“Yeah, I got your damn guacamole,” Owens answers before we head to the elevator. Records and evidence are locked down very well in the labyrinthine bowels of the facility. This is where screw-ups and failures go to die, their careers evaporating with every passing day that they spend here in the darkness with only the ghosts of old crimes to keep them company with the other screw-ups.
The elevator dings softly as it opens and we step into it, holding the key to the room that Owens intends to take me to for his case to be made. I look at him as the doors slowly and gently close before we begin the slow plummet down to the basement archived cases. He’s silent, looking at the doors with his game face on. He truly believes whatever he’s about to tell me. He believes it enough that he’s willing to risk his credibility and standing in the police department by coming to me.
The elevators in this building don’t play any music. Instead, you get to listen to the secret, inner workings of the entire building, rumbling, groaning, the secret language of all buildings. I’ve always hated this place. I’ve hated the way it feels boxed in, locked up, and forgotten. It is the fate of thousands upon thousands of different cases, all locked away into the darkness and forgotten. When you’re murdered or your house is burned down or your business robbed, this is what happens to your history. Written across the halls and boxes of this archive is the dark history of the city, behind the grand openings, the parades, the mayoral campaigns, this is what the city truly is, written in the blood and sorrow of its citizens.
The door opens and I follow Owens’s lead. He walks down the hallway past door after door that leads back into the poorly lit store rooms of ancient crimes. There’s nothing here that makes me want to hang around down here. In fact, I feel depressed just standing here. This is how it all ends. The people keep on suffering and the crimes just lurk down here in a paper purgatory.
“This way.” Owens pushes open a door and we enter a large room that’s lined with rows of shelves full of boxes. The lights hanging overhead are mostly dead, only a few work, this is either by design or they’re just cheap on lighting, trying to save the city a few bucks. Walking in, there’s several tables in the center, running the length of the room. It doesn’t look like anyone has bothered coming in here for a very long time. I feel like I’m in the musty depths of the city’s brain, searching for ancient memories.
Setting my brown sack on the table, I watch as Owens disappears around the corner of one of the massive shelves. I open the top and reach down, fishing out a fry and sticking it in my mouth. It’s seasoned well, not too salty, not too much garlic, a hint of rosemary. Jesus, where did he get this food?
When Owens returns, he sets a box on the table and pulls off the top, tossing it behind the box, and I stare at the dozens of files. No, maybe I’m wrong. It looks like there’s a hundred files in that box. I look at it and then look up to Owens, who is standing there with a look on his face that isn’t smug or like he’s saying I told you so. He’s standing there with a distraught, disappointed look on his face. Owens used to work vice, a department that was pretty cut and dry when it came to convictions. He knows how to present a case, how to look for clues, where to find the dirt, and most importantly, he knows how to go back and find the trail.
“You think all of those people were murdered?” I lift an eyebrow.
“I think all of these people died under awfully suspicious circumstances,” Owens answers. He pulls out file after file, tossing it onto the table and I stare at each of them with a questionable amount of doubt, enough doubt that it feels a little more like denial. This is a lot of meat piling up. This isn’t a favor he’s asking, this is a fucking catastrophe.
“Let me stop you there.” I hold up my hand before he continues. “Bernie, I’m only around for a month. Unless you’ve got a pretty substantial lead, this is something you want to send up the chain, probably to the FBI.”
This stops Owens on his tracks and he looks at me with a doubtful look on his face. “This isn’t something that we can just hand off to someone, King. We need someone who can actually sit down and look at what we’ve compiled. We need someone to actually give a shit about these bodies that are stacking up.” He looks at me with a serious look in his eyes, which makes me think that I’m not his first choice. I’m his final act of hope.
“So you don’t have any leads?” I stick another fry in my mouth.
“Some of the victims know each other,” Owens shrugs. “But there really isn’t anything to go on, except that this is the third victim in the past two weeks. Every suicide in here is dramatic, orchestrated in a peculiar way, and completely unexpected. Everyone in the family and friends say that they never expected the victim to commit suicide. In fact, the victims are usually happy, upbeat people. Altogether, this box stinks, King.”
“I might not be able to build a case with this in one month, Owens.” I shake my head. He has no leads, no idea who this person is, just a bunch of victims. This is not the ideal situation in which to be spending my last four weeks.
“I’m not asking for you to build a case for a grand jury,” Owens shakes his head. “We want a lead on this asshole. We want someone with the ability to get around and ask the right questions. Get us a lead before your month is up and we’ll take it from there. When we make a strong enough case against the man you find, we’ll take over from there.”
“Take over?” I don’t even want to know what it is he’s implying, but there it is. It’s standing in the room like a golem, not letting me move on.
“We’re tired of watching this murderer get away,” Owens says with a near snarl in his voice, like a dagger hiding behind his back. “You know just as well as me that the system is just going to let this guy get away with his crimes just like they let everyone else like him get away.”
“No, they lock them away, Owens,” I say with a shake of my head.
“That’s letting them get away with it, King.” Owens shakes his head at me. “Don’t be naïve.”
