by Jason Beymer
“Uh-huh. I think I know where this is going, and I’m getting excited.”
“I can’t leave you up here alone. If Lorraine finds you, she’ll punt you off the patio. I’m going to open the front door, and I need you to follow me down the stairs. Stay close. Don’t run off.”
“I get to ride in the car without a crate?”
“This isn’t a treat. Stay close to me, get in the car, and shut up. Understand?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!”
The dog leaped at the front door and scratched the paint.
“Why do you always do that?” Burklin asked. “Jumping is bad for your back.”
“Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!”
Burklin balanced the handcart while he twisted the handle. The door opened, and the dog bolted.
Burklin clenched his jaw as the dachshund jetted down the hallway. He couldn’t worry about her now. He needed to concentrate on keeping the cart balanced.
He clutched the handle and rolled it backward. Wanda struggled beneath the plastic, moaning. After making it to the stairwell, Burklin propped the cart against the wall and opened the door.
He swiveled the handcart so that his back faced the steps, then started his descent. Slowly, ever so slowly, he brought it down the first step. It landed with a thud.
“That’s one,” Burklin whispered to himself.
He tensed his muscles and moved the cart, letting the sizable wheels fall onto the second step. They bounced and jolted the woman’s body, but the ropes held.
“That’s two,” he said, arms aching.
Burklin tensed and rolled for the third step. The wheels bounced again. He shook off sweat, and regretted wearing the winter coat. He twisted his neck to look down the steps.
“Hey!” Pearl called from the hallway.
Burklin yelped and let go of the handle. The metal hand truck bumped into his shoulder and tumbled down the steps, banging and clanging. It flipped, but the ropes held and the woman stayed attached. Her head snapped to the right, then the left as a few bags slipped off. The woman’s face slammed into the rail with the sound of an aluminum bat striking a baseball. Finally, it collided with the wall at the foot of the stairs. One of her arms came loose like an over-boiled noodle.
Burklin descended the steps after her, two at a time. Apartment doors opened in the hallway above. “Not good,” he said.
“Hey, Burklin,” Pearl said again. “Hey.”
“What?” he shouted, looking up.
“Someone is cooking a pot roast in apartment two-oh-eight. Yum!”
“Wonderful, Pearl. I knew I could trust you.”
Chapter 8
Disposal
Lorraine sat on the roof of Black Beauty and dangled her legs over the windshield. She had parked in a field adjacent to Hoppy’s, littered with empty syringes and discarded trash. Though she’d turned the headlights off, the engine still ran in case she required a quick getaway. And this kept the car toasty warm beneath her ass.
Lorraine raised a pair of night vision binoculars and tweaked the lenses. The police cruiser came into focus as the sheriff drove through the parking lot. She hoped he would remember her instructions.
“Drive into the alley,” Lorraine whispered to the cold night air. “Hurry up.” The sooner she could go home, the better.
The police cruiser turned the corner and entered the alley.
Before leaving Max’s house, Lorraine had promised Sheriff Mobank full access to her vagina. But first, she required him to complete a few tasks. Mobank had stared at her breasts as she provided the instructions. He’d been a little too enamored to pick up every word.
“Unlock the Dumpster,” she whispered. Through the binoculars, she watched him step out of the police cruiser and pop the trunk. The sheriff moved to the green Dumpster and unlocked the lid with the key she’d given him.
“Now the bags,” she said.
Mobank threw the garbage bags, filled with bloody carpet and cloth, into the Dumpster. He made two trips, all the time rubbing his stiff cock through the uniform.
“Hurry up,” she said. Even with the warm engine beneath her, she wanted to get out of the cold; she wanted to end this night and stop thinking about her ex-husband.
Sheriff Mobank closed the Dumpster’s lid.
“Good boy.”
He stood next to his police cruiser and stared into the alley, his face a mess of confusion.
“Oh no,” she said. “Don’t fuck this up now.”
