.

  “Remind me,” I said.

  “One hundred for the initial hour. Fifty dollars more for each additional hour. But that won’t be a problem since I have to skedaddle.”

  My eyes were struck by her young blue eyes and pert breasts, which for now were covered by the kimono. She reached underneath with both her hands, went to pull down her thong panties.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “Leave them on,” I said. “And turn around.”

  She did it. “I have to ask you to pay in advance.”

  Digging into the pocket, which also housed my cell phone, I peeled off the correct bills.

  “Would you mind being a doll and put the money in the left-hand pocket on my jean shorts? Say, what did you do to your foot?”

  “I had it operated on a few weeks ago. Taking a while to heal.”

  “Ouch,” she said. “People should learn to take care of their feet. You’re bleeding.”

  Reaching down, I grabbed her shorts, stuffed the money into the left pocket as requested, then tossed them onto the easy chair by the door. She shuffled over to the television, turned it on. The tube just happened to be tuned into the local channel 9 news. The picture was clear and bright but the sound was muted.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I like to work with the TV on. Makes me feel more secure. You know, protected. Like someone is watching out for me.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “Sit down in the desk chair. Face the back wall. Lift your face up a little, like you’re sunning yourself outside on a deck.”

  Pulling out the desk chair, she positioned it, and sat down, facing the back wall of the room. “Like this?” she posed. “To be honest, I’m not entirely crazy about turning my back on you. And I don’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that a girl has to be careful.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I said, feeling myself grow rock hard. I was looking at Casy, but in my head, I was seeing Lana sunning herself on her back deck. “You can trust me.”

  “Lots of nut cases out there these days. Killers. Did you know somebody killed a convenience store owner just last night out in Nassau? Crushed his skull with his own gun. I got friends live in Nassau. Scary shit.”

  I felt a slight start in my heart.

  “You just never know when your time is up,” I said, watching the back of her head, the way her hair draped the red kimono. “Now,” I went on. “Slowly take off the robe.”

  She did it, slowly peeling it away from her shoulders and arms. I shifted myself so I could see her breasts, which were plump, the nipples erect, and pale.

  “Do you want me to touch myself?” she said in a randy, sing song-like voice.

  “No,” I said, maybe a little too forcefully. “Just pretend you’re sunning yourself.”

  “It’s okay, mister. No problemo.”

  “You don’t happen to have any sunglasses,” I said, picturing the big rectangular ones Lana wore.

  “I don’t,” she said. “Was I supposed to bring some?”

  “It’s okay,” I said, knowing that I couldn’t produce a pair of sunglasses for her any more than I could make her sport a red crying heart tattoo on her ankle. Still, she was doing the trick for me, fooling my brain into thinking I was looking at Lana. I was so hard I thought I might bust out of my pants. For the moment, I just wanted to watch her. I just wanted her to be Lana, even if only for a few peaceful moments. I wanted it to be like it had been before Lana and I met one another in person. Back when I would watch her from the window in the bedroom, and she appeared to have no clue about me. That was nature of our relationship then, and it was pure, and real, and lovely. Even if we didn’t know one another physically, we shared an erotic and intimate relationship nonetheless. And it was beautiful.

  After a time, my eyes filled, and the tears started to roll down my face.

  “Are you crying, mister?” she said after a time. “Are you okay?”

  I sniffled, wiped my face with the backs of my hands.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll be all right.”

  I watched her like that for ten more minutes, until I told her to get up and come to bed. I remembered my dream of Lana and the bed we shared in the forest. That was back when I had no idea about who the real Lana was. The evil Lana. For just a little while longer, I wanted to experience the good Lana. The Lana of my imagination. Of my fantasies.

>   With my eyes closed, I made love to the woman of my dreams.

  A knock at the door. I got up, pulled on my pants as gingerly as possible over my impossibly swelled foot. I went to the chair, pulled the jean jacket off the shotgun, and grabbed hold of it.

  “What the hell is that?” Casy barked.

  “Relax,” I said. “It’s just that I’m not expecting anyone.”

  “I don’t like guns,” she said, wrapping her arms around her breasts. I recalled her telling me about the convenience store clerk. When she made the connection, she would naturally assume I was the killer.

