by J. D. Mason
* * *
It was nearly midnight by the time he’d showered and climbed into bed. Last night he’d slept next to her. Another man would have ravished that passed-out, beautiful, compliant, and pliable woman and not given it much thought. For some odd reason, however, with Marlowe, he was consumed with the idea of making a good impression, which was probably a waste of time considering the fact that she believed he was Satan. The thought made him chuckle, but not passionately. The more he thought about it, the more he concluded that she might very well be right on some level. The term devil was relative. One person’s devil was another person’s … well, the bottom line was there wasn’t a person on earth that was all good or all bad. Everyone had varying degrees of both traits in them. Maybe she’d gotten her signals crossed and Ed Price was that devil her possum bones warned her about. Shit, six of one and a half dozen of the other—Plato or Ed. Marlowe had drawn a fucked-up hand, no matter which part of the deck she pulled from.
Nelson, Texas, was on the other side of those trees where that body had been found. It was a two-, maybe three-mile walk from the crime scene, a trek that could’ve easily been made after setting a body on fire. Nelson sat on the other side of the highway, and right on the edge of town was a budget motel. Burn a body, hike through a forest to a highway, check into a room, shower, order a pizza, go to sleep. The concept wasn’t all that far-fetched to Plato. If he thought long and hard enough, he could probably draw from his own personal experiences to rival the theory he was entertaining here.
He recalled the flavor of her. He imagined that Marlowe was as tasty in other places as she was in her mouth. The best version of her was the one who’d peeled out of the burden of being Marlowe Price and allowed Marlowe Brown to show her pretty self. Marlowe Brown talked too much, laughed too loud, danced too long, and was affectionate to a fault. She’d clung to him, sat on him, hugged him, squeezed on him, kissed and teased him until he ached, and he’d loved every minute of it.
He sighed. Now he was starting to frustrate himself.
“Take your ass to sleep, man,” he cussed himself.
He wouldn’t pass up the next opportunity he had with her. Another one was coming. He could feel it, so Plato opted against settling with his urges tonight and kept his hand off his dick.
Like a Dog
WAKE UP, MARLOWE!
* * *
It wasn’t until that moment when she opened her eyes that she realized desperation had an odor. All of him was on top of her before she could even scream. His hand covered her mouth, her arms and legs were pinned so that she couldn’t move, and fear stole her breath.
“Shhhhhh,” he said, his lips pursing from the unruly brown-and-gray beard covering his face.
Waves of tousled brown hair covered his head, and she absolutely did not recognize him until he said her name.
“It’s me, Marlowe,” he said gruffly. “It’s all right, honey. It’s me.”
Eddie!
He trusted that her knowing who he was would be enough, and so he removed his hand from her mouth, reached over to the lamp on the nightstand next to the bed, and turned on the light. The soft glow revealed the features of a shell of the man she’d married. His eyes sank deep into dark circles; the blue had faded from them, leaving cold and lifeless orbs void of soul. Is that what killing a man does to you? Is that what running for your life and hiding does to you?
She swallowed her fear and did her best to replace it with something, anything that didn’t expose how terrified she really was. “Get off me, Eddie,” she demanded.
He looked confused by her tone but not convinced by it. Eddie lowered his lips to hers, and when she turned her face from his, he gripped her jaws with his hand and steadied her while he pushed his dirty kiss onto her.
“I’m your husband, gotdammit!” he growled. “Kiss me like I am!”
He forced his lips on her again and then dug his fingers into her cheeks until she had no choice but to open her mouth. Eddie slipped his tongue into it so greedily that she gagged, and Marlowe bit down as hard as she could, drawing blood.
He snatched away from her. “The fuck!” Eddie looked like he wanted to hit her.
“Get the hell off me,” she demanded again, struggling to free some part of herself. But the more she fought, the more aroused he became, pressing his growing erection against her thigh.
The only thing between the two of them was the bedsheet covering her.
“Dear God! I have missed you, Marlowe,” he said, driving his knee between her thighs to separate them.
