Lustmord 2

by Kirk Alex

  “Yo. How you know the dead like bein’ messed wiff?”

  “Personally, I don’t give a coyote turd how they feel about it.”

  Marvin poked around with the shovel in search of the plywood board.

  “Where you say you seen it?”

  “You’re standing on it.”

  Marvin lifted the plywood. There was no hole there.

  “Standing on dirt, is what I be doin’.”

  Biggs didn’t like the sound of it. Had somebody refilled the partially dug grave and tossed the plywood here? He didn’t like the looks of it. Kept it to himself. Marvin acted nervous enough.

  CHAPTER 332

  They got back in the van and drove about sixty feet straight ahead. Stopped and killed the engine.

  They climbed down. A grave was chosen. Biggs plowed the pickaxe into the ground to get them started. He was reluctant to do much more from fear that his back would act up. Had Marvin go to work. Pronto. There was a lot of digging to be done. Stiffs buried three, four feet down still required toil getting to.

  Felines fought viciously in the surrounding brush that made both men flinch.

  “Fucking cats. I hate the shrieking. Reminds me of that bitch Roscoe is married to.”

  “Just hope the caretaker don’t show here one night. All the dude gotta do is call the roller’, an’ we in deep doo-doo.”

  “Caretaker doesn’t concern me, as much as the drug-addled teen a-holes looking to get their freak on. I wouldn’t sweat that, either; the weekend is when they congregate and usually go to the better-tended part of the graveyard.”

  “Or some grave robber lookin’ to get lucky.” Marvin acted as though he hadn’t heard a word Biggs said. “Lookin’ to hit the jackpot by hittin’ on the grave what got the bling.”

  “Not back here, not likely. That goes on in the front where those with money and relations are planted.”

  Marvin pushed the shovel into the dirt, favoring the weakened hand. Yet, no matter how careful and cautious he was or what he did to keep from using it, it simply was not possible to get as much done without it. The full use of a shovel required both hands.

  He winced. Cursing. Biggs looked at him.

  “Quit your fakin’, boy.”

  “Fakin’? Who the one fakin’?”

  “What the crazy old fuck used to say to me all the time in that hick way he had: ‘Boy, quit your fakin’.’ Then he’d pitch another beer bottle at me. Maybe pick up a shoe, something with a stiletto heel—if one was within reach—or whatever was handy, and aim it at my head. . . . I’d be on the floor, in some corner, all crumpled up. . . . He’d yell: ‘Quit your fakin’, boy. Bring that tramp mother of yourn in here before she dives under a bus.’”

  Marvin preferred digging to hearing it again. Seems he heard it before, onced or twiced.

  “Sounds like you musta had you some fun time’ when you was a kid, Cecil.”

  “Fun times? They were ‘fun times’ all right. All I ever remember is living in fear. . . . Fear is all I remember it being. . . . Cowering, wondering when the next assault was coming. . . .”

  Marvin hustled his nuts. Shook his head.

  “Damn, man, I thought I had it bad. Well, I guess I didn’t have me no more fun than you, Cecil, but it was different. Whenever the shit got to be too heavy in one home, I’d take off, me, run away. They was always catchin’ me and put me in another. Then I run off again.”

  “I tried that. Only made it worse when rollers picked me up and brought me back to the folks.”

  “What they done to me in the orphanage. Said my destiny was to be state-raised. ‘Destiny.’ What they said. Yo fate be sealed, boy; yo’ destiny is fucked. State was gonna raise me, no matter if I like it or not. Kept runnin’ away and gettin’ caught, busted. Was always whupped, too. That never stop’ me.”

  “You learn to beat the system eventually. Use the loopholes to your advantage. Because the fools behind the system are a bunch of low IQ civil servant buffoons—not unlike Lloyd Dicker.”

  “Know what I think? Best to forget all that bad shit—an’ just have you a good time layin’ pipe an’ gettin’ a buzz on, gettin’ high on all that super fly shit. What I think.”

  “Sure. Why not? So long as you don’t have to pay for it.”

  “‘Cause don’t nobody wanna gimme no coin for the work I does. There be a time I be feelin’ like a mothafuckin’ slave like they have before George Washington turn’ ’em loose.”

