by Kirk Alex
“Please. If I said anything to offend anyone . . . I’m sorry. . . .”
“Offend anyone? Heard that, Cecil? You don’t be offendin’ nobody, sugar-bush. What you done was get my bone good and hard. All the time. My bone, his bone; everybody’s bone be hard when you strut by.”
“I told you to shower. Before you contaminate this house of god and bring the plague down on us.” Bishop tossed the sandals at him. “I notice any of that drifter’s DNA on those huaraches, you’ll be wishing you never mentioned them.”
“You know why I done it. Mr. Pimple be needin’ footwear.”
Biggs ignored him. His eyes were back on the captive.
Marvin cursed. Shook his head as he walked down the hallway with the sandals. Stepped into his room for clothes and a towel, then entered the hallway john.
CHAPTER 358
Something is not right, thought Biggs, as he looked at the cuffs on the woman’s wrists. It struck him just then, while going over her hands, fingers in particular. There was something missing on one of the fingers.
“Where’s the engagement ring the punk gave you in the diner?”
He spun her around and yanked her to the floor. Gripped her throat in his right hand. Olivia’s face turned red.
“Where’s the ring, Dolly? Where is it? What happened to it? The hard-working, young punk gave you a ring.” She tried to speak, but his grasp was too strong and prevented it.
“Why don’t I carve you up right now, whore? Who needs your pee-hole? Instead I’ll just chop your vagina right out and fry it with sautéed onions. That’s where your cunt belongs—in a frying pan—with a pinch of salt and black pepper for flavor. Maybe some meat tenderizer. Accent. That’s what I think of bitches like you. That’s what went through my mind that night you were here with those other whores. You were lucky that night . . . you got away, just barely. Only luck’s not on your side this time, is it?” He released her.
“I lost it.” Olivia was sobbing. “It came off. Must have come off—”
“Where?”
“It must have slipped off—”
“Where, goddammit? Where is the fucking ring the wimp loser gave you?”
“I don’t know. Please don’t hurt me. Please. Please, God; help me. HELP ME, DEAR GOD!”
Biggs slapped her hard, twice. Gripped her hair in his left hand and yanked back on it, then stuck his tongue inside her mouth. Kissed her coarsely this way. Lifted his head, and slapped her again.
“You’re lying, heifer. Doesn’t matter. It won’t save you. By the time your family and friends come looking for you, you’ll be one dead cunt, a corpse.”
“Why are you doing this? What did I ever do to you?”
Marvin was done with his shower and was back in the hallway. He was bare-chested. Had a pair of old, worn, baggy jeans on and flip-flops on his feet, but that was all. His groin was stiff inside those jeans.
“That’s it, bitch. Get desperate. Let me see the fear, the panic—all that good shit. Let’s see it, let it come out. I love it. Don’t you just love this, Free Ride? Don’t you just get off on all this great shit?”
“I want to rape her. That be my interest.”
“We can have sex, if that’s what you want. . . .”
“If that’s what I want? Pretty good guess. Only it’ll have to wait. It’s been a long night and a man has to recharge his batteries sometime. So long as you know: what happened in the cemetery was only the beginning, nothing more than a taste of what you can look forward to.”
“I don’t be tired. My battery don’t need no re-charge.”
Biggs looked at Muck. Unlocked her handcuffs, and re-cuffed her wrists in front of her.
“You did nothing but bitch out there the entire time because you had to do a bit of work, and now, all of a sudden, you’re not tired.”
“You know what I be sayin’. I could go for this here ho. Why I took a shower. You prob’ly had you some in the boneyard. Be time for me to get some, Dawg. Yo.”
“Did I say it was time for ‘Sloppy Seconds?’”
“Sheeyet.”
Biggs’s eyes were on the victim.
“Are you thirsty?”
Olivia nodded her head. He asked if she were hungry. Her response to that was also a yes.