“Let me go, Eddie!” she said, not realizing that she’d started to cry.
Tears made her look weak. Marlowe couldn’t afford to let him see her weak. He couldn’t know that she was scared to death of him.
“Who is he, Marlowe?” he asked with a pained expression on his face. “Who’s that big, black mother fucker you’ve allowed into my house?”
He’d been watching her. Marlowe’s heart banged in her chest.
“Are you fucking him?” He stared helplessly at her. “Hmmm? You’re fucking him in my house? In my gotdamn bed?”
“It’s not your house, Eddie,” she argued. “It’s not your bed.”
She should’ve just said no. That’s what he wanted to hear.
Without warning, Eddie punched his fist hard into the wooden headboard above her head. “You’re my wife. My fucking wife. How dare you. How dare you let that bastard put his hands on you.”
His face flushed red. The veins in his neck and forehead swelled.
“One of your wives, you bastard!” she snapped. “How many more you got?”
A wicked smirk curled the corners of his lips. “Only one that matters, sweetheart. And I’m home.”
“Where’ve you been, Eddie?” she shouted, changing the subject. “Where the hell have you been?”
Again, confusion washed over his expression.
“Do you know what they think?” she continued, fighting back tears. Fighting off fear. “They think I killed you. Have you seen the news? Do you know what’s happening?”
He nodded erratically. “Yes.” Eddie swallowed. “I know. I know. I know, baby.”
“We need to go to the police, Eddie,” she said, trying to sound rational. “We need to go now and let them see that you’re not dead. They need to see that you’re alive, Eddie. We need to go now. Right now.”
Marlowe was pleading for her life. She was begging him to stand up and do the right thing.
“If you love me, Eddie, then you’ll come with me to the police,” she begged. “Please. They want to send me to prison. Eddie. Do you hear me? They want to send me to prison because they think I killed you. They think that that body they found in that car was you.”
She’d said the wrong thing. All of a sudden his expression darkened, and he stared back at her with those hard, cold eyes.
“Where is it?” he asked unemotionally.
“Eddie. Let’s just go to the police. Please. Please, let’s just get up and go now.”
“Where is it, Marlowe?”
She shook her head. “What? Where’s what? I don’t know what you’re—”
“The fucking drive, Marlowe.”
“What drive?” she shouted back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied.
Eddie’s frustration was starting to become even more dangerous. “It’s black. It’s small.” He waited for her to say something. “It’s small, Marlowe.”
She shook her head.
He seemed to have a revelation all of a sudden. “Did you give it to the police?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said, starting to cry again. If she told him that Plato had that drive, there was no telling what he’d do to her. “I don’t know about any drive, Eddie.”
“They were here, Marlowe. In the yard. I saw them. Did you give them my drive? Tell me, baby. Please, tell me.”
His eyes widened. His breathing deepened.
&nb
sp; “No,” she swallowed. “No. I didn’t give them anything.”
Eddie looked sad all of a sudden. Regretful. Remorseful?
“Aw, baby,” he whispered sorrowfully.
Dread filled her stomach and her chest.
“Baby. Baby. Baby,” he muttered, burrowing his face in the pillow underneath her head.
Warning shot through her like an arrow. “Eddie?” she started to sob. “What? Eddie?”
He slid one arm across the mattress to the other pillow and slid his hand underneath it. Eddie had hidden something under that pillow.
Marlowe writhed underneath him until one of her arms was free, and she balled her hand into a fist and slammed two quick punches into his jaw, causing more pain to herself than to him, but it was enough.
“Ah!” he cried out, covering the place where she’d hit him.
Eddie raised himself up onto his knees, and Marlowe jammed her knee hard into his groin. He cried out again but reached for her neck, wrapped his hands around it, and started to squeeze with one hand while still hunting for whatever he’d hidden underneath that pillow. Marlowe reached over to her nightstand, grabbed the lamp by the metal base, and started slamming it against his head until he finally loosened his grip enough for her to roll out from underneath him and onto the floor.