  “It wasn’t George. It was Abe Lincoln.”

  “Abe Lincoln? You sure it be Abe Lincoln?”

  “Anyway, you’ll do all right eventually,” Biggs told him, lying through his teeth as he did. “Wealth can’t be accumulated overnight.”

  “Wealth?” Marvin looked up.

  “Bank. All the expenses are covered by me. You live rent-free in the swankiest house on the block. Free meals, free cable tv, movies, bitches.”

  “Yeah, free food. Like peanut butter and Wonder Bread be a month old and taste like them dog biscuit treat’ you make them retard’ eat.”

  “Your bellyaching is unfounded. You get your share of omelettes, sodas, candy bars, and Ding Dongs—not to mention pee-hole.”

  “That remind’ me: wished we ain’t ice’ that Messican bitch. Ho was hot. Had me some taste of her vagina in the diner when you was out gettin’ the van.”

  Biggs did a double take.

  “There is no way you fucked her in the time it took me to pull the van up to the rear door.”

  “Didn’t say I fuck’ the ho.”

  “Get to work. I want to make sure there aren’t any transients roaming about, spying on us.” Biggs left the pickaxe out. “Use it if you can. Could speed up the digging.”

  Made certain the shotgun had shells in it, and he walked off through the brush and weeds, past a tree or two, toward a tool shed way in the back.

  It was another full moon night. Spooky maybe and a bit foggy, but otherwise not bad—so long as you ignored the cats and other animals and noisy crickets.

  Biggs could easily hear Marvin through the racket repeating the “Quit your fakin’” line and talking to himself in general. His own best friend, that was Free Ride. Muck’s closest bosom buddy was Muck himself. Didn’t need anyone else around—unless he was desperate for pussy and dope, place to stay and grub to eat. Only Cecil didn’t quite get the bitching about not being paid enough, the complaining and whining about being in a graveyard, being around dead bodies. Hell, he should be used to the dead by now.

  CHAPTER 333

  Marvin was digging up the grave and doing his best to get the damn thing over with.

  “Fakin’? Ain’t fakin’ nothin’, Brotha. Be a big difference between fakin’ and hurtin’, mofo. My hand be all fucked up and the man say I be fakin’.”

  He didn’t care for tombstones, all it be; gravemarker’. Don’t nothin’ be good ’bout a graveyard. Wasn’t scared of bein’ here. He wasn’t. Just don’t be likin’ it. Want to get the hell out. Hurry up an’ get it done. Place be for dead peep’, an’ since he don’t be dead, not yet anyway, he didn’t like bein’ here.

  “Start diggin’, Marvin. Do this, Marvin’; do that, Marvin. Pick up the garbage, Marvin; get that shit off the floor, Marvin. While you at it, Free Ride, see if Goodfellow need’ a diaper.”

  Muck paused long enough to wipe sweat from his brow. “Know what I want to hear? How about another hit of this fly bump, Marvin? How ’bout some tight trim, Base? How ’bout some coin’, Dude? How ’bout a nice, big omelette, Partner? How ’bout some hooch, Brotha Muck?” His crotch itched and he paused to deal with it. Adjusted the gauze on his bum hand. “Truth is . . . Marvin be just a little tired of bein’ everybody’s every day nigga.” He resumed digging. “Free Ride, my black ass.”

  He switched the pickaxe for the shovel in order to get the dirt out of there and get the thing over and done wiff as fast as possible. He hoped.

  CHAPTER 334

  There was a combo tool and stor
age type shed back there near the chain-link fence that Biggs walked to.

  He was still shaking his head at Muck’s comments about being short-changed. Underpaid.

  Who was it that paid for the gasoline that got them out here? Who paid for the police scanners that he kept in all three vehicles and other scanners in various rooms throughout the house?

  Who fed the psychotics? Greta Otto and the rest of them? Goodfellow and Fimple and Sassy ate a ton of food. Who provided all that?

  And his comments about being spooked by the graveyard were bullshit (when they had bodies throughout the basement).

  If he could have placed more in there, if he could have found additional space somehow, without the whole damn backyard collapsing, he would have done it. I mean, even the garage had stiffs under the cement.

