Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Scrub time,” he announced over his shoulder, heading for the bathroom.

  “Cleanliness is next to godliness, I always say. How about you, Miss.

  Snow? Don’t go away.”

  He went into the bathroom and turned on the faucets.

  Give her time to let her imagination run a little bit. He had no intention of really using any of that stuff except maybe the scissors, but a guy who had been fired from the CIA had taught him that nothing you could do or say was as scary as what they could think up using their own fervid imaginations. Properly stimulated, of course. He took off the black leather gloves and then looked at his face in the mirror. Should probably go down and check on Navy. Fuck it, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Might even have choked to death by now. That was okay, too. But still … He left the water running and came back out of the bathroom.

  Ignoring the woman tethered on the bed, he went to the bedroom door and opened it up and listened.

  There were no sounds from downstairs. He closed the door again. Nothing happening downstairs.

  He went back into the bathroom and started washing his hands.

  He stared at his face in the mirror. You’ve really done it now, Malachi, he thought. Kidnap appetizer, murder for two coming up. The Hardin girl was murder, dummy. No it wasn’t—that was manslaughter.

  Woman-slaughter, to be politically correct. The bitch went the wrong damn way, just like most of them did when they were driving. And her brother? Well, that wasn’t supposed to have happened either. The Guidos screwed that one up. Neither of them supposed to be whacked. Screwups, both of them. Not deliberate. But the whole thing had come apart, just like so many things in this goddamn town. How many really big messes in this town had begun over nothing more than a series of screwups? He took a deep breath through his nose, filling his chest while he watched his face in the mirror. He had found her liquor supply while prepping the house, and the bourbon hadn’t been half bad —a little weak, not like the Harper hundred, but good enough. He could feel that familiar core of warmth in his stomach, all his nerve ends nicely pacified and his mind running at top end. Amazing what a little jolt or six could do for you.

  But this here business tonight, this was going to be clear-cut. He was going to confirm that the captain had sent them, and then he was going to immobilize them both and set the house afire. Two quarts of high-test gasoline were waiting on the kitchen table. Keeping it indirect, of course. He wouldn’t kill them—but the fire might. Yeah, might. And then he was going to seek out his former employer, the good captain, and break his back. That one, he would do directly. And if the captain’s almighty principal came over the horizon, showed up at the right place at the wrong time, he’d ice him, too. About time one of the great men paid the piper, instead of just all the snuffles. Then he was going to disappear right out of this town. The only thing he couldn’t change about his appearance was his size and his voice, but he had enough vehicles and papers and money to disappear with ease. He searched his conscience, but, like his sexual drive, it was long gone. So, hey, let’s get to it.

  The water from the sink had begun to steam up the mirror, so he shut it off and dried his hands. He pulled the automatic from his right-front waistband and stuffed it into his pants at the middle of his back. In the sudden silence, he fished out the pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and snapped them on, making lots of noise for the benefit of the “patient” in the bedroom.

  He had thought about wearing a mask but then had discarded the idea. His face probably lent a certain something to the proceedings. Holding his gloved hands dramatically up in the air in front of him, he went back into the bedroom.

  By wedging his right hand between the hard floor and his left forearm, Dan had managed to start the wad of blood-soaked tape moving. After several tugs, he got two fingers of his right hand free. Now, where’s that shard of glass? Gone. He felt all around the floor for it, but it was gone. Gotta move around, find another piece of glass. He bumped his head against something and grunted, and then he thought he heard a door open somewhere. He froze. Upstairs. The sound was coming from the second floor. Don’t make noise. Don’t make that bastard come back down here and kick your head in. Grace’s only chance is if you get out of this. He heard the door close again, definitely upstairs, and started his blind inchworm act again. Find it. Find it.

  Find it. Don’t think about what’s happening up there, just get free. His nose started bleeding in earnest again, and he had to snort it clear several times while he did his blind crawl. Finally, the back of his right hand landed on something sharp. He froze, then carefully, carefully rotated his hand, having to twist his whole body because of all the tape, until he got the piece of glass between his thumb and forefinger. Twisting his hand, he started sawing on the band of tape that bound his wrist to his other forearm. It was very hard to do.

  The same blood that had dissolved the mastic now made it almost impossible to hold on to the glass. He dropped it several times, freezing each time so that he could find it again. After an eternity of effort, he was able to twist his right wrist and feel the wonderful sound of tape tearing. The more the tape tore, the more he could move his hands, and the more he could cut. Within a minute, he had freed his arms; he could finally sprawl on the floor in something besides the fetal position, the shard of glass gripped tightly in his right hand.

  He recovered his breathing for a moment and then went to work on the face tape, cutting straight up from the nose slip, slicing his cheek in the process but not stopping, cutting until he reached his hairline. He took a deep breath and then ripped the tape off his face in both directions, gulping great drafts of air through his mouth now that he was free. Free. Using his teeth, he tore the rest of the tape off his hands. Gotta get up there, get Grace out of there.