“Bitch! Marlowe!”
She crawled away from that bed as fast as she could toward the door. Eddie rolled off the opposite side, closest to the door, and grabbed her by her hair, forced her to her knees, and then pushed her down onto her back and pinned her to the floor.
“Where the fuck is my drive?” he demanded to know again.
She saw the gun in his hand. “Oh, God! Oh, God!” she cried.
“I will hurt you, Marlowe,” he told her. “I don’t have to kill you to do that,” he said, pursing his lips. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Don’t make me.”
No. No. No. You don’t die like this, Che’.
Words resonated inside her in voices that didn’t belong to her. They were ancient, though, a chorus of them. Ancestors.
Eddie poised the tip of that gun on her thigh. “Where is it, Marlowe? I won’t ask again.”
“My purse.” Her voice faded. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed. “My purse.”
He looked like he didn’t believe her at first.
“My purse, Eddie,” she sobbed.
“Where’s your purse?” he asked suspiciously.
She mouthed, “Downstairs.”
He pulled her up by her hair, but he didn’t let it go. He held on to it as he walked down the stairs, dragging her behind him until they were in the living room. Marlowe’s purse was on the coffee table. He took her to it. She picked it up and rummaged through it until she found what she was looking for. He didn’t know what had happened at first.
“What was that?” Eddie let her go and stumbled back. “Ah! What the … what … shit!”
The pepper spray stung her eyes, too, but not enough to stop her from racing to the front door and out to her car. The pepper spray canister was part of her key chain, so she didn’t have to search for her car keys.
“Marlowe!” he yelled, stumbling through the doorway and down the stairs. “Marlowe!”
Eddie made it to her car, but not before she was inside. She locked the doors, put the key into the ignition, started the car, and pulled out of the driveway, crying and shaking so hard that she thought she’d never stop.
By Moonlight
YOU WOULD THINK THAT having a beautiful woman knocking on your door at three in the morning, barefoot and wearing nothing but panties and a T-shirt, and falling into your arms would be a good thing.
“Eddie’s not dead!” Marlowe said crying. “He’s not dead!”
He blinked a couple of times to shake loose the fact that he was still half-asleep when he answered the door. Plato turned on the light, reluctantly peeled her off him, and took a good look at her. Marlowe looked like she’d been through some shit. Red marks and welts swelled on her cheeks and neck. Her arms and legs were all scratched up. Plato shook the cobwebs from his brain and repeated what he thought he’d just heard her say.
“Eddie? Ed Price?”
She nodded and shakily walked over to the bed and sat down on the side of it. “He was … in the … the house,” she struggled to say. The woman was shaking uncontrollably. “I woke up, and he was in my room.”
Price! Fucking Price had finally shown his face. It was as if a switch had been flipped on inside Plato. He’d been spinning his fucking wheels for weeks, dicking around and playing cat-and-mouse games with Marlowe, and finally, Price appears like the ghost he was.
“The police have to know,” she said, trying to calm down. “I need to tell them.” Marlowe swallowed. “I need to call them and tell them that he’s alive.”
She made the mistake of reaching for the phone by the bed. Plato covered her hand with his and knelt in front of her. She was terrified. Price had scared the shit out of her, and he’d obviously hurt her. Compassion was not a trait that Plato possessed. At a time like this, it would’ve come in handy. It would’ve been what she needed. But he was empty.
“No police, Marlowe,” he said calmly, evenly, and with warning.
She sniffed and dried the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “But they need to know,” she reasoned. She stared at him with a look so vulnerable, so fragile, that he knew it wouldn’t take much more to break her. “If they know, then they’ll know that I didn’t kill him,” she hiccupped. “They’ll go looking for him.”
He didn’t want to scare her any more than she already was. He didn’t want to alarm her, but Marlowe had to know exactly what was at stake here. Plato had been messing around long enough. It was time for him to do what he’d been paid to do, and Marlowe was an obstacle that needed to be moved out of his way.