The sheriff stuck his hand in his pants and vigorously masturbated. The rubbing seemed to spur a memory, like a magic lamp. He closed the trunk lid and returned to the driver’s seat of his car.
“Almost there,” she said, puffing on the cigarette.
The brake lights came on. Mobank drove away from Hoppy’s, into the field behind. Through her night-vision binoculars, Lorraine scanned it for homeless men and junkies, but found none. The car came to a stop in the vacant field’s darkness, kicking up a cloud of dirt. The brake lights went out.
“Come on,” she said. “This is the important part. Unclip your gun, point it at your head and pull the trigger.”
The police cruiser’s cabin light extinguished. A few seconds later, a muzzle flash filled the windows.
Lorraine snuffed out the cigarette and smiled. “Splat.” She examined the scene through the figure-eight lens. Sheriff Mobank’s head resembled a cracked bowling ball. A dripping mess of blood crawled down the rear window. Nothing excited her more than a successful suicide manipulation. She was a closer, saving a one-run lead in the World Series.
Satisfied, Lorraine slid off the car. She walked toward the Dumpster. Almost done now. She would peek inside, inventory the contents, then telephone Garrick to tell him the corpse was ready for pickup, along with a dead sheriff.
Lorraine stepped into the alley, walked to the Dumpster, swung open the lid and—
Newspaper and thick white padding lined the bottom. It smelled of lilac and ammonia. But no body. “Oh no,” she said. “No, no, no.” Lorraine dove inside and rifled through the contents. She pulled up the cardboard lining and bags. Where did he put the stiff?
“Damn it, Burklin!” Lorraine howled. Furious, she removed her shoe and threw it against the alley wall. She grabbed her hair and pulled it back, letting the color return to its natural salt and pepper brunette.
Time for a face-to-face with her soulless ex.
* * * *
Lorraine drove Black Beauty toward Burklin’s apartment.
Burklin …
The only thing that pussy needed to do was toss the stiff in the Dumpster. She’d taken care of the hardest part: convincing the sheriff to clean up the mess and blow his own head off.
“Idiot,” she muttered.
Lorraine turned up the heater and made a sharp right. She focused on the road, trying not to think about Burklin. But this brought her thoughts back to Garrick. The old man had been on her mind ever since she’d accepted his stupid Mark of Protectorship.
Garrick once told her, “Max became too much for Burklin and I to protect when he turned ten. We needed to add one more to complete the trinity, and you were perfect.”
She swallowed the cigarette smoke and coughed. Perfect.
Garrick had first approached her outside a downtown movie theater. “I notice you’ve come to this fine Jim Varney production alone,” he’d said as she exited. She’d held a tub of popcorn in one hand and a 32-ounce soda in the other. She was a different person then: an overweight nothing with no friends or family. The old man had tipped his fedora and introduced himself. He’d explained that he came to this theater often, watched her walk in and out alone at least five times a week, and wondered if she had a husband or anyone who cared about her.
“Of course I do,” she’d lied. In reality, she had no one, and the old bastard knew it.
Garrick had made her the offer right there in front of the theater’s neon marquee.
“Offer,” she said rue
fully and punched the accelerator, turning onto Burklin’s street.
When she’d agreed, Garrick had taken her to Hoppy’s. That’s where he did his dirty work. The emptiness and silence of the diner reminded her of walking through a studio backdrop. Fake. “You’ll never be alone again,” Garrick had said. “I promise you. This is my restaurant. Follow me down these stairs into the basement.” The door had slammed shut behind her. “Don’t mind the doctor. His presence will insure the procedure’s success.”
“But I thought you were going to change the way my body looks,” she’d said, her voice so naive. She hated remembering herself from before the procedure. “I thought you would make me beautiful.”
Garrick had laughed. “Darling, I am going to change everything about you. But you must be unconscious for the duration. And my friend, the gynec—” He’d stopped and corrected himself. “The … uh … doctor will anesthetize you and ensure nothing harmful befalls you in the interim.”
