The Devil You Know

by Mary Monroe

  Chapter 21

  Calvin

  SYLVIA AND I WERE GOING TO CELEBRATE HER BIRTHDAY ON JUNE 12 and exchange vows on the same day.

  Since she’d waited so long to get married, she wanted a fancy church wedding with all of our friends and relatives in attendance. Her mother and some of her other family members were planning to throw us a lavish reception and had already reserved one of the most popular venues in town. We had also booked a suite in a five-star hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for our honeymoon.

  I was extremely pleased that she wanted me to move into her house. For one thing, it was in a much more convenient location than mine. It was closer to the local branch of the trucking office where I had to check in from time to time. And it was a great area to raise children. She lived two blocks from one of the most prestigious elementary schools in San Jose. I planned to sell my house, but I couldn’t do that until I made a few home improvements. The roof leaked in the dining room, the plumbing in the kitchen and in the bathroom needed some repair work, and the water heater had been acting up lately. Most important, I had to get rid of that freezer in my garage. The last time I took a peek inside, which was just two nights ago, the three women in it looked just as freshly dead as when I killed them. Glinda was on the bottom, so when I wanted to look at her cheating face, I had to rearrange the other two. That was not easy, because those frozen bodies were very difficult to maneuver. I didn’t mind all the hard work I had to perform, because my mission would be over soon.

  * * *

  It had been half an hour since my encounter with Melanie, and now I was back on the road cruising along as if nothing had happened. My only regret was that I had not spent more time with that bitch so I could have enjoyed killing her even more. Her racist comments had pushed me too far too fast. Her alleged feeling about not wanting to have sex with a black man was the only reason I hadn’t raped her before I killed her. I would never put my dick in a place where it wasn’t wanted.

  I had attacked two women in less than two weeks. That gave me a rush I could not describe. My careless fuckup in Vegas had suddenly begun to bother me again. It was the reason that another disturbing thought slid into my mind, and it chilled me to the bone: What if Lola survived my attack and was the one who fingered me? If that happened, I would never be able to forgive myself. The thought was so unspeakable, a sharp pain that felt like a spear shot through my chest. It was so excruciating, I thought I was having a heart attack. I pulled into the next rest area and parked so I could compose myself. Wheezing like an old man, I remained in my seat and rubbed my chest for several minutes before I felt well enough to get out and stretch my legs. There were no bars nearby so I could have a few drinks to calm my nerves, but there was a convenience store. I decided to grab some Advil and a few energy drinks.

  The weather was dreary and much cooler than it had been when I picked up Melanie. It was the kind of night when people ventured out only if they had to. There were plenty of lot lizards slithering from one trucker to the next. I was horny, but not one woman was even remotely attractive. A cross-eyed redhead with half of her front teeth missing approached me when I exited the convenience store. “They call me Gummy. For twenty bucks I can show you why they call me that.” She grinned and opened her mouth as wide as she could, making a slurping noise. Her gums looked like raw chicken. The thought of this wall-eyed snagglepuss giving me a blow job didn’t appeal to me at all.

  “I think I already know,” I told her with a laugh and a dismissive wave.

  Immediately after she took off and headed toward another trucker, a woman on crutches hobbled up to me. She was almost old enough to be my mother. I didn’t give this hag the chance to proposition me. I shook my head, rushed back to my rig, and locked my doors.

  I popped open a can of Red Bull and pulled out my cell phone to check my messages. I was surprised that Sylvia hadn’t left any. Usually when I was on the road, she called every few hours. I assumed that now we were engaged, she didn’t think she needed to check in with me as often as she used to.

  I almost threw up when I saw that the only other message on my phone was a text from Lola. It was just as annoying as all the others she’d sent.

  Hello, Calvin. I hope all is well with you. I can’t wait to hear from you again.