  But how? The guy was a monster. He needed a weapon. Dumb shit, What you need is help. Call the cops. Call 911. Then go after the bastard. He rolled over onto his hands and knees, then made the mistake of trying to stand up. There was a loud buzzing noise in his ears as he raised his head to get up, and then a great sheet of purple pain flowed from the back of his neck and across his eyes. He collapsed onto the floor, his neck on fire.

  He lay there for a minute, trying to get his bearings and swallow down the waves of nausea roaring through his body. The guy had rabbit-punched him, and now his neck didn’t work. Tough to walk with no neck. How the hell did those guys in the movies manage it? His neck felt like it was broken. Okay, so crawl. But get to a phone. He crawled like a baby, elbows down, hips scrunching forward, elbows moving, then hips again. He was unable to really lift his head, his chin bumping along the carpet in the living room and on through to the dining room. He could see the white phone cord coming out of the wall. But how to reach the phone. It was way the hell up there, on the table. Pull it down.

  It’ll make noise. He’ll hear it. He rolled over on his back and began pulling on the cord. Slowly. You’re gonna catch it when it falls. No noise. No noise. His nose had started bleeding again. Won’t wear this shirt again, will we? Flat on his back now, he kept pulling, his eyes locked on the edge of the dining room table until the phone appeared.

  Now. Sit up. Maybe you can reach it. But his head was buzzing again, and his vision was fading in and out. Lots of pretty colors, though.

  The buzzing grew louder.

  Malachi walked over to the bed. The woman was all eyes, staring at him, her mouth trying to work under the tape; she was making a sort of mewing sound. He stood over her for a minute, picked up the bone saw and examined it before putting it back down on the table, and then began to rearrange the surgical implements on the table, as if trying to decide.

  He sloshed a little more alcohol out onto the table to heighten the atmosphere.

  “What I’ve got to know, Miss. Snow,” he began, “is why you have my name down there on that pad of paper.

  My name and two little words with it: Captain and Target”

  He looke
d over at her to see if she was watching. She was. Good girl. He picked through the instruments while he talked to her, picking each one up, turning each of them over an dover. Letting her watch. Letting the light make them gleam.

  “See,” he continued, “when I was here the other night, I sort of read your mail. Yeah, that’s right, I’ve been here before. And that’s when I knew that you and I were destined to meet. Here’s my theory, okay? I think the captain has hired you to come after me because of the Hardin problem. You remember the Har din problem, don’t you? Just nod your head. That’s right. Okay. So that’s what I need to know.”

  He stopped and looked down at her.

  “You know, you don’t look very comfortable. Why don’t we make you a little more comfortable, okay?

  Let’s start with all these clothes.”

  He picked up the large pair of surgical scissors and, starting at the hem of her dress, began cutting straight up, right alongside the line of buttons, cutting the slip and the dress together, all the way up to the shirttails of her blouse, and then cutting that, too, until he reached the V of her blouse. He pulled all the fabric aside and then he cut down either arm, baring her shoulders as he flattened the remains of the dress and the blouse and the slip. Her bra and panties were bright white in the light of the table lamp as he cut them off, snipping all the elastic and straps until he was able to brush everything aside. He put the scissors back on the table and then folded the cut clothing away from her body, pulling it out from under her and leaving her totally exposed on the bed. He sat back and admired his handiwork. Damn the German whore again for the thousandth time. What a waste.

  She was crying again, her eyes squeezing shut, her mouth working under the gray duct tape. She didn’t know it, but there was nothing sexual about this part: Naked and pinioned on her back, she was totally, inescapably helpless. He reached up and ripped the tape off her lips in a single pull. She cried out but then went silent, tears welling in her eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. “You think I’m going to rape you. I’m not going to rape you. You kicked me, remember?

  I mean, after all, what kind of a guy can do a good rape after a kick in the balls, hunh? Have to be a really special guy, don’t you think? But you know what? I am special. Look at me, bitch!”

  She jumped when he yelled at her, her eyes getting wide again. She mumbled something, her voice unintelligible.

  “That’s right, Miss. Snow, I’m a really special guy,” he said, getting up off the bed and moving up to stand next to her head. “Really special.

  Here, take a look. said: take a look!”p>

  He undid his belt and pulled his trousers down over his hips. The gun dropped out on the carpet with a clunk, but he ignored it. He wanted her to look. He wanted her to understand that she was going to be a part of paying off an old debt. Standing no more than two feet from her face, he pulled down his underwear.

  She gasped at the sight of his mutilated groin, at the web of pale white belt-sized scars crisscrossing where his sex should have been.

  “See, Miss. Snow?” he hissed, leaning over her. “I can’t fuck anybody. I can’t even piss like a guy anymore.

  I have to squat, just like you girls, Miss. Snow.” He continued, his voice rising, the fury returning as he yanked his clothes back together.

  “A god damned woman did this to me, Miss. Snow. And I swore that I would never, never, ever let another woman hurt me again. So when I found my name and that word Target on your little notepad down there, Miss. Snow, I decided to come back here and take care of business. So that’s why I’m here and why you’re there, and now you’re going to answer my questions.

  Because if you don’t, I’m going to select one of these little toys and maybe do unto you what that woman did unto me. I’m not a doctor, of course, but I can make a stab at it, so to speak.