She’d descended the stairs into the basement. There she’d discovered a long table, medical supplies, and a lone spotlight. A strange man stood in the shadows, holding a long syringe.
“Come, darling,” Garrick had said. “In order to grant you the power to shapeshift, to become beautiful, you must lie naked upon this table.”
The basement had smelled of citrus and old beer. She’d removed her clothing as requested, aware of every fold in her flesh. She had exposed her fat, lonely body to the old man and the doctor. But what did she have to risk? She’d been so goddamned depressed. A variety of narcotics awaited her at home. She simply needed to work up the courage to take them all, write The Note, and shuffle off into the great beyond. So did it matter what these two men did to her while she lay unconscious?
Lorraine had conjured some feeble protest, but lay down on the cold table anyway. She’d felt a pinch in her arm, looked over at the needle in the doctor’s hand, and fallen asleep. When she’d awakened only Garrick stood next to her. Lorraine told him about the cramping, the slight pain and irritation down where she hadn’t expected it. “Don’t worry about that,” the old man had said. “These are simply side effects.”
That answer would have to do; the doctor wasn’t available for follow-up questions, not from the Dumpster behind Hoppy’s. He’d joined a long list of no-longer-useful business associates. Garrick had promised Lorraine a place on that list if she ever tried to run.
“I’ll always find you,” Garrick reminded her at least once a day. “You’re marked.”
“Focus.” She slapped her cheek until it turned bright red.
The Blue Bay Apartments logo came up on the left, illuminated by a floodlight. Lorraine parked across the street from the complex. She looked for anything out of the ordinary as she killed the headlights: a dead Asian girl hanging from the window, a dead Asian girl in the road, a dead Asian girl period. She glanced at Burklin’s empty parking spot. Curious. Maybe he’d taken the stiff somewhere else. Still, this was a good place to start, and she knew the layout of the complex. Garrick had sent her here to spy on him plenty of times.
Lorraine stepped out of the car and hurried across the street. She started for the carport stairwell then thought better of it. Lorraine hated that confined space with its flickering bulb. Instead, she walked to the front of the building and entered through the main lobby. She ascended the steps to the second floor.
Residents loitered around Burklin’s unit, dressed in nightclothes. Most looked either stoned or drunk. They spoke in conspiratorial whispers about a crashing sound and pointed at a trail of what looked like black cottage cheese. The dark goop ran from under Burklin’s door and ended at the carport stairwell.
And it appeared to be moving.
Every eye turned in Lorraine’s direction.
“What are you looking at?” she said. “Why aren’t you people in bed?”
“Who are you?” someone asked.
Lorraine muscled her way past the crowd and to the stairwell. She opened the door and looked into the darkness. The bulb flickered above.
“Flashlight,” she said.
An old Hispanic man with an impressive gut said, “Huh?”
“Get me a fucking flashlight.”
She waited. A woman disappeared into an apartment and emerged with a flashlight. Lorraine snatched it out of her hand.
The black gunk collected in pools on the first three steps. She aimed the light at the foot of the stairs. The beam caught a handcart, empty save for tangled, wet rope, and a pile of black garbage bags. Lorraine swiveled the light. “Are you down there, ass wipe?”
No answer.
“Tell me if you are,” she said, louder. “Because I’m going to find you. I’m going to strangle your smart ass dog and beat you like a bitch.”
Lorraine tossed the flashlight like a 98-mile per hour fastball. It landed on top of the handcart and shattered. She shoved the Hispanic man aside and followed the path of ooze to Burklin’s apartment.
“Is that your place?” the man asked. “Is you the puta who keep singing Bonnie Tyler songs on the patio?”
The duplicate key worked in the lock, and she opened the door. Clothing, food, and dog excrement covered the wet, gooey mulch of the carpet. Scattered garbage bags littered the floor. The telephone rang.
“Where are you?” she called.
The blackened trail of ooze led from the bathroom and into the kitchen. Sludge dripped from the tabletop onto a pile of towels beneath it.
