Lustmord 2

by Kirk Alex

  “Fuck you, Ahab!” Marvin shouted to make sure he got the message. Hurried toward the van. Biggs had already turned the key. Had the vehicle idling.

  The other turbaned gent was inside on the phone. The clerk ran after Marvin with that bat and was in the process of redefining the term “Sultan of Swat.” Swung the bat a couple of times. Marvin ducked once, twice, and the Louisville Slugger banged against the side of the van. The clerk was cursing a mile a minute in his native tongue.

  Cecil yelled to Marvin to keep his head down, out of the way. Aimed the pepper spray through the open window on the passenger side. Let him have a taste. The would-be slugger screamed, whirled back, the palms of his hands pressed against his burning eyes. He backpedaled, tripped on something, his own feet more-than-likely, and went down with a loud cry, rolling and twisting on the ground.

  Not one to pass up an opportunity to get back at the mofo for messin’ wiff him, Marvin Muck kicked him in the belly, hard, twice, then a third time so hard in the face that he thought he heard something break.

  Biggs glared at him. “Inside!”

  CHAPTER 292

  Muck hopped in. Slammed the door shut. By the time the other turbaned head ran outside to aid his incapacitated colleague, Biggs had the van screeching out of the parking lot. He could see the two teenage jackasses in the mirror on the passenger side door laughing themselves silly back there.

  “Pissants. World is full of pissants and assholes.”

  “That was some shit. Mothafuckah cause’ me to hurt myself that way.”

  “Nice going.”

  “Huh?”

  “You trying to get me bagged?”

  “How you mean?”

  “Pissing in public like that. You don’t piss in public unless you want to draw heat. Anybody knows that.”

  Marvin shrugged. “What could I do? It don’t be like I pissed on the A-rab, which is what I shoulda done.”

  “What if they remember the van? Have the license plate number written down?”

  Marvin’s response was the same: looked at him and shrugged.

  “No skin off your nose, right?”

  “What was I suppose’ to done?”

  Biggs didn’t comment.

  “Got your shit?”

  “I got it. Only that diaper-wearing greaseball was starting to annoy me. I came real close to wasting his smelly Arab ass, especially when he started carrying on about the dead cunt found up there in the Canyon. Fucker didn’t know her, but there he was, acting like he was bothered by it.”

  “I be for that one, Cecil. Heard the punk: had no Good Puta. Wouldn’t gimme no Band-Aid for my hand. Said it be policy. What kinda shit is that?”

  “Just like all those bottom-feeding Tacos. Fucking Middle-East throwbacks are destroying this country, my country. How can a grown man walk around with a diaper on his head? I don’t get it. What kind of man does that?”

  “All a them Alley Baba be like that.”

  “Ali Baba? As in Forty Thieves?”

  “Yeah. Could be.”

  “Maybe I should change my MO. Go for a different ‘signature.’ Start killing wetbacks and camel jockeys.”

  Biggs popped lemon drops in his mouth. Turned the radio on. Anything to calm down and get his mind off what he’d just gone through. The AM station had something syrupy by Bing Crosby on that seemed to have just the opposite effect on him, in that it ignited a deep rage within.

  He punched a button. Landed on Perry Como. Not much better. Hit another button. Got Johnny Mathis. Far worse. A fourth try on the FM dial rewarded him with a tune by the Butthole Surfers. He left it on.

  “Goddamn. I HATE, HATE fucking Bing Crosby and Perry Como and all that sentimental horseshit. Fucking love songs. Fucking Johnny Mathis. Queer piece of dook. Jam your worthless love songs up your anus, cocksuckers.”

  “Can I aks you somethin’?”

  “What is it?”

  “You can’t have no alcohol, so why come you buy the beer?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Just be aksking, me. Ain’t no big deal.”

  Biggs reached down for a can. Tossed it to him. Waited for Muck to crack the top and watched as the foam erupted. Sprayed him pretty good. Upper chest and face.