He gently removed her hand from that phone, gazed deeply into her lovely eyes, and said in a tone that he knew would only solidify her belief that he was her worst nightmare, “No cops.” Plato yanked the cord to the phone from the wall. “Price doesn’t belong to them, Marlowe,” he said gravely. “He belongs to me. And I can’t let you give him away.”
Games like this were never fair, and no one was exempt from the consequences. In his mind, there was no such thing as an idle threat. If he said it, then it meant that he would have to follow through. In the grand scheme of things, Marlowe was collateral damage. Truly, she was of no consequence here anymore. She’d never been more than a pawn and a means to an end. Hurting this lovely woman was never his intention, but he had a job to do, and no one, not even she, could get in the way of Plato doing what he’d come here to do. She shuddered, and he could tell immediately that she knew she’d made a mistake in coming here.
He took her keys from her hand. “I’m going back to your house,” he explained. “I want you to wait here.”
The spirit of Marlowe recoiled like a snake back inside her, withdrew from him as if all of a sudden he was poison. And he was.
* * *
The front door was wide open when Plato got to the house. Of course he didn’t expect that Price would stick around and wait for somebody to show up here after Marlowe got away from him, but now that it had been confirmed that the man was alive, Plato was like a bloodhound, and he needed to pick up Price’s scent. The faint scent of pepper spray lingered in the main room of Marlowe’s house, and it stung his nose and eyes.
The coffee table was flipped over, the sofa pushed out of alignment, and broken glass and other shit that Marlowe kept on tables and shelves was strewn about. He walked into the kitchen to find water still running in the sink and splashed on the counters and floor. Price must’ve tried to wash the pepper spray off his face.
Plato turned off the water and then paused. An unsettling sense of warning came over him. A feeling of being watched. Plato stood perfectly still, momentarily shut his eyes, and listened. Price was still here. He noted that the back door was closed and locked. Plato
turned back toward the dark living room. He’d left the door open on purpose. He pulled out his gun. The fucker was in here somewhere. Upstairs? No. It’d be too much of a risk for him upstairs. Price would have to get past Plato to escape. He was down here. Watching. Waiting for an opportunity to run because he was that kind of coward. Plato backed over to what he believed was the storage closet, braced his shoulder against it, and turned the knob and slowly pulled it open. If Price was inside, he’d try to bolt, but he’d have to be a strong enough man to push past Plato, and Plato doubted seriously that he’d be able to. He wasn’t there.
Movement in Plato’s peripheral caught his attention, and suddenly, Price appeared out of the shadows in that living room like a ghost. Gunshots! Plato dropped to the floor and fired back, but not before he saw the screen door shut. He bolted to his feet and took off after Price, who vanished, disappeared like he was never even there. Plato stared across the road at the open field on the other side of it. There was no sign of the man. He ran out to the actual road and looked from one end to the other. Nothing. What the hell? Had he sprouted wings and flown away?
He turned back to the house and then ran around back. Marlowe’s property extended out a good acre beyond where the grass ended, opening up into a field of weeds almost as tall as Plato. That’s where he’d gone. It’s where he’d disappeared to, but Price had the advantage, and Plato wasn’t stupid enough to follow him into what was probably snake heaven in the dark. He could easily lie in wait and get the jump on Plato, too. And he was probably watching him now. The thought of Price having that gun aimed at Plato didn’t sit well with him, so he ducked down a bit and backed away. Price was in the wind again, but likely not far.
Half an hour later, he came back to his hotel room to find Marlowe sitting exactly where he’d left her. Good girl, he thought.
She started trembling at the sight of him. He pulled a chair up in front of her and sat down. “That simply will not do, lovely,” he said as sincerely as he could. “Don’t be afraid of me, girl.” Plato offered a smile. His gaze drifted over her body. Marlowe pressed her knees together and cupped her hands in her lap as if she suddenly realized that she barely had any clothes on.