  Marvin and his fear of ghosts had him shaking his head. What was there to fear? He’d had his fill of it. All he’d known as a kid was fear, with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull. Had enough of living in fear. He’d tried to make him see that there was nothing to be afraid of, least of all death.

  The only way to be free in this world, to feel free, was not to fear death. Never, ever worry about the Grim Reaper. Never think about mortality, never sweat it. The weak feared death. Wimps, sissies, and faggots lived in constant fear of their eventual demise. Pussies feared the Reaper. Fretted that one day they would have to go away, exit; that one day life as they knew it would be over. Finito.

  Lemmings.

  Chickenshits.

  The only way to be a jump ahead of these cowards was not to fear anything, not be intimidated by any of it. Not a damned thing.

  So what if someone, some bold-and-brassy asshole felt like walking up from behind with a strong desire to fill him full of lead? So goddamn what? He’d spent most of his life wishing it would happen, or that the ceiling would crash on top of him, the way he’d mentioned it to the young wannabe shrink that day at the VA, or that a truck would plow into him the way it had plowed into Charlotte Yvonne.

  He knew that his time would be up one day just like everyone else’s; he knew that—but it didn’t matter to him. And if it did, could be exactly why he was piling on the bodies, raising the body count.

  Leave a legacy. What else was there? Don’t egress without leaving a mark. Give them something to remember you by for all of eternity.

  Sure.

  Why not?

  It was a game. Existence was a con. Part of the bigger con: the heaven and hell con, the god con and the organized religion con. As far as he was concerned, the believers, all those lame suckers—can take their tracts and holy books and rituals, “tradition,” all of them, followers of every religion, take them and use them as ass-wipe. That’s all their beliefs were good for. Ass-wipe. To wipe their dirty stinking butt-cracks with.

  Heaven and hell, death and dying, fear of flying, fear of living, fear of farting, and fear of boinking bitches in their tight culos. . . . Fear of sodomy or getting mugged or trapped by something, cornered, by someone or a bunch of somebodies and being castrated. . . . He wasn’t bothered by any of it. Although, he had to admit, the flies bugged him enough, the ringing/buzzing in his head, the migraines bugged him to distraction.

  Now, his problems and phobias were legitimate. Biggs was relieved the flies weren’t buzzing presently, the melon didn’t ache for a change, although the cicadas and the felines mewling were enough of a problem to have to contend with.

  CHAPTER 335

  He could have entered the shack through the front door easily enough, could have knocked the flimsy hasp and lock off and walked in, but refused to. Not a good idea to let them know and have them discover that someone/anyone had gone inside their shabby shed with its (generally) worthless and rusty gardening implements.

  Tulio Pedroza and his flunkies stayed away for the most part, but did have to make it back here once in a while to bury the occasional no-name transient/loser/nobody. After all, had they not discovered the partially pre-dug hole he and Marvin had worked on prior to coming out this night?

  He walked to the rear. There was a crab apple tree several feet beyond the shed. Green vines grew up along all four walls of the shed and on up to the roof.

  There was a steel drum that he rolled away from the section of the back wall that he needed to have access to. Brushed the vines aside. Slid a wooden pallet out of the way. He dug his fingertips into crevices on either side of a square-shaped, thick chunk of stucco and drywall large enough for a man of his size to climb through. Wiggled it. Lifted it up some, and removed it from the wall.

  There were warped planks on the inside that had been left leaning against this portion of the wall in crisscross fashion.

  He carefully parted those, clearing a passage. There was another pallet that had to be pushed out of the way. He did that. Looked about. Looked behind him. And climbed inside.

  This was the storage part of the shed that contained wheelbarrows caked with dry mud and dead grass, hand mower, roller, two-wheeled spreader, edgers, hand forks, bulb dibbles, tree pruners, spading forks, rakes, ten-gallon paint cans (most of them empty), a hose trolley, hoses, shovels, hedge shears, piles of old wreathes and wilted bouquets, decades old publications having to do with cemetery maintenance and the undertaking trade: embalming and such, cleaning and preparation of the diseased, anti-odor solvents and sprays, masks and zip-up suits (he was naturally tempted to filch each and every time, but wouldn’t), ordering catalogues, more odor killers in containers.