  Marvin cursed. Ducked his mouth over the lip of the can and sucked up the foam, but the foam kept on coming. Finally, it receded.

  Biggs popped more lemon drops in his mouth.

  “How’s the beer?”

  “Maan, sometime you the best, other time’ you like the rest of all a them out there.”

  “You like it, I take it.”

  “Better than trim. Almost. Trim still be the all-time best. Pussy and cornhole. Don’t life be worth livin’ wiffout it.”

  A sedan full of coeds, cheerleaders possibly, drove past on Marvin’s side. The one in the backseat had her bare buttocks hanging out the open window.

  “See them young hoe’?”

  “You got mooned.”

  “Mothafuck.”

  “Why would that bother you?”

  “Drove by too fast.”

  CHAPTER 293

  There was a sidewalk pay phone. Biggs pulled over. Phone books at these things were usually missing, or if on hand, pages were either gone or too dog-eared and creased to make out anything. This phone book was no exception, in that it was in poor condition. The bishop got into a pair of disposable vinyl gloves before lifting the receiver. Dialed information. He was connected.

  “Hungry Itch Productions.” It was a male voice, breathing heavily, as though interrupted mid-copulation and/or self-gratification. Harried is how he sounded. Too bad.

  “Is this Ford Hindgrind, the schlockmeister?”

  “Depends who’s asking.”

  “It would behoove you not to take credit for that discovery in Lopez Canyon.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “My advice to you is don’t.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Lustmord will do for the time being.” About all Biggs was willing to give him. “That slasher flick you made a couple of years back: BONESAW?”

  “What of it?”

  “Has some good moments. I get wood watching certain parts. Can’t say I cared for all of it. Some of the camera work is downright clumsy. I had problems with it.”

  “Yeah, well, it was a real ordeal to make. The true nightmare was not in front of the camera, but behind it. You see, my camera guy is one imbalanced putz. It seemed to eat him up inside whenever a scene would go smoothly.”

  “Makes no sense.”

  “The guy was like family to me, loved him like a brother, same way I felt about that other hick fuck, the actor with the top of his head wrapped in a bloody towel. The camera guy is a frustrated director, only his problem is he has no talent, none, in that area, so the demented jerk was constantly causing me problems, picking fights with me, unwilling to put the camera where I wanted it, shit like that; real trouble-making mook. Between dealing with him every day, all day long, and this other guy I mentioned, the next-to-no-talent actor, who was on my back constantly to hurry it up—even though I ran myself practically ragged, wearing a dozen different hats—so between these two schmucks doing what they could to disrupt the production, they managed to hurt the film enough to prevent us from landing decent distribution and to keep it from becoming a genuine cult classic; not a major cult film, but a small one.”

  “Listen, buddy, we all have our ’roids. Why didn’t you fire them, or take a stroll, if they caused you so much grief and were such a pain in the ass?”

  “I would have cut them loose, gladly, only they had money invested, so there was no way. And I couldn’t just up and walk, because I had plunked all the bucks I had in the world at the time into the film: it wasn’t much, under ten K, but it was like my one shot to get my foot in the door. Only it didn’t happen. I’m still stuck doing ultra low-budget.”

  “Spinning your wheels.”

  “You said it. So t
here I was up there in Lopez Canyon doing another shoestring type slasher, when BONESAW could have helped all of us, if not for the constant interruptions by the camera guy, Lou Humprump, and the so-called actor Bubba Load—my former buddies.”

  “Want my opinion?”

  “Shoot.”

  “My two cents: You’re wasting your time making these phony slashers. Might want to consider getting into something a little more substantive.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something with a little more substance, more realism.”

  “I’m busy here. Can you please get to the point?”

  “Looking for investors?”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “Would you be interested in doing the Real McCoy?”

  “Huh?”