I’ve seen enough cops sour under the pressures and the frustrations that come from good defense attorneys, a broken system, and overcrowded prisons. Laws are too lenient, liberals keep wanting more rights for prisoners, and juries are needing more of a dog and pony show to convict people who are clearly guilty. Shows on Friday night television remind people about the horrors of the wrongly accused and how they suffer because we don’t give the juries enough evidence. It’s almost enough to make men like Owens make sense, let alone feel necessary.
“You get one month,” I say to him. “I’ll take a look over what you have, but if I’m not finding anything, then there’s nothing I can really do for you. I’m guessing that you understand that.”
“I understand completely,” Owens shrugs at me, putting his hands on the box. “You want me to go over this with you or do you want to do this by yourself?”
“I’ll take the box,” I answer. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“How old are you, King?” Owens frowns as he puts the lid back on the box. “Grow a pair of balls.”
“Fuck you,” I smile and grab my burger. “You get to carry the box.”
When we make it out to the car, there’s still a whole flock of officers standing around in the parking lot. As we emerge from the doors and into the blazing glare of the sun, it feels like they’ve all been given the signal. They disperse from their packs, taking to their cars and driving off as I make my way across the scorched parking lot, feeling the heat coming up and down on me like I’m inside some hellish oven. It feels like the sun is watching us with immense amounts of disapproval. I don’t like the way that any of this is feeling. I can’t help but wonder if the box Owens carries once belonged to Pandora.
There’s a bottle of Stevenon sitting on top of the roof of my Shelby. Owens waits for me to unlock the door for him. He sets it in the passenger seat and stands back, looking at the car, taking it in with a long, surveying glance. “This is one hell of a ride, King,” Owens shakes his head. I
love it when people compliment my car. It makes me feel powerful. It makes me feel like a man. It’s the same feeling I’m sure people who work out at the gym must feel when girls eye them. There’s something phallic about muscle cars. I’m certain that there’s more women attracted to cars than there are women attracted to muscles. At least, my experience says that.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to not make my delight known. “It was my father’s.”
“Did you restore it?” Owens furrows his brow.
“Hell no,” I chuckle, tossing my burger into the passenger seat next to the box of files. “My dad loved this car more than he loved anything else in the world. On his list of priorities, this was the top. He wanted to be buried in the thing, but I didn’t think zoning permits would allow a seventy year old man to be buried in a car at the cemetery.” Owens chuckles, but that’s the truth. There’s very little that my father cared about in life outside of cars. His Shelby, Charger, Stingray, and Prowler all came above my mother or the rest of us. It wasn’t funny, living that way.
“King, just look over the files,” Owens says as I twirl the keys on my middle finger, waiting to get out of here. I’m hungry, and traffic is going to be a nightmare. I’ll make my way through this entire bottle tonight if I waste time reading through all of these files. “The pattern will stick out to you, I guarantee it. Everything about this feels wrong,” he adds.
“I’m sure it does,” I answer with my own doubts. There were a lot of detectives in that box that were going to hate me if I ripped up the flooring and started looking for the monsters lurking inside the darkness beneath. No one wants that. “Take it easy, Owens.” I drop into my seat and put the keys in the ignition. “Call me if you get any more suspicious suicides.”
“Absolutely,” Owens says.
I take as many back roads as I can, making the long way back to my house, letting the city quiet my thoughts. I pull out my guacamole burger and bite into it, tasting the flavors and smells of Mexico dancing with hickory smoked bacon and ground beef that makes my mouth water just smelling it. It’s a damn good burger and I kick myself for not asking Owens where he got it. I had no idea how hungry I was, but with each bite, I feel my stomach more and more satisfied. There’s nothing more appealing than a good burger on a hot night, driving down the busy streets in a muscle car. At the streetlights, my Shelby rumbles, growling at all the inferior cars around me like a wild cat making its territory well known. It’s something beautiful that only car people will understand.
I’ve always had a weakness for cars, I guess it’s hereditary. When I was married, it was more than just a weakness, it was a fault. It wasn’t my only fault. I know that I spent more time on the job than I should have, obsessing about scum when I should have been present with my wife and daughter, but they’re long gone. They don’t give a shit about me, but I find myself thinking about them on these long drives, focusing on what I could have done—what I definitely shouldn’t have done. I take in a deep breath, remembering my greatest sin, my greatest fault, my hungriest demon.
The long way through my neighborhood takes me past St. Judas’ Catholic School where the high school and middle school students are released at separate times. Looking at the clock, I know that most of the extracurricular activities are wrapping up. I know that I shouldn’t be here, or at least, I know that a stronger man would resist this. Maybe not a stronger man, but a younger man would. When we’re young we don’t realize that our demons are actually us, we’re just too stupid to accept it. We try to pretend like we’re something we’re not, or at least we try to convince ourselves that we are. I pull the Shelby up to a parking spot along the side of the road at an empty intersection, watching the old, red brick building behind the chain link fence. The volleyball team is wrapped up by now and the girls are making their way out of the detached gymnasium. They make their way down the street, a whole flock of them. I watch them like a wolf and I remind myself that this is the closest that I’ll allow myself ever to get. This is where I draw the line, where I built the walls, and where I look over at the darkness of the world and remind myself that I’m not one of them, not anymore.
