The Collection

by Bentley Little

  I looked down at the napkin, then across the street at the motel. In the bright light of early morning, I could clearly see the white squares against the motel room glass. But they no longer seemed like they were waiting to pounce. They no longer seemed malevolent