  I thought quick. “I’m in town for a trap shooting contest at the rod n’ gun club. I’m a professional shooter. You can look me up on the web if you want.”

  Snatching up the baseball cap, I showed her the NRA logo stitched into the fabric. Setting it back down again, I peeked out the window, saw that it was the pizza I’d ordered. I’d forgotten all about it. The young man who was delivering it wasn’t much older than Casy. Setting the shotgun back onto the chair, I covered it back up with my jacket.

  “You might want to get under the covers,” I said.

  “Company?” Casy said, sliding under the white sheet.

  “Pizza,” I said. “Hope you’re hungry.”

  “You sure are a strange one, mister,” she said. “But kind of sweet too.”

  Unlocking the door, I let the young man in.

  “Thirty-five fifty,” he said, handing me the large, white-boxed pizza along with a plastic shopping bag which I assumed contained the whiskey and the sealant. I set it all on the round table.

  “That flexy sealant shit is pretty expensive,” the kid said.

  Digging into my pocket, I pulled out a fifty, handed it to him.

  “Keep the rest,” I said.

  “Sweet,” he said, craning his neck to get a look at the girl.

  “Mind your own business,” I said.

  He shot me a wink and left.

  We sat back against the headboard and shared my pizza and my bottle. I’d almost forgotten that the television was on, until something slashed across the screen that captured my attention. It was a videotaped shot of the convenience store where I’d killed the clerk. There was a reporter standing outside the front door of the store beside the gas pumps, and she was talking into a hand-held microphone. With the sound muted I couldn’t exactly make out what she was reporting.

  The scene shifted to the interior of the store.

  There was a black rubber sheet covering clerk’s corpse. A few close-ups followed. One in particular of the now empty cash register. Another of the antiquated security monitoring system that was missing the cassette tape. Another shot followed that nearly sent me through the ceiling. It was portrait of me. A professional portrait snapped for me back in LA for my inclusion in the Screen Writers Guild.

  I shot out of the bed, bad foot and all, hopping over to the television where I killed the power.

  “What gives, Summers?” Casy said.

  I inhaled, exhaled. By sheer luck or Providence, she hadn’t noticed my picture on the screen.

  “Gotta break up the party,” I said.

  She slid off the bed, glanced at her watch. “Oh my God, I should have been on campus a half hour ago. Well, looks like I’m missing my first class.” She smiled. “But that was fun. Just hanging out in my birthday suit, eating pizza and doing shots. Ain’t life grand.” Looking at me thoughtfully. “Who exactly is Lana? And why aren’t you with her if you love her so much?”

  My sternum tightened.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, pulling out an extra fifty, handing it to her.

  She looked at the money in my hand, took it. I knew she thought I was crazy, and maybe I was. But I didn’t care anymore. I might as well have had terminal cancer. It was just a matter of time until I was finished. Just a matter of when and how.

  Casy got dressed, packed up the kimono.

  “Listen, Summers,” she said, “let me know next time you’re in town for a… whatcha-ma-call-it… trap shooting contest.” She leaned into me, planted a kiss on my cheek.

  I’m not sure why, but I felt a pleasant wave of warmth wash over me then. It’s the way I would have wanted to feel if I’d just spent the past hour with the real Lana. The Lana I dreamed about once upon a time.

  But that hour would never come.

  When she was gone, I closed the door behind her, locked the deadbolt, slipped on the chain. Grabbing hold of the can of Flex Seal Clear, I limped my way to the bathroom where I sat down on the toilet, slowly removed the blood-soaked sock. Aiming the nozzle at the foot, I sucked in a breath, held it, then proceeded to spray the exposed wounds with the liquid rubber sealant. The cold sealant on the inflamed skin sucked the oxygen from my lungs. But as the material solidified and bonded, my bleeding stopped.

  When I got my breath back, I raised myself up off the toilet, positioned the crutches back under my arms, and headed out of the bathroom. I wasn’t two steps past the threshold when cops pulled into the motel.

  She sits inside a concrete room with no windows. Only a big rectangular window that takes up much of the wall to her left. She’s dressed in a pair of gym shorts and a gray sweatshirt that one of the smaller cops pulled out of his locker. The shorts and the sweatshirt bear the APD logo in big black letters. She also wears flip-flops on her feet, the tattoo of a red bleeding heart recently acquired at a downtown tattoo parlor plainly visible on her left ankle.