The idea of denying yourself your desires is inviting your own disappointment. It’s inviting your own destruction because you’ll break. People who try to deny themselves their desires only end up giving in and usually violently. The idea is control, pleasure through moderation, keeping a watch on yourself and keeping check. This is why I’m staying in my car, watching them from a distance. It’s safer for all of us this way.
There’s something about them, it draws me to them. I watch the way their bodies move, how the majority of them are so perfectly sculpted. Their bodies are the best they will probably ever be. Their legs are long, muscular, and still looking to be more graceful and lovely. My eyes run up their knee high socks to their plaid skirts where I can see the soft, unblemished flesh of their thighs. Their breasts are young and perky, their eyes wide and innocent. I watch them parade past my car while I eat my burger, pretending not to notice them.
I think it’s the innocence of them that draws me in. They haven’t been jaded, corrupted, or broken by the harsh reality of the world. The world turns girls like these into disappointed husks of what they might have once been. Their dreams become their prisons and they are suffocated by those ideals they once held, remorseful of their lost chances and past hopes. They become victims and they become monsters. This is the worst of the world, broken women. To me, the innocence is so alluring. But not all of them can be saved, either.
But justification is a young man’s game. I don’t justify or deny my desires any longer. I like girls who are in their last years of high school. I like the feeling of naïve, innocent girls. I like the way they talk, taste, and look. I have a craving that runs deep into my soul and I refuse to fight against it any longer. I am friends with my demons now. I am on speaking terms with my sins.
There’s one girl that draws my attention. She’s leaning against the street sign holding a cigarette up to her lips, taking a long drag and looking up the street. Her back is to me and my eyes look up her long legs to where the breeze stirs her skirt and I imagine her panties underneath and everything that lurks beneath that. She’s got larger breasts than the other girls and she’s got the curse of being attractive in the wrong part of the city. She’s been worked over by monsters disguised as Prince Charming and she’s become jaded by that. She’ll be in a strip club soon, or she’ll have a baby in her belly. Either way, her days are numbered. I drive by her slowly, watching the breeze ruffle her amber hair as she turns and looks at me. Her face is pretty and she looks at the car, impressed enough to give me a nod. Part of me wants to pull over, run across the street, and plow her. I want to lay into her and fuck her brains out, but there’s nothing good that can come from that.
So I leave her in the rearview mirror. It doesn’t stop me from looking back at her, dreaming of what might have been. I don’t like what I am, but I don’t have to. Reality doesn’t care if you approve or disapprove of it. We are what we are and fighting against it does us nothing. At best, we can hope that we’ll be doing something better with ourselves in the future, that we’ll become something more, but this is reality. I’m a pig and a monster, but that’s okay. Tomorrow’s another day and the world needs men like me. The world needs men who have embraced their sins and know how to control themselves, because in the seat next to me is a whole pile of dead bodies that are calling out for a bad man to avenge them.
4
Fuck Charlie. I don’t know why I care so much about that piece of shit anyways. Truth be told, all he ever did was make me doubt myself. I changed everything for that bastard. He’s nothing more than a jerk who likes to fuck whatever he can get his hands on, just a boy, nothing more. I should have seen that the moment I first met him. I should have seen past the three-piece suits and the charming smile. I should have slapped him in the face and called him a piece of shit, telling everyone exactly who and what he
is. Men are all the same. They only want you for sex. So why not give it to them. After all, who am I to deny men what they truly want?
He hands me his blunt and I take a drag, a nice, long drag. I let the smoke fill my lungs, burning and reminding me that I’m still alive, that I’m still human. I don’t care anymore about what people think of me. That’s the reason I’m here, in the bathroom of this club, smoking a joint on the lap of some sleaze ball who thinks it’s cool to dress like Charlie Sheen from Two and a Half Men. Whoever told him that this was a good look definitely got their joke out of him. I cough and feel the rush of endorphins. I let the calm, the numb wash over me. The whole world feels like it’s slowing with every cough, with every blink. I never smoked pot before I broke up with Charlie, never needed to. Everything feels darker now. Everything pisses me off, like I’ve suddenly gotten too sensitive to everything. I feel like for the first time I’m actually seeing the world as it is. I take another drag and smile.
I never got the name of whoever is underneath me, grinding his half flaccid cock against my ass, thinking I’m too stoned to notice that he’s trying to slide his hands up my sides so he can cup my tits. Boys are all the same. Yeah, that’s right, boys. I need to watch myself on that. There are no men. Hell, who actually thinks that chivalry is still alive? Chivalry was an excuse boys had once upon a time to convince women that they were daring and kind and loving, but it was all just a way to manipulate us. It was just a way for them to define how to beat the shit out of each other while degrading us further. Chivalry was never alive, we just convinced ourselves that it was something more than just smoke and mirrors.
The Monster Within Page 3