The telephone rang again.
“Fuck!” She kicked Pearl’s empty crate against the mattress.
The neighbors wedged their heads inside the apartment. “Fuck off,” Lorraine said, and slammed the door in their faces.
The telephone rang a third time. She stepped through the muck and picked up the receiver. “What?”
“Lorraine?” Garrick said.
“Why do you sound surprised? You never sound surprised.”
“Is Burklin there with you?”
She scanned the room again. “He’s gone. I think he brought the corpse here. I think he drove it back to his apartment.” She held the phone out in front of her and peered into the bathroom. “Christ, I think he bathed it.”
“Is it there now?”
“No. It’s gone, too. He left behind a bunch of pudding, if that’s helpful. I’ve never seen this kind of mess before. The goop is moving.”
“Specifics. No pontifications, dear.”
“About the pudding? It’s black.”
“What does it smell like?”
“You want me to put my nose to it?” Of course he did. “Why do you care what it smells like?”
“Answer.”
She picked up one of the soaked towels and sniffed. “Gah. It smells like vinegar.”
“Oh,” Garrick said. “Oh, that’s not good. It shouldn’t be … Did you say it was moving?”
“Yeah. And there’s lots of it.”
“Oh,” he said again. The old man cleared his throat, then, “Where is Burklin now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then where is the … corpse?”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know.”
“Find Burklin. No.” He grunted. “Forget him. Find the corpse.”
“But Burklin can’t—”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Are you a deity now?”
“Don’t get nasty.”
“Don’t make me.”
“But Burklin—”
“Burklin,” Garrick said, croaking the name. “He has screwed things up for the last time. I may not forgive him for this one.”
“There must be some explanation for why he’s gone rogue. I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”
“My darling, I sense concern for your ex-husband’s well-being. That can’t be right. You and I are in love now. I’d hate to think you’d betray me and go back to him.”
“You know I’d never do anything to make you angry.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Now get off your fat
ass and search.”
“Why can’t you use your power to find it?”
“I don’t have time to explain. But if I’m right, things are about to get a whole lot worse.”
Chapter 9
Senator Kamilla McPhee
Seventy miles north of Mariner City, moonlight played over healthy Napa vineyards. The Steadman Arms Resort sat adjacent to the main tourist road, among privately owned wineries in the heart of Wine Country. The upscale hotel, used for conventions and business retreats, boasted its own vintage. It produced Steadman Merlot and Steadman Red, both of which had won numerous awards. But the resort’s revenue didn’t come from wine alone; it came from California’s political machine. The massive auditorium, the pride of the resort, hosted every important California debate.
Tomorrow morning, one such debate would occur between Democratic incumbent Kamilla McPhee and her Republican challenger, Walter Potankin.
Upstairs in a third-floor suite, the guest of honor prepared. She occupied this room whenever she patronized the Steadman Arms. The hotel staff knew to keep her refrigerator stocked with the finest gin, lest Madame Senator have one of her “episodes.” The public likely pictured the incumbent senator cavorting with a think-tank over a bottle of merlot. They probably thought she spent the time memorizing speeches and witty attacks to use against her Republican challenger. Alas, she did none of these things.
An ambitious intern pinned Senator Kamilla McPhee’s legs behind her head. He slammed into her as Kamilla cried out the Lord’s name in vain. The intern had barely passed the oral argument round with his coarse and vigorous tongue. But once they’d moved onto the pounding phase, he’d compensated for his poor linguistic skills with girth.
“Right there, intern!” she cried. Never call them by name. “Hit it harder.”
He did, but then he came too quickly. This sex toy would need more training. Kamilla wrapped her slender legs around the intern’s buttocks and squeezed, feeling his hips give under their pressure. She took in every drop of the intern’s offering. As he spurted his last, she relaxed her thighs.
“All right,” she said, wriggling away. “Enough of that. I do not require cuddling. Put on your pants and run along. I’ll call you if I need anything else.”