CHAPTER 359
He walked her to the kitchen. Unlocked the door. The trio went in. Biggs unlocked the padlock on the heavy chain on the refrigerator at the far end. Opened the refrigerator door. As he reached in for the jug of water, Olivia shuddered at what she saw on the wire shelves: flesh wrapped in plastic. It was clearly human flesh. Limbs.
The cupboards above also had locks on them. He unlocked one of the locks and got a tumbler. Filled it with water from the jug. Handed it to her.
She drank, as tears rolled down her face.
He stuck his hand back in the fridge. Retrieved the stale box of Arm & Hammer baking soda and tossed it in the trash.
Grabbed a fresh, new box from the cupboard shelf, tore the top off, and placed the baking soda in the refrigerator where the other had been.
“Keeps it nice and sweet-smelling in there.”
He closed the refrigerator door. Reached up for a box of dog biscuit treats in the cupboard. Handed her a biscuit. The captive attempted to bite down and could not manage. Biggs glanced at Marvin.
“Another one who’s too good for dog biscuits.”
“That shit be hard to chew, Dawg. Got no flavor, neither.”
“Yeah? Your rats seem to like them well enough.” Bishop watched her drink more water. “It’s all right. You’ll eat what’s handed out, or you’ll starve. It’s up to you entirely.”
He snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Stepped out of the kitchen for a moment. When he returned he held a half sheet of white, lined paper with some writing on it that he had composed himself, a generic “Hello, how are you?” type of greeting card, and the envelope that came with it (with the stamp already affixed).
He placed these items and a pen on the table in front of her. Had her transcribe the note onto the greeting card.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I am with friends and doing fine. I need
to be away from the family for a while to
sort out some things.
Love,
Olivia
He had her place the card inside the envelope and seal it using her own saliva.
All he had to do now was remember to mail the greeting card from Nevada next time he and Muck were out there to visit the fence and his dope connection, or maybe drop it in a Phoenix mailbox next time he happened to be out there.
Biggs secured the refrigerator door, picked up the envelope, pen, and piece of paper, and the three of them stepped into the hallway.
Biggs locked the kitchen door. Turned to Marvin. “We’ll be in the john. She needs to be cleaned up. Can I trust you to bring Pearleen up without trying to molest her?”
“Pearleen? We ain’t got nobody name’ Pearleen.”
“Peaches, dummy.”
“LaBelle of the Ball? I don’t be molestin’ that ho.”
“Don’t even think about raping her.”
“You know me, Cecil. I be Deacon Marvin. Ain’t time for Sloppy Second’. I can wait. Peach got some hot pussy, but I be waitin’ on it.”
“From Here to Eternity.”
Biggs walked down to his room to drop off the envelope and things, shed the gloves. When he stepped back out, Marvin was standing by the door to the basement, looking at him.
“What?”
Muck reminded him that the door needed to be unlocked, and that he would need a couple of other keys, probably: “One to the room the nigga ho be in, plus other key’. . . . Only I ain’t exactly sure.”
“Let the staff out of their cell, board members.” Biggs reminded him to empty the honey bucket in the Mattress Room, as well as the ones used by the geeks. “Can you manage that?”
“Oh yeah. Be my favorite activity ’round here.”
�
��See to it that Fimple gets the sandals. Where are the sandals, by the way?”
“Crapper.”
“You clean them?”
“Tol’ me to clean ’em. What I done.”
“You scrubbed them?”
“You keep aksking.”
“Why don’t you go get them, then?”
Marvin did that. Was back from the john.
“Whore’s chained to the ceiling. Then you’ve got the Bunk Room—for a total of four keys.” Biggs began detaching the keys, when the idea of not having been able to get his hands on the engagement ring was back nagging at him. His attention was back on the captive.
“That was some nice rock the lovesick, pussy-whipped dork got for you. I want it.”
He went over her fingers, as he had earlier—with similar results. The rock wasn’t on any of them. “Where is it? What did you do with it?”
Olivia wasn’t talking. In fear for her life to the extent that she was practically paralyzed. Still, she offered nothing.