  Understand? Understand?”

  She swallowed hard, nodded her head mutely, and finally got a single word out. “Yes.”

  He smiled then, an unlovely smile, and shook his head in mock wonderment. “God love a woman with no clothes on who says yes, Miss.

  Snow.”

  dan came back around after a minute or so, to find himself facedown on the floor, his head throbbing, breathing rapidly, and sweating like a pig. He tried to figure out where he was, and then the realization of precisely where he was and why jolted him fully awake.

  The phone. He turned over very slowly, careful not to invoke that buzzing noise again. He had to be very careful; he must have a concussion. He started tugging on the phone line again, until the instrument was teetering on the edge of the table, and then down it came in a cascade of instrument and handset, the phone hitting him in the stomach and the handset bouncing off his cheekbone—but noiselessly.

  Grab it, grab it and make the call. 911—three easy numbers. Just wait for the dial tone—there was no dial tone. The phone was stone dead. He put it down on the floor. The bastard must have killed the phones while he was waiting for them.

  Of course he would have.

  Upstairs. The sounds of the door opening and closing had come from upstairs. Gotta get up there. Right fucking now.

  He rolled over again, tried to collect himself on his hands and knees, and it was okay, not terrific, but okay, the buzzing noise coiling at the edges of the room, the room not moving around too much. The kitchen.

  Get a weapon of some sort out of the kitchen and get up there before …

  before … He didn’t want to think about what was going on up there. He crawled into the kitchen, still on his hands and knees. The door. The back door was open. Fuck the back door. Go out the front door, get to the street, and maybe crawl next door. Get help. And leave Grace? No way. He pulled a drawer open. Towels. He pulled another one out.

  Knives. Maybe he should get a knife. No way. Guy was too big; he would have to get real close to use a knife, and he could barely move. The next drawer came out and emptied itself on the floor. Baking equipment: sifters, cake pans. Wait. There was one of those straight rolling pins, the ones without the handles. A club. Shit.

  But a club, a club he could throw. He’d have one chance, surprise the fucker, step through the door with it in his hands, and when the guy came at him, he’d try to throw it underhand and hit him between the eyes.

  You’re a pitcher. This would be the ultimate slow pitch.

  David and Goliath. Right. Move your ass.

  Clutching the rolling pin in his left hand, still on his hands and knees, he scuttled across the linoleum floor to the dining room and then back into the living room —which was when he heard Grace scream.

  Malachi had slapped her when she screamed. He’d asked her a simple question—”Did the captain send you after me? Yes or no?”—and she had tried to lie.

  She’d said no, no one had sent her, asked which captain he was talking about, there were so many, and then he’d picked up a hemostat and clamped it onto her right nipple, and the bitch had screamed. His slap shut her right up, though. She wasn’t entirely stupid.

  “Don’t lie to me, bitch. I’ve taped your phones. I know all about Captain Vann. The one you met with tonight. With Mrs. Hardin. Don’t tell me you’re not working for him, because when he calls, you go. And you got Navy down there to go with you. On the Hardin case. So I know what this is about, okay? But here’s what I have to know: Is this Captain Vann working for the vice-chiefs flunky, Captain—”

  At that instant, the bedroom door burst open, and Malachi whirled around. He was stunned to see Dan in the doorway, but then he almost laughed. Navy was in the doorway all right, Navy with his swollen face, blood all over his face and shirt, patches of hair missing from his forehead, Navy wobbling around in the doorway as if his head wasn’t screwed on right, and holding a fucking rolling pin!

  “Oh shit, oh dear,” Malachi said, straightening up.

  He felt for the gun but then remembered it had fallen on the floor. Not a problem, he thought, looking at

  Dan.
Not a problem at all. Look at this bozo. Check it out, friends and neighbors.

  “Well, if it isn’t Julia Child,” he sneered. “Is she gonna bop me with that big bad rolling pin? Gonna run me right outta her kitchen?”

  He laughed again, and then, hunching his shoulders, he lunged across the room, but Navy did something with his arm—he couldn’t follow it, really—a whirl of motion, like a softball pitch, and then something hit him directly in his right eye, like a cannonball. He screamed and grabbed his face, unable to stop his forward momentum, dimly aware that Navy had fallen down in the doorway. Get you, you motherfucker, get you.

  Bending forward to get—but then he was hit in the right shin by another cannonball, and his leg gave way, pitching him right over the flailing figure on the floor and out into the hallway, to the top of the stairs, where he just stopped himself from going over by grabbing the balustrade. Jesus Christ, his leg was broken; he’d heard it crack. And his eye, his fucking eye—but then the crazy bastard was on him, screaming at him, hitting him with something. Have to get away. Let go.

  And then he was sliding down the stairs, the guy screaming something about knowing who he was, saying they were going to get him, that they knew everything. And then he went crashing onto the first-floor landing, by the front door, knocking a leg on the overturned card table and picking up a handful of broken glass as he tried to break his fall.

  There was an instant of silence when the lunatic stopped screaming at him from the top of the stairs. He rolled over and got up on his hands and knees, the movement almost making him throw up, his leg hurt so bad.