  The rusty lawn mower was where he had parked it last, over a section of the wooden floor. He wheeled it against the wall. Removed planks that covered the hiding space below the floor. The metal “suitcase” that was not much different from the type he used to haul victims in. Nylon rope handles on the same side as the latches and a hole in the center the size of a large coin, with additional rope handles on the sides.

  This suitcase had a hasp on it and a padlock, which he unlocked. Lifted the top open, that revealed handguns and ammo, army C-rations, police scanner, portable AM/FM radio, money sealed in clear plastic sandwich bags, drinking water, false IDs and social security cards, bank books, a few driver’s licenses that belonged to previous victims, wallets, sans money, photos of vics and their friends and relations, photos of smiling faces celebrating birthdays, X-Mas, New Year’s; there were Valentine’s Day cards, and Mother’s Day cards and Father’s Day cards. So much horseshit, the lot of it. But he kept it here, some of it, as he did in other secret and not-so-secret places that he had, in case the church burned down.

  And one never knew about these things; one never knew about fire. Fucking fire was his friend, his best friend that made him cream in his shorts, but fire also had a way of destroying everything you held dear and near. Fire. Fire was what J.J. resorted to to cover his tracks after he and his pals had assaulted Mr. Turnbull and left him for dead, and fire what he himself had turned to to get back at his stepfather and his mother by torching their Temple City one bedroom hovel. Fire. Fire was a double-edged sword.

  The metal chest also contained several mayonnaise jars that held gold caps and crowns, bridge work, wedding bands and other rings worth money, watches. Full dentures, sans gold or silver, were kept in a separate plastic bag. Handling dentures was distasteful to him. Money was saved, so you did what you had to. Take them with? He would definitely take some of the dope stash to bait more bitches and crack whores with. “Strawberries,” as Muck liked to call sluts who were hooked on crack. Strawberries. “They all strawberry anyway.”

  Might as well take the dentures for the geeks who could use them, like Betty Lou and her daughter Mildred, Sassy, Goodfellow; maybe the cook with the powerful German buttocks, namely Greta and, quite possibly, Norbert Fimple.

  In addition to the crack, the suitcase also contained an assortment of drugs like blow, crystal meth, smack, uppers/downers, X, Columbian weed. . . . He jammed a few things in his pockets. Thought he heard something in back of him, out there, way back there b
y the fence, or maybe not. It had been like this from the time they arrived.

  Froze. Looked about. Shone the Maglite. It was quiet. Shut the thing off. Rollers cruised the area, in back, that road back there, kept an eye out on both cemeteries.

  If his hiding place were ever discovered, what would he do? Would he be able to absorb the loss? Sure. Wouldn’t like it if it happened, but he would be able to go on. What would five-oh have on him? He always used gloves when handling the goods. Never left a palm print and/or fingerprint. No DNA. None. And had to make sure that Muck was as careful in his own behavior the times he brought him out here. Well, he didn’t like bringing him with, but someone had to do the digging, someone had to do the toil.

  He closed and locked the suitcase. Placed the boards back over it. Wheeled the old lawnmower that smelled of skunk or something over it, placed the half empty sack of fertilizer there as well, a few implements.

  CHAPTER 336

  He made it outside. Dragged the inside pallet back in place, adjusted the planks, within the wall itself, to where they were originally, then picked up the sizable chunk of stucco and pressed that into the wall. Straightened the vines. He slid the second over and leaned it against the side of the shed. Rolled the barrel back to its original spot. He stood there, taking it in: the wall with its many cracks, having survived countless quakes over the decades. Looked natural enough.

  He turned with caution. Pausing here. If he ever needed a place to hide out for a while, the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery was as good as any.

  Felt a need to take a leak. Decided against it. J.J.’s grave was but a short distance from where he stood. J.J. and the old lady underneath him. Considered pissing on them both. Since he was out here anyway. Would have, if only he didn’t feel a much stronger need to urinate on Big Bertha’s body as payback for all the times she released gas in his presence in Jessup’s diner.