The trip back only took a couple of minutes in the warm comfort of my Ranchero. I was glad to be sitting in the car, resting my legs and especially my ankle, which I could feel swelling in my boot.
The Ranchero proved invaluable once again. The truck bed made transporting the bodies a breeze.
It wasn’t the easiest of tasks but I managed to get the women in the bed, along with their purses. From there I drove to where I’d left the dog walker lying on the lawn. Before I loaded him into the truck, I removed his coat and wrapped it around his head, tying the arms securely to hold it in place. I didn’t want his blood and brain matter all over me or my car.
Once all three bodies were in the bed of the truck, I looked down at them, catching my breath, holding my side, and wishing I’d brought something to cover them with. The chance of anyone seeing them on a night like this was slim but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities. I made a mental note to keep a tarpaulin in the car from now on as I pulled away, driving down the street and out of my neighborhood, racking my brain to think of somewhere to hide the bodies without being seen.
I finally settled on a place and drove there, taking care not to go too fast. The last thing I needed was to have an accident, get hung up, or get pulled over hauling three dead bodies.
On the other side of the railroad tracks was the Missouri River. A perfect place for dumping bodies. It was a perfect night to do it, too. No one was out. Everyone was at home, tucked into their warm beds.
I parked parallel with the river and got out, pulling each of the bodies from the back of the car and rolling them down the bank. I heard the first woman splash into the water, but the second didn’t make a sound. I considered going down there and pushing her all the way into the river but I decided against it. Too many things could happen. If the bank was too steep, I might not be able to get back up it. The worst case scenario was I could fall into the river. I figured it was best to just leave things as they were.
I got back in my car and drove home, satisfied that I’d covered my tracks well. On the seat beside me was my mother’s flatware, several wads of cash, three driver’s licenses, and a bag of marijuana.
Along the way the pain in my side and ankle intensified, dominating my thoughts as the adrenaline wore off and the weariness began to set in.
The stab wound turned out to be nothing more than a cut. It was deep, deep enough that I should’ve went to the hospital and had it stitched close, but I didn’t. I didn’t think it was deep enough to damage any internal organs and I didn’t feel like answering questions about how it happened, so I cleaned and bandaged it at home and left it to heal on its own.
My ankle had swollen and turned blue, but after elevating and keeping my weight off it as much as possible, it was back to normal in a few days.
I learned a lot in one night. I learned to never trust a whore because they’ll hit you in the head when your back is turned, rob you blind while you’re unconscious, and pull a knife on you if they ever feel threatened. Also, I learned that I needed to be better prepared for when things went wrong. That was probably the most important thing I learned that night. Sometimes things went wrong.
10
A little more than three years passed before I killed another prostitute. I still frequented them, though not as much as before. Instead of four or five nights a week, I cut my visits down to two or three nights, usually only Fridays and Saturdays when my mother wasn’t home. I’d bring them back to my house, do what I wanted to them, and drive them back to the part of the city where I’d found them. All while keeping a close eye on them to avoid repeating the incident with the two whores. And I never, ever brought home more than one at a time.
The urge to kill was still there and growing stronger every day. They disgusted me and deserved to die, but I couldn’t keep away from them and was afraid to push my luck by killing another one. It took every ounce of willpower, every shred of self-control I had to keep from wrapping my hands around their throat and choking the life from them as I reached my orgasm, but I somehow managed. For three long years.
It was April of 1973 and my appearance had changed since that snowy night in 1969. My hair had grown longer, now hanging to my shoulders in limp red curls. I sported a scraggly beard and a mustache. Around my waist I carried an extra fifteen pounds, most of which had been gained during the winter months.
The biggest contributing factor for my weight gain was getting fired from my job. It wasn’t that I was depressed over losing my job because I loved it or anything. Hell, I didn’t even like the job. No, I gained weight because I had nothing to do all day. I looked for other jobs, but I didn’t look very hard. Most of my time was spent lounging around the house, snacking and watching television like a teenager on summer break from school. But then my mother pitched a fit and put an end to it all.
For the past few weeks I could tell she’d been getting aggravated with me. I knew she didn’t enjoy my company. Oh hell. That was putting it nicely. The fact of the matter was she couldn’t stand me. But I had no idea that my unemployment got to her so much. I didn’t have a clue until she told me. Then she made it crystal clear.
I was stretched out on the couch, elbow-deep in a bag of potato chips, watching television and drinking beer. My mother had been on a cleaning frenzy, tearing through the house like a soap-dispensing tornado.
Suddenly she came into the living room and stood between the television set and me.
“Lester,” she said, with her hands on her hips. “You’ve got to do something.”
“About what?” My first thought was there was a spider in the bathtub or a squirrel in the attic. But then the tone of her voice began to register with me and I could tell this wasn’t about some pesky critter in the house. Well I guess it was seeing as she considered me the pesky critter.
“About you lying around all the time, not working.”
I stared up at her, confused by what she was saying. How was me not working affecting her?
“I know that things happen and people get fired from jobs all the time. But they go right back out there and they find another one. There are still bills to pay, Lester. And even if there weren’t, it’s not good for you to just stay home all the time, lying around eating junk food and drinking beer. It’s not healthy. You just create messes for me to clean up, and I’m tired of it. Now you’re going to have to get a job or…”
Curious, I asked, “Or what?”
She hesitated before saying, “Or you’re going to have to move out of this house.”
Before I could respond she stormed out of the room, leaving me alone to ponder her words. I’d never thought she would throw me out of the house. I mean, I knew she wanted to but I never thought she had it in her to actually do it. I still didn’t, really. I figured this was an empty threat, just her way of scaring me into looking for a job.
Part of me wanted to show her that she couldn’t tell me what to do. Damn it, I was a grown man and I could do what I wanted, when I wanted. If I didn’t want to work I didn’t have to. But a bigger part of me actually did want to get a job. Not necessarily because I liked working, but because hookers cost money. My stash—what little of it there had been—was nearly gone. If I wanted to get a prostitute—which I did—I was going to have to have money. I needed a job so I shaved my beard and started the hunt.
The thing about finding a job is I didn’t want a boss. I didn’t want to have to punch in on a time clock or have set work hours. I didn’t want such restrictions. What I wanted was the freedom to come and go as I pleased, at my own pace. This obviously limited the jobs available to me. In fact, no such job existed. At least not to my knowledge. So I had to create one.
I started a lawn maintenance business, mowing people’s yards and raking leaves, cutting trees and trimming shrubs. Whatever they needed done, I did it. It wasn’t a glamorous or easy job, but it was a job that fit all my requirements and kept my mother off my ass. Most importantly, it supplied me with hooker money.
From house to house I went, doing whatever was required of me. For the most part, the job was enjoyable. I worked outside, by myself, and didn’t have to deal with anyone else. Well not much anyway. There was still the part where I had to interact with the homeowners to find out what they wanted me to do, and of course to get paid.
Most people were pleasant. There were those who were just impossible to please. If I cut the grass, it was either too short or not short enough. If I trimmed the hedges, it was uneven or I took too much off. I somehow managed to even screw up raking their leaves. There was always a select few who were impossible to please. I liked to call those people assholes. Not to their faces of course. I still liked to be paid.
That’s how I spent the summer. It started with a few lawns and in no time, thanks to word of mouth, I ended up with enough work to keep me busy. Too busy to sleep in. In order to get all the lawns done, I had to get up early and work well into the evening. I would’ve never thought it could happen but the ideal job I’d created was really beginning to stress me out.
By the time September rolled around, I was ready to explode, both sexually and mentally. My frustration levels had never been so high. It had been a few weeks since I’d had the time or the energy to get a hooker, and dealing with the asshole homeowners had kept my blood simmering all summer. Somehow I’d managed to keep a lid on it until the second Friday of the month when my blood finally boiled over and I lost it.
This one homeowner, a particularly nasty asshole who thought his shit didn’t stink, was bitching about the direction in which I mowed his grass. God forbid the fucking lines ran east and west. Everybody knows they’re supposed to run north to south. That’s what he said. It struck me as funny because his bald ass had never mentioned this to me in the two months I’d been cutting his grass. But I didn’t say anything. I just stood there on his lawn—the lawn I’d spent an hour mowing in the blazing sun—listening to him rant and rave while I nodded and apologized, promising to do it right next time.
It wasn’t easy to keep from punching the guy in the face when he was up in mine screaming at me that I did something wrong, especially when I did it the same way I’d been doing it all along and he’d never had a problem with it before. But I didn’t punch him. I wanted to though. Boy did I want to. I refrained, keeping calm throughout the whole confrontation, even when he said he wasn’t going to pay me.
I glared at him, wanting more than anything to tear into him and not stop until he was mush. Instead, I swallowed my hatred and said, “That’s fine.”
“Damn right it’s fine,” he continued. “And if you don’t get it right next time, you won’t get paid for that either. You’re lucky I don’t sue your ass to make you pay me back for all the times I paid you before. You’ve never mowed my grass the right way. How hard is it to mow a lawn?”
I could’ve asked him the same thing. He was paying me to take care of his lawn. If it was so damn easy, why didn’t he bring his pudgy ass outside and do it himself?
With my jaw set firmly I stood there and listened until he was finished shouting at me. The most I did was clench my fists and flare my nostrils. Other than that I kept my cool. I only stayed calm because I knew that he was going to get what was coming to him. Sure, I could kick his ass right now. Bloody his face. Break some bones. But that wouldn’t hurt for long. A few weeks from now, he wouldn’t even think about it. No, what I wanted to do to him would make him suffer much worse and hopefully for a lot longer.
When I got home that evening I was still pissed. I’d stopped at a liquor store along the way and picked up some beer, which I’d finished before I even made it home. My anger and frustration trumped the alcohol, killing my buzz before it even started. So now I was mad because I’d spent the money for the booze but hadn’t been able to feel the effects of it. I felt cheated and I blamed it on the bald asshole.
Instead of spending the night in my room fuming, I grabbed a bite to eat and headed out. Normally, I would’ve showered to wash away the dirt and grime and sweat and grass clippings of the day, but what I was about to do was going to require a shower later, so I skipped it for now. At this point, I didn’t give a shit about being dirty anyway.
I picked up the first hooker I could find. She was a plump black woman with fat rolls that spilled out over the top of her skin-tight miniskirt and the bottom of her shirt. She didn’t appeal to me in any way. I preferred my women smaller in size because they were easier to deal with. Though I normally wouldn’t have picked her, in that moment I didn’t care. It wasn’t really about me or what I wanted. Not this time.
Once she got in my car, she never shut up. Her incessant chatter drove me insane, but I let her ramble on because it gave me time to think.
“You hear me?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t. What’d you say?”
“I said whatchu wanna do?”
It took a second for me to realize she was referring to sex.
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure? Shoot. Most men know befo’ they pick me up what they want.”
“I’m sorry.”
I could feel her staring at me and I became uneasy. If she managed to get away from me, she’d be able to describe my face completely and accurately. I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
“Know what I think? I think you’re a man who likes to come in the back door. Ain’tcha?”
Not really sure what to say, I said nothing.
“Yeah, that’s it. You wanna come in the back way. That’s alright, white boy. I’ll letcha.”
I glanced at her and nodded, still not sure what to say. I remembered Epstein talking about how his girlfriend wouldn’t let him in the back door. The prostitute in Vietnam had, and he was excited about that. It was a big deal to him so it must really be something special.
In the darkest and most secluded section of woods near the river I could find, I parked. Originally I had intended to kill her immediately. But now I was curious. I wanted to know what it was like going in the back door, though I wasn’t entirely clear on what that was. I had a pretty good idea, but I didn’t want to do the wrong thing and look stupid. If one more woman laughed at me, I would absolutely explode with rage.
“Back door’s twenty bucks. If you want anything else, it’s extra.”
I pulled two tens from my wallet and handed it to her. The money shook in my hand.
She laughed when she snatched it from me.
“You scared, white boy?”
The truth was I wasn’t scared. I was excited. I was about to kill for the first time in years. Plus I was nervous about doing something that would cause her to laugh at me.
“Don’t be scared. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.” She stuffed the money between her large breasts. “As a matter of fact, since you’re scared, I’m gonna give you a little extra. How you like that?”
I nodded.
She leaned over and unfastened my jeans. I was so focused on killing her I hadn’t even noticed my erection. It could’ve been caused by the excitement of finally murdering again, or it could’ve been because I hadn’t had sex in weeks. It didn’t matter what caused it though. It was there and she knew what to do with it.
After a few minutes of that, she sat up in the seat and wiped her mouth. She glanced around the cramped interior of the Ranchero.
“Ain’t much room in here, is there?”
“No.”
She looked over her shoulder, through the back glass, and then back at me. “Follow me, white boy.”
She got out of the car. I did the same, holding up my jeans with one hand and looking around to make sure we were alone.
Standing at the back of the car, she let down the tailgate, hiked up her mini-shirt which didn’t take much effort, and bent over. Her belly
and boobs rested in the bed of the truck, while her feet were planted firmly on the ground, legs apart.
“Come on,” she urged. “I ain’t got all night.”
I walked over and took my place behind her. Doing what I normally did, I began.
“I thought you wanted in the back door.”
It wasn’t until then that I knew for sure what she meant and exactly what I should do. I’d never done it before but I was sure eager to try it.
Part of the excitement was that it was sort of a taboo thing to do. People had been doing it since the dawn of time, yet it was something that you didn’t talk about doing, something that people liked to pretend didn’t happen. Just like murder.
Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.
After a while, the hooker said, “White boy, you’re gonna have to shit or get off the pot back there. This ain’t as pleasant for me as it is for you.”
That made me smile. I would’ve laughed if not for the tingle I felt creeping up on me. I pushed everything else aside and focused on the feeling of me exploding into her.
When I was done, I fastened my jeans and she pulled down her skirt. She pulled a cigarette and a lighter from between her breasts. I wondered how much more stuff she carried in there as I watched her light up and inhale.
“It’s nice out here, ain’t it?” She blew smoke and looked around.
“It is.” In the silence between us, I could hear the river rushing across the state to St. Louis, where it would spill into the Mississippi River and head down the Gulf of Mexico. I briefly imagined throwing this hooker’s body into the river, imagined it floating all the way to the gulf.
“One of these days I’m gon’ have a house in a place like this.”
This time I did laugh, though not loud enough for her to hear. It was funny. Whores always had plans to live a glamourous life one day. As if any decent man would ever want to settle down and marry a used up, worn out prostitute.
Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels) Page 45