  That silly bitch. Since she was not going to be around much longer, I thought it would be nice to make her final days a little more enjoyable. It was almost midnight, so I assumed she’d be in bed and wouldn’t see my response until she got up the next morning. I texted her back:

  Can’t wait to see you again too. I’m on the road and will call you in a day or so.

  I was horrified when the stupid cow texted me again a few moments later!

  Chapter 22

  Lola

  MY FINGERS WERE MOVING AT LIGHTNING SPEED ON MY CELL phone keyboard as I typed:

  Hello Calvin! Thanks for responding to my message.

  Have a blessed night!

  It was after midnight, but I stayed up another hour hoping he would reply before I went to sleep. He didn’t, and I was not too disappointed. I knew that he would have, if he had been able to. He had always been up-front with me about how “busy” he often was. And I never doubted him. With his weird work schedule and his activities as a member of Discreet Encounters, there was no telling what all was going on with him. For all I knew, his cell phone battery might have died or been too low for him to text me back right away.

  I finally turned off my phone. After a trip to the bathroom, I padded downstairs to get a glass of milk. I returned to my room and glanced at a few pages of Brides magazine.

  I soon fell asleep and had the most ominous nightmare I’d ever had. I saw my dead body lying in a coffin. And somebody had dressed me in a yellow shroud. There were a lot of people in black outfits standing nearby, but the only face I recognized was Calvin’s. He was dressed in black too as he hovered over my coffin, laughing. The dream was so disturbing it woke me up. My gown was saturated with sweat from top to bottom. “What the hell was that all about?” I asked myself out loud. I had dreams almost every night, and most of them were very pleasant, but every now and then I had one that made no sense at all. Among the stack of books on my nightstand was one entitled How to Analyze Your Dreams. It had helped me interpret some of my previous dreams, but it didn’t help this time. I scrambled out of bed and opened my window to cool off and get some fresh air. I fanned my face with my Brides magazine for five minutes. I wasn’t in the mood to read anymore, so I went back downstairs to get something else to drink. After a shot of vodka, I went to bed and prayed that if I had another dream it would not be a bad one. My prayers were answered. I had a very erotic dream.

  When I woke up before daylight, I couldn’t remember all the details of my last dream, but I could remember that I’d had multiple orgasms with Calvin and he had asked me to marry him. I forgot all about the bad dream. Now I was in a very good mood. If a dream about him proposing to me sent me to cloud nine, I wondered how I’d react when he actually did do it.

  “Why are you smiling so much this morning, Lola?” Libby asked as I joined the family at the breakfast table a few minutes past eight.

  “What’s wrong with me smiling?” I cleared my throat and kept my happy face. There was a platter of grilled ham and beef bacon, a coffeepot, a huge bowl of grits with steam rising above it like a smoke signal, and a tray with a stack of toast on the table. The only empty seat was the one next to Libby. As usual, her appearance was very hard on my eyes. She wore a ratty terry cloth bathrobe, and there was a doo-rag wrapped around her knotty head. The scowl she often displayed was on her face. It didn’t even faze me this time.

  “Let me give you some advice, Lola,” Jeffrey said with a wink as he stirred his coffee. “Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”

  “Amen,” Bertha said, giving me a pensive look. “Lola, Elbert called a little while ago.”

  I sighed, rolled my eyes, and said, “Again
?”

  “Yes, he called ‘again.’ And you ought to be thanking the good Lord that he keeps calling. A normal man would have given up on a woman who always seems to have other things to do almost every time he calls,” Bertha added.

  “Humph! Then Elbert Porter must not be normal,” Libby said with a smirk.

  “I guess he’s not.” I smirked back. “I told him from the get-go that I had other men friends, and I remind him of that all the time.”

  “Then how come one of your other men friends ain’t married you yet? And how come we never see your other men friends?” Kevin asked with a snicker. “Elbert is the only one who’s been here to see you since we moved in. Your other boyfriends must be hella ugly.”

