The Best Possible Angle

by Lloyd Johnson

  The stranger took his hand from her throat and forced it over her mouth. With the other hand, he gently pushed the blade’s tip into the side of her neck. Tammy’s body trembled with fear.

  Although she tried willing herself to do so, she could not speak. Dry air chapped the back of her throat.

  The man twisted the blade point until a thin line of blood ran down the length of her neck. Tammy wished she could scream through his cupped hand.

  The man saw a sufficiently terrified woman before him, causing his manhood to rise inside his pants. He wanted to put an end to her writhing. All it took was a final push of the blade through her neck. It would require so little pressure. Watching her lifeless body fall to the floor would have been glorious enough to put him over the edge. He could have busted a load in his pants just from that alone. However, sadly, she was not his target.

  “Please don’t kill me,” Tammy managed to say once his hand lifted from her mouth.

  She was making it difficult for him to control the impulse to kill her. She was the perfect victim—ripe with helplessness. He found it euphoric, needing to take a moment to collect himself.

  Tammy found his unresponsiveness frightening. She peered into his eyes, desperate to find reassurance that he would not harm her. She clutched her stomach; the two of them heard a loud gurgling emanate from her insides as her bowels moved down the backs of her legs and piss trickled down the front. Terror deprived her of the luxury to feel embarrassment.

  The man finally smiled with his eyes. “Look, I’m not gonna hurt you. Just give me her room number.”

  “Whose?”

  The man’s eyes turned cold. Malice flashed through them. “Don’t play with me, bitch!” he seethed. “Who the hell do you think I’m talkin’ about?”

  Think, dummy! Don’t give him an excuse to kill you! Tammy thought.

  “The chick you were talking to down at in the bar!” he barked.

  “We’re sharing a room.”

  A smirk interrupted his menacing scowl. “Then you’re gonna take me up to your room,” he said, allowing her blood to catch on the tip of his index finger. He retraced the blood back to the superficial wound, then licked the blood dipped finger. “Then, you’re gonna get whatever you need and get the hell outta dodge. See what happens when you’re a good girl and give me what I want?”

  Tammy wanted to offer at least a nod of gratitude, but remained stupefied.

  The man moved her from the door and opened it, pushing her out. When the man stepped out of the stall he was met by an elderly female patron, glaring at them.

  The man smiled impishly, taking Tammy by the hand. “Come on, Baby, let’s finish what we started up in our room,” he said.

  The woman said nothing, though her eyes followed them until they were out of sight.

  Tammy let the man into the room. He found a seat in a chair facing the door. Tammy went about the room throwing all her belongings into her bag. She found his watchful eyes to be unnerving and left quickly, grateful to still be alive. The man turned off the lights throughout the double suite and returned to his seat. He was calm and patient. To rush was to invite mistakes. He was given a specific job to do. There was no room for improvisation. He was especially proud of himself for not claiming Tammy as collateral damage. Pity, because there was something in her energy that would have made killing her extraordinary. No one would mourn her passing for very long, he guessed. He imagined a few sad faces at best, but most would have forgotten her by suppertime.

  The man rose from the chair with a new strategy. He would hide in wait until Sabathany was vulnerable, and less likely to run. After thirty minutes passed, the suite door finally opened.

  “Tammy? Are you awake, you ole drunk bitch?” Sabathany called into the darkness. Her voice was spirited and laced with contempt. She turned on the lights. “Didn’t anyone tell you the best way to get rid of a hangover is to get as much fresh air as possible? Get your ass up and come talk to me on the balcony.”

  Sabathany went into Tammy’s room, pausing in the stillness. The room looked vacated. She went into the en suite bathroom which looked as though it too had been cleared out. When she stepped back into the bedroom, she saw the man who had been sitting alone at the bar, standing in the doorway, leering at her.

  “You’re from downstairs. What are you…” her words dried out.

  The man stepped into the room, fixing his eyes on her as he closed the door.