“The minute I laid eyes on it in the diner, I knew I had to have it. Only now you won’t tell me what you did with it.”
Olivia remained mute.
“Okay, cunt. Play your games.”
Biggs handed Marvin the keys, a flashlight. The deacon got the door unlocked, and made it down. Biggs locked his bedroom back up and crossed the hallway with his latest victim, and entered the john with her.
CHAPTER 360
“What you need is a bath, Dolly. And don’t you worry about death right now. We don’t want to get morbid. Death is, after all, considered a morbid topic by the lot of them out there, isn’t it? Death. ‘You’re obsessed with death.’ That’s what Tillie Marie said to me. We’re uncoupled, Tillie and I.” He paused here. Went over the ugly way it had unraveled and the emotional ringer the ex had put him through. “I’m not obsessed with death—I happen to be drawn to it, the sight of blood. May not care for the taste exactly, do enjoy the sight of blood, having other people’s blood on me; enjoy wallowing in it, spilling it. Like it when it spatters, sprays me full on.”
He tended to her head wound and other cuts with rubbing alcohol and appropriate Band-Aids. He turned the spout on in the bathtub. Tested its temperature, then turned it on full blast. Dumped Mr. Bubble in, all the while taking in the quaking, horrified woman standing beside him.
He unlocked her handcuffs in order to make it possible for her to shed the torn uniform, take bra and panties off; her sneakers. There was nothing to fear on his part, nothing to be apprehensive about on his part, because her ankles remained in leg irons. Once she was out of the polyester dress uniform, the wrists were re-cuffed. He decided to take the leg irons off, since she wouldn’t be able to climb in the tub with those things hindering the process, and having to lift a victim that was five foot eight inches tall and possibly weighed north of one-hundred-fifty-pounds by himself was out of the question.
“Sure, sweetheart. We are going to get you all cleaned up, face made up. Give you some nice things to wear: lace panties, fishnets, garter belt; undergarments we got off some of the other cunts along the way.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Why knock? You know I’m in here.”
“‘Cause if I don’t knock on the door, yo, I get a knock upside the head, yo. That be why.”
Marvin walked in with the burlesque dancer. The clothes Pearleen had on were ill-fitting, having been the property of a previous victim, no doubt, who lacked her figure.
Biggs took in the heavy tits that strained the top of the dress, the curvaceous hips that did same in the hip area.
“Check her handcuffs.”
“First thing I done downstairs was check them handcuff’ before I brung her up.”
“Do it again.”
Marvin did that.
“Now check the leggings.”
Marvin followed through as told. “That be me: Flunky Number One.”
Biggs looked at Pearleen.
“He attempt to molest you in any way?”
“He tried. Only I put a stop to it.”
“You a lie, ho. Peach be lyin’.”
Biggs stared at them both without uttering a word. He rose. “I’ll be right back.” Left the john. Marvin cursed under his breath.
“I know what you be up to, bitch.”
Thought about doing something to her, maybe slapping the shit out of her, and then maybe jamming turkey neck in her asshole. Only there was no time. He wondered what Cecil would do to him now that the ho had lied about him tryin’ to mess wiff her?
“I know what you be doin’. You tryin’ to get homie pissed off at me.”
“I told the truth. You felt me up.”
CHAPTER 361
Biggs was back. To Muck’s great relief he had one of his thick photo albums in his hands, as opposed to something he could have kicked his ass with.
Marvin noticed, too, that Trusty had left his piece in his bedroom, knife, too, pepper spray. Paranoid mothafuckah. Them hoe’ ain’t gonna try nothin’. Where they gonna go? They don’t be knowin’ which key open any of them door’.
Brung that old makeup case wiff the handle. Thing was crappy and old. Pink. Deacon watched him hold it up for the victims’ benefit.
“Mama’s very own. Makeup box.”