  Before I could respond, Jeffrey jumped in. “Boy, finish your breakfast so you can get your ass to school. And don’t ever let me hear you talk to a grown woman the way you just talked to Lola. Do you hear me?”

  “Yeah, Daddy,” Kevin mumbled with his head bowed.

  Libby picked up where Kevin left off. “Since we are already on the subject, how come Elbert is the only man friend of yours who ever comes to the house, Lola?” she asked. “What happened to that truck driver you told us about?”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you that same thing myself,” Bertha eased in. “Did he run off already?”

  My chest tightened. I wanted to cuss out everybody except Jeffrey, but that would have been out of character for me. Instead, I just shrugged and said, “No, Calvin didn’t ‘run off’ already. He’s just been real busy lately. Um . . . he told me that things will slow down for him in a couple of weeks. I’ll invite him to dinner and I’m sure he’ll be glad to come over and meet everybody.” If Calvin didn’t accept my invitation, I had to come up with a real good lie. I couldn’t save face if I said he was no longer interested in me or that he didn’t want to meet my family. The only lie I could come up with that would prevent them from giving me a hard time was to say he had suddenly died.

  Chapter 23

  Calvin

  SYLVIA AND I ATTENDED A WONDERFUL EASTER SERVICE AT CHURCH yesterday, and we had lunch at Olive Garden. She suggested a movie afterward. She was a huge Vin Diesel fan so I took her to see Furious 7. We spent the rest of the evening at her place kicked back with a bottle of wine. It had been a long, hectic day, so when I went to my place I was so tired I didn’t turn on my TV or computer.

  When I got up this morning and checked my messages, there was one from Lola that she had sent yesterday with a dancing Easter bunny attached. In response to that bunny bullshit, I sent her a text with nothing except one of her favorite symbols: You would have thought that I’d sent her a picture of my dick. She immediately responded back: . That Lola. Was there no end to her foolishness? I didn’t want her to think I had time for childish games but no time to hook up with her, so I decided to wait a few days before I got back to her.

  I didn’t have to worry about Sylvia riding my back too much since she was so busy planning our wedding. She was very busy at the drugstore pharmacy, where she had recently been promoted to senior pharmacist. She also liked to spend time with her family and friends. That didn’t bother me at all, because my plate was just as full as hers. In addition to work and other activities, I liked to play poker, fish, and attend ball games with some of my buddies. And, because I was so popular with some of the Discreet Encounters babes, my sexual encounters took up a lot of my time.

  Five days after Lola’s multiple smiley face text, I had still not responded to it. A few minutes after six p.m. I grabbed a beer and flopped down on my living room couch. I turned on my laptop and went to the club’s website to check out the recent blogs and reviews. I got a kick out of reading about some of the other members’ dating adventures. Some of the new posts were so steamy, my crotch started throbbing and I had to do something about it. I checked the availability of a few local members to see if we could get together in the next hour or so.

  None of the women I was interested in were free, so I kept browsing. The ones in the next batch weren’t available either, so I gave up. It looked like I wasn’t going to have another discreet encounter for a while. I decided to check my club in-box to see if any new messages had come in since I’d checked an hour ago. I couldn’t believe my luck! I had received a date request from a club member just a few minutes prior. She lived in Tijuana, Mexico, and her club screen name was “RedHot.” And she was definitely on fire. Maria Gonzalez and I had dated several times. She worked as a tour guide for a big travel agency in Tijuana, so she could take free trips. We usually hooked up when I had to make hauls to businesses close to the border. But one time I’d wanted to be with her so badly after I’d delivered merchandise to a department store in San Diego, I rented a car and drove to Mexico. The following month, she’d flown to Long Beach to spend the night with me. This woman was amazing. Each time with her was better than the last. It had been a month since we had communicated, so I was glad to hear from her. Her message was short, simple, and sweet:

  Hola, RamRod! I will be in the States on the 21st of this month and would love to get together so you can cool me off. RedHot

  “Damn!” I said sharply. I slapped the side of my computer monitor. Sylvia was going to be on vacation for a few days that same week and wanted to ride shotgun with me on my run down to San Ysidro to drop off some patio furniture. I had already told her it was okay. One reason I had agreed to her request was that I didn’t want to pick up another hitchhiker. I had enjoyed the last kill so much, I wanted to do it again real soon—but not too soon. I needed to cool off for a while. I wanted to wait at least another week or two before my next murder. I hoped it would also be the last one: Lola. She was going to die before the end of the month!