  After a time that seems forever, a man walks in. It’s young Detective Miller. He’s carrying a cup of tea in his left hand, the Lipton Tea tag hanging off the rim of the paper cup by its white string. He sets the cup down in front of her.

  “How you feeling?” says Miller.

  She stares down at her tea, feels the steam rising up from it clouding her view, coating the skin on her face. After a reflective time, she raises up her head, takes a good look at the tall, thin young man, at his full head of short cropped sandy blond hair and boyish face. She would never say anything about it, but she’s pretty sure he doesn’t have to shave more than twice a week, if that. A part of her is attracted to him, and another part… a more powerful part… wishes he’d answered one of her personals ads. How nice it would be to have him fall under her spell, then make love to him, and achieve climax by cutting him up. She would like to see that confused look in his eyes that always accompanies the first cut from the cleaver. The cut that doesn’t cause pain so much as surprise and misunderstanding. Of course, the cleaver is gone now and so are her days of avenging her step-monster’s atrocities.

  “Think you can give me a description of the man who abducted you?” Miller says, his tone gentle and nonthreatening. Not the tone of a cop, like on TV. But of a man who really cares.

  She steals a sip of tea. Then, “I told you, it’s hard to say. It all happened so quickly. I was out for a walk and suddenly this man pulls me into the woods.”

  He looks at her forearms.

  “Which arm?”

  “What?”

  “Which arm did he grab hold of? I’m assuming he grabbed you by the arm.”

  She doesn’t anticipate this question.

  “The left,” she lies.

  “Funny he didn’t leave a mark on your arm. A bruise. You ladies bruise easier than us men. Thinner skin.”

  “I think he was wearing gloves,” she says. “He was all covered up.”

  “Maybe that explains it,” he says. “But it’s awfully hot out to be all covered up like that. Continue.”

  “Well,” she says, “that dead guy was already there, down on his back.” She takes a minute to work up some tears. Something she’s not half bad at. “His throat was cut and there was blood all over. I tried to scream but the man’s hand was wrapped around my mouth. Then you guys showed up. He let go of me, and I ran the opposite way. He must have run off too.”

  Miller sits back, digests her words. She’s already described the man who abducted her as over six feet
tall, heavy set, all dressed in black…“covered up.” Amazing that a guy of that size didn’t leave any marks on her, and what’s more amazing, is that he was able to slip away undetected. Perhaps he’s militarily trained. But even if he is, it all doesn’t add up. If Miller’s scientific profiling serves him right, the perp responsible for the killings… the beheadings… is almost certainly slight and quick and young. Someone who can get the jump on his victims, slash their throats. Someone who would more than likely dress and uncannily present himself as a woman in order to fool his heterosexual victims into trusting him. If he did attack this young lady, she is almost certainly his first female victim, signifying a modification or mutation in his MO.

  …It just doesn’t add up…

  Still, he has no reason not to believe this girl. No reason to hold her. It’s precisely what he relays to her in that same soft, gentle voice.

  She takes another sip of her tea, works up a smile as she stands.

  “Say, where’d you get that tattoo?” he asks.

  She tells him.

  “What’s it mean?” he says. “Droplets of blood from a heart.”

  She reaches out, sets her hand on his hand.

  “For me to know, Detective,” she says. “And for you to find out.”

  The sound of sirens, the roar of engines, and the screech of tires as their brakes lock up outside my front door… It shattered the silence of my safe house.

  I crutched my way back to the window, peeked out.

  Three state trooper cruisers were parked diagonally in the dusty lot. A second unmarked cruiser was parked beside that one. The side passenger door on the unmarked car opened and out stepped Detective Nick Miller. He was holding his service weapon in his right hand, his left hand gripping the right wrist, combat position.

  The troopers emerged from their cruisers, some of them holding automatics, a few others, short-barreled shotguns. One of them, a stocky woman, stood behind the open door of her blue and yellow cruiser, held a microphone up to her mouth. A black accordion style wire hung from the mic and extended into the open door of the cruiser.