Biggs placed it on top of the hamper. Held the photo album in his hands. “And this. . . .” Indicated the cover and the word LUSTMORD hand-printed in old and faded red block letters across it; the subtitle: Anatomy of a Legacy below. “I treasure more than anything I own.”
“More than the Caddy and Roll’-Royce?”
“Leave, Marvin.”
“I can’t hang? Wanna see these two mama’ play wiff each other, Omar. Why come I can’t hang?”
Biggs came close to grinning. Shook his head. “This loser has had his ass kicked more times than I care to recall. He still continues to have a hearing problem.”
“Ain’t got no problem, me. I heered all right. Ain’t got to tell me twiced. I heered.”
“Did you lock the basement back up?”
“Sho did.”
“You check on Mr. Fimple and the others? Everything kosher down there?”
“Yo. He cool. Mr. Norbert Pimple be eatin’ his own shit prob’ly by now, but he cool. Mr. Pimple be a real cool dude.”
“You give Olin his diaper and dropped the soiled one in the washing machine?”
“Goodfellow be good for nothin’.”
“Yes or no?”
“Dude got his diaper. Had him put the dirty one in the washing machine. Had a big load in it, too—diaper did.”
“Leave the keys, and stay in your room until I call for you.”
“Yeah. Right. I’ll go lick my sweetmeat, me.” Deacon paused here. “Can I get something to eat, Cecil?”
“Not right now. I want to take a crap, and watch Pearleen give this Latina cunt a bubble bath.”
Marvin left the john and could be heard grumbling to himself as he crossed the hallway to his room. Biggs dropped his pants and lowered his ass on the toilet.
“All right, LaBelle of the Ball, get this fine young bitch in the tub and give her a slow bubble bath; wash her hair, then go with the bubble bath. I want to see you rub pretty bubbles all over her body, all over that unsullied, ripe body. . . .” Seemed to mull something over in his head. “You might explain to her that if she wants to remain among the living just a while longer that she better find a way to stop crying. She had better find a way to turn off the fear, the panic. . . . Because if she does not do this, I will lose it, and we know what might easily happen then. . . . And I don’t want that to happen right now. It would be too soon, too early. I don’t want to finish either of you off right away, even though I know the Duarte clan will be poking all over the Valley pretty soon looking for their missing Dolly.”
“I understand, Cecil.”
Pearleen was matter-of-fact about it. Her own stomach was in knots inside from fear, from knowing and having w
itnessed what he was capable of, but her desire to stay alive, make it, survive whatever he might put them through far outweighed the fear factor and helped sustain a calm exterior and keep the inner jitters under control this way.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. At the moment, she was handling it a lot better than the younger Olivia Duarte.
“She’ll come around, lover. She’ll be fine.” Then Pearleen looked at Olivia Duarte. “Better listen to what the man is trying to say, girl. I know you’re not stupid—so shape up. Knock off the tears.”
Biggs waited.
“Get her in the tub. Use the sponge on her. Rub it all over her body—slowly—all over her big tits . . . and then down across her soft belly. Get her pussy real good, her thighs. And then turn her over and clean her ass real good. I just want to sit back and watch.”
Pearleen did exactly as Biggs instructed. Biggs looked down at his erection: if not full-on, at least in progress—attempting to rise up from between his legs.
“Waiting sometimes makes it better. The anticipation . . . makes it better. . . .”
And he sat there watching as the stripper ran the sponge in her hands down toward Olivia’s breasts.
CHAPTER 362
Biggs held the photo album in his hands, the photo album that contained Polaroids of his kills, color shots of mutilated bodies, shots of blood-drenched corpses, further pictures of either Biggs or the sidekick engaged in various sex acts with victims, some living, others not.
There were images of Cecil sodomizing corpses, shots of live victims with arms and legs severed, shots of victims with viscera hanging from open bellies, blood spurting from neck wounds; blood and brains oozing from bashed-in craniums.
Cecil leafed through it, wavering nostalgically over certain ones, the more memorable ones, trying to convey to Pearleen as well as to the other female what it was all about, what the collection meant to him.