  Sabathany let out a stream of breath, backing into the corner of the room. She hoped to keep her wits about her, as her eyes surveyed the room for objects she could use to defend herself. Fear coursed through her as easily as blood running through her veins. “Listen, whatever Kendrick offered you, I can double it.”

  The stranger approached her in slow, minacious steps. The look of evil in his eyes caused her heartbeat to quicken.

  “I said I can double it,” Sabathany shrieked from her corner.

  She ran towards the bathroom, but he grabbed her by her hair. Winding its length twice around his wrist, he smashed Sabathany face-first into the wall, stunning her. Then, tilting her head as far back as it would go, he dragged his blade across her throat. He let go of her hair and pushed her head forward, sending her to her knees. She bore a wide-eyed stare of confusion as blood emptied from her throat before she collapsed onto her side.

  The man watched her mouth move like a ventriloquist’s doll. He listened to her labored gurgling until she passed a final sigh, and the lifelight dimmed in her eyes. He flicked the remaining droplets of blood from the knife onto her caved body, then hid the knife inside his jacket pocket. After checking his gloves for tears, he took out his cell phone and sent a text that read, “IT’S DONE.” He stared at the body, mesmerized by its unnatural contortion.

  “All in a day’s work,” he muttered later, driving off into the night. By the time he pulled out of the hotel exit, he had already forgotten about Sabathany Morris and the bloody mess he made.

  Los Angeles,

  Brenda Vaughn sat down with her prospective client, Devon Thomas. While she was excited with the prospect of working with new talent, she was a little saddened to find herself in this place again. Not that meeting with talent was anything new, after all it was her passion. But to move on without Kendrick Black affected her more than she imagined it would. She not only lost out on her investment, but the chance at a real relationship. The only thing left to do was to dive back into her work. The tasty morsel of a man that sat across from her was as good a place to start as any. The kid had talent. It also helped that he was just as good-looking as Kendrick, though a lot cockier.

  “I saw your reel. Impressive,” she said, knowing he probably heard that as many times as he heard he was attractive. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  Devon shrugged. “Like, what do you wanna know?”

  Brenda fought the urge to roll her eyes. Great, another one that’s not too swift, she thought. “Well, for starters, what brings you to the Living Color Agency?”

  “I hear you’ve got a good reputation for turning out results.”

  Brenda looked insulted by the understatement. She was also put off by his humdrum demeanor. Most people who came seeking her representation were turned away, and many of them had far more fire than Devon. Some were determined to the point that if asked to, they probably would have donated an organ or offered their first born. A chirp emitted from her phone. She casually glanced down to read the succinct and uppercased text message, “IT’S DONE.” She smiled. Satisfied with the news, she turned her attention back to Devon, who looked annoyed that she gave the text her attention while he sat there.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, if I work with you, the only attitude allowed is mine,” Brenda said, her smile dissolving.

  Devon was stunned by her directness.

  “Now, we’ll skip the part where I tell you how great you are. Bottom line, do you want to become a star?”

  It was Devon’s turn to
smile. “Hell yeah!”

  “Good,” Brenda said, musing over his future and how much she was going to enjoy breaking him in. “Then, you’ve come to the right place!”

  EPILOGUE

  January 25, 2016

  A Minnesota Correctional Facility

  “You can’t tell me who it is?” Kendrick asked the corrections officer just before being led into a small room with gray cement walls. A circular table and two plastic orange chairs sat in the center of the room. Yvette Jones occupied one of the chairs.

  Kendrick sighed with relief. He approached the open chair with a bouncy exuberance, like a child meeting Santa Claus.

  “You came!”

  Yvette stared at the convict as he took his seat across from her. She often wondered how she would react if she ever met him face to face in this setting. Even during the drive to the prison, she wondered if she could feel empathy, or would her animosity toward him win out? Seeing Kendrick’s cheery expression made the latter more likely. Yvette glanced over Kendrick’s shoulder at the CO standing watch in the corner of the room. As far as she was concerned, this man who killed her daughter should have felt lucky the officer was there to protect him.

  “Thank you for coming all the way out here to see me,” Kendrick said.