  In the meantime, I had to settle for something a little less fulfilling. I didn’t know how I was going to swing it, but I had to figure out a way to see Maria when I got to San Ysidro. I grabbed my phone and pulled up Sylvia’s number.

  “Hey, baby,” she cooed. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “I was just thinking about you too. Are you still planning to accompany me to San Ysidro?”

  “Of course! I hope we get a chance to spend some time at the beach and do some shopping. And we definitely have to treat ourselves to a romantic dinner. I’ve always heard that when a Mexican restaurant in the States is close to the border, the food is more authentic and the margaritas are to die for. I’ll Google some restaurants and check their ratings so we can go to the best one.”

  “Baby, we won’t have time to do all that. After I complete my delivery, I have to meet with one of the district managers. I just got off the phone with him.”

  “Oh, Calvin. I was really looking forward to riding down the coast with you and hanging out at some of the fun places along the border. We’ll only be in San Ysidro overnight, now this. What’s the meeting about? Is something wrong?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that. Mr. Donnelly just wants to go over some new contract bullshit. This dude is so long-winded, he’ll tie me up for hours. He likes to drink, so after our meeting he’s taking me to his favorite bar.”

  “Didn’t you tell him you had already made plans?”

  “Baby, I couldn’t do that. When he called, he had already reserved one of our district offices for the meeting. The company recently came up with all kinds of new stuff that I have to be brought up-to-date on. Union rules for one. Not to mention information regarding my retirement benefits and other necessary shit.”

  “What about your coworkers?”

  “What about my coworkers?”

  “Why don’t you get one of them to take notes and share them with you?”

  “This is a one-on-one meeting. Since I’m a senior driver, I’ll be taking notes to share with some of the new drivers.”

  “That sure is one hell of a tacky way to do business. If this new information is so important, they should have all the truckers attend this damn meeting at the same time.”

  “I agree
with you completely. Trucking is a tacky business. That’s the way of the blue-collar world, baby.”

  “Well, I still don’t like it. Can we do something before or after your meeting? I don’t want to go to the beach or to dinner alone. And I sure don’t want to sit around in a hotel room and twiddle my thumbs while you’re at that meeting.”

  “It can’t be helped this time. I love my job and I want to keep it. Besides, my performance review is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I need to be on my best behavior. The last thing I need to do is cancel an important meeting so I can run up and down a beach and suck up margaritas. If you don’t want to go to a restaurant alone, you can get something to go and eat it in our hotel room.”

  “Okay. All right then. I don’t care how late you get out of your meeting; I want to do at least one fun thing. We can have a late dinner and a few drinks before we leave, I hope. And we can give our hotel bed a real good workout. Otherwise, there is no point in me riding in that damn truck all the way down there.” I bit my bottom lip because that was exactly what I was thinking. I held my breath and hoped she’d cancel. “But I promised you I’d go, and I know how much it means to you.”

  “Sure, sweetheart. We’ll figure out a way to do something after my meeting. I need to give a call to my supervisor now to see if there’s anything he wants me to bring up in the meeting. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Don’t hang up yet!” Sylvia ordered. “I have something I need to ask.”

  “What is it?”

  She hesitated for a few moments. “Do you really love me?”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I answered immediately. “You know I do.”

  “Sometimes I wonder about it.”

  “Well, you need to stop wondering about that. I love you, Sylvia. Happy?”