  “Cut a bitch up. Literally. None of this fake shit with Karo syrup and food coloring. I mean capture and carve up a bitch for real. I’d be willing to finance it.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’m not the one’s out of my mind. But I think you could be. You let those shit-birds you worked with disrupt the production to the point where more than enough damage was done to the movie . . . to the point the damage kept it from becoming a minor slasher classic—and you have nerve to call me insane?”

  “Hey, who is this?”

  “Never mind that.”

  “Is this some kind of sick joke? Did Lou Humprump put you up to this? Was it that psycho bitch Bubba Load is married to?”

  “None of the above. This is your opportunity. One and only. I like your style, and thought I’d offer you this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “Yeah, well, pal, I don’t make snuff films. Get somebody else. Better yet, get help. Because you really sound like you need it.”

  “I’ll pay for everything. And provide the victim. You’d be compensated—and well at that. You have the equipment: cameras, lights, sound gear—”

  “Even if I were interested, on a remote level, no lab would touch it.”

  “What about Beta? Put it all together. I provide the cooter.”

  Hindgrind could be heard sighing over the line. “Get help, asshole.” And hung up.

  Biggs cursed to himself. He hated being hung up on and called an asshole. It was pure, unadulterated disrespect. He just might put this Hindgrind chump on his shit list—and take stills while he put him down. Maybe even go after his camera operator, Lou Humprump, and make it look like Hindgrind did it as a matter of getting back at him for sabotaging his movie.

  He wondered if it was even worth pursuing.

  There was another number he needed to look up. Got it. Dialed. A middle-aged, somber-sounding woman responded at the other end.

  “Regarding your daughter?”

  The woman said nothing. Sounded like she was choking on tears.

  “They found her body in Griffith Park, isn’t that right?”

  The woman said it was.

  “I didn’t do it, but I’m a great fan of whoever did.”

  He waited for a response. None came—other than more of what sounded like half-baked sobs. He waited. Held the receiver in his hand. Bided his time. For what? Something. More than what she was giving him. What he got out of it was hardly worth the coins spent. Bishop wasn’t even at half-mast.

  CHAPTER 294

  Your brother’s right, Rudy thought. Forget about her. Olivia’s a problem you don’t need right now. Concentrate on getting the money together for the shop. That’s what you have to do.

  “You can’t let that chick get to you like that. Look what happened to me and Yolanda.”

  Damn, it hurt, though. If he didn’t care for Liv, really care for her and want to marry her, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. He would have been able to deal with it a lot easier. He’d have been able to say: You want to call it quits, Livia? Okay. We’ll call it quits. And he’d be able to walk away just like that. Only it was not that easy, not with her. It was hard to walk when your heart wouldn’t let you, when you had that deep need inside to be with that other person.

  And that’s the way it was with him.

  How could she let her sister put ideas in her head? Tell her how to act? It wasn’t right. He’d been able to get along with Olivia as long as the older sister kept her nose out of their affairs, but lately Yolanda had been meddling more and more until she’d finally done it: broke them up, and was trying her best to keep things that way.

  Goddamn her, Rudy thought, leaning there in the noon heat against a brown ’78 Citation he’d been working on in the driveway. His face and arms were covered in grease. There were cuts on his knuckles. More than was normal for him.

  He’d been making mistakes rebuilding the carburetor and was forced to do some things over again, correct them.

  How could you leave out two gaskets, man? Who knows what else you left out. That’s what happened when you didn’t concentrate on the work, and how the hell could he concentrate on fixing this piece of junk here when Olivia refused to even talk to him? What had he done that was so damn bad? What was it that gave her the excuse to treat him like this?

  Her parents, too, were behind it. “You’re illiterate.” That’s what Yolanda had said to him that day. She’d called him a dropout, too.

  So he was a dropout, what of it? He was still decent. Wasn’t in no gang. Didn’t shoot dope in his arms and rob people’s homes like some lowlifes he knew. He’d always been good to his girlfriend. And what did that add up to with her? Her parents and older sister tell her to jump and Olivia jumps. She’s eighteen years old and should have the backbone to make her own decisions.

  He walked to the shed in the backyard to get the grease off. Washed and rinsed his hands and dialed Olivia’s number from the house. Heard her pick up the phone at the other end.

  “Hello?”

  “Please don’t hang up.” Rudy’s plea meant nothing. She had hung up already.

  Just give me a chance to talk to you, that’s all I ask. He dialed again. This time the older sister answered.

  “Please don’t call here anymore. She’s not interested in speaking with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are nothing more than an uncivilized jerk. You insulted this family.”

  “As I remember, Yolanda, you did a pretty good job insulting my family, too, you know?”

  “You have to stop calling. It’s over.”

  “Look, I’d like to apologize—”

  “Fine.”

  “I miss Olivia . . .”

  But the phone had clicked off at the other end, the conversation terminated. Rudy lowered the receiver, and the pain in his chest seemed to get worse. He’d been having a series of these anxiety attacks lately. He missed his girlfriend. How could they not understand? He wanted to sit her down and have a nice talk with her and nothing more. What was so “uncivilized” or nasty about that? He didn’t get it.

  The pain stayed with him. You’re tense, man, he said to himself. You’re tense. That’s what it is. This thing is stressing you out.

  “I miss that girl. I miss her so much. . . .”

  His elderly grandmother walked in the kitchen just then and put her arm around him.

  “What do I do, Grandma? She won’t even talk to me.”

  “You have to be patient, Rudy.” Grandma spoke in a thick south-of-the-border accent. “Patient, Rudy . . . and then everything will be bueno.”

  CHAPTER 295

  Olivia waited for her older sister to leave the room. Yolanda kept standing there, looking at Olivia, whose back was turned to her.

  “Just let me handle this jerk from now on.”

  The comment had been enough to have Olivia spinning in her sister’s direction. “He is not a jerk. Stop calling him a jerk, Yolanda.”

  “Take it easy, will you? It’s for your own good—”

  Olivia was on her feet, eyes burning with anger.

  “I am sick of everybody telling me what’s good for me. Just sick of it. Rudy’s got lots of
terrific qualities, only you and Mom and Dad—my whole family, for that matter—only see what you want to see. You know he and his brother were devastated financially and otherwise when their parents were killed in that horrible accident. They struggled to find a way to hold onto their house, to take care of their grandparents. You know all these things and yet all you can do is keep putting them down. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right.”

  “What happened to their parents was tragic—no one is denying that here.”

  “I’m not saying these guys are saints. They’ve got their flaws, just as I have mine, just as you’ve got your flaws, too.”

  “Maybe so. You know the problems I had with Monroe. He’s practically illiterate, dammit.”

  “Major exaggeration, as usual.”

  “What kind of future do you think you would have with somebody like Rudy Perez? You’re bright, about to start college—and look at what he does for a living: walks other people’s poodles for chump change.”

  “Get off my back. Just get off my back.”

  Olivia’s eyes welled, and the tears poured. She buried her face in the pillows on the bed. Mr. Duarte had walked up and stood in the doorway. Asked the older daughter to ease up.

  “That’s enough now.” He had Yolanda leave the room. Mr. Duarte did likewise soon after. Closed the door quietly on his way out.

  CHAPTER 296

  Insomnia was back for him this day. And so instead of tossing and turning in his bedbug-infested bed and hanging around in his room watching porn and listening to the usual bullshit on the police scanner, Biggs took a walk down the hallway to the kitchen, filled a tumbler with ice water, and entered Muck’s room to find him asleep down there on his foam mattress.

  Biggs tossed the ice water in the rat-loving fool’s face and waited for him to shake himself awake. Marvin did, cursing up a storm.

  “Time to do something constructive for a change. We’re cleaning the van from top to bottom. Discarding the old, stained and soiled rebuilt mattress and replacing it with a new rebuilt mattress.”