  “I wasn’t going to, if I’m being truthful.”

  “The guys in group told me if I kept sending you letters, and kept the faith, you’d eventually come see me.”

  “Well, clearly you didn’t understand from my lack of response that I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want you writing me letters; I don’t want you expecting another visit from me, because today when we’re finished here today, and I walk out that door, you’re dead to me. I hope the guys in your group told you that.”

  Cheeriness dissolved from Kendrick’s face. “I thought reaching out to you might help ease the guilt.”

  “You got a measly three years for killing my child. What makes you think you get to live guilt free?”

  Kendrick said nothing.

  “I keep asking myself, what did I do to deserve any of this. It’s bad enough you took Kayla away from me, and I’m still trying to make my peace with that. But you won’t let me. It’s like you want to keep some place in our lives after you messed them up. It’s sick, actually.”

  The hatred Yvette felt for him was palpable. All Kendrick needed to do was look into her eyes, past the brewing tears, to realize whatever powers to sway women’s emotions he thought he had were failing him.

  “Like I said, the group said they thought it would help with the…” his words fell off.

  “Yeah, yeah, you said that already!”

  “No, what I meant to say was that ever since the night of the accident, Kayla’s been haunting me. I thought maybe if I wrote to you, maybe not today or tomorrow—somewhere at the end of this, I’d find forgiveness.”

  Yvette laughed. “So that’s what this is about? You want forgiveness? You want me to forgive the fact that not only did you kill my child, but you tried to cover it up? That you tried to buy us off?”

  “You act like I’ve been walking around here easy-breezy. My publicist dropped me! My family isn’t speaking to me! I have to sleep with one eye open because some of the other inmates think I’m this hardened child killer!”

  “I guess you think you got it bad, then, huh?” Yvette asked, leaning in.

  “It ain’t been easy. I can tell you that much,” Kendrick said, shaking his head.

  Yvette sent a wad of spit sailing into Kendrick’s right eye.

  “What the hell?” Kendrick said, wiping the spit from his eye. He looked to the CO, wondering why he had not stepped in, but instead was met with a smirk from the officer.

  “Look, I can’t imagine what you go through every day. Please don’t walk away with the impression that I’ve shrugged it all off, and in here having the time of my life. It’s been rough for me, too.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe if you’d just come forward in the first place, I might’ve been able to forgive you at some point? But not now. Not ever. You deserve a whole lot worse than you got. Be glad my husband didn’t come with me. He would’ve been more than happy to serve time for putting his hands on you!”

  “I see that this was a bad idea,” Kendrick said, rising from the table, signaling the end of the visit.

  “Yes, it was. The only reasons I came all the way out to Red Wing to see you, was because I needed to do it so that I can move on, but I also wanted to see for myself if the man who wrote in his last letter that he was thinking about ending it all, had it in him to do it. And you know what? You had no intention of killing yourself. You’re too much of a coward to die at your own hand.”

  “Goodbye, Yvette,” Kendrick said over his shoulder as the CO gripped his arm to lead him to the door. “Don’t worry, I won’t bother you anymore.”

  “Wait just a second! You don’t have the right to move on like nothing happened! You don’t get to have closure! I hope you’re haunted by what you did for the rest of your pitiful life!”

  Kendrick, looking as though he had been beaten, was pulled away by the CO.

  Yvette sat alone. Another wave of tears came. All the work she did to move forward, and now, having indulged him, she had taken two steps back. She hoped after the tears settled that she could begin again.

  After a time, Yvette returned to her car, thankful for the opportunity to have looked her daughter’s killer in the eye. She knew there were so many families who would never have the chance to come face-to-face with those who changed the course of their lives. Yvette knew in her spirit that she was one of the lucky ones. Still, one question followed her into her car. Was Kendrick sorry for what he did, or was he sorry he got caught?

  “Guess I’ll never know what’s in that son of a bitch’s heart,” Yvette said, starting the ignition. She gave the prison one last glimpse before embarking on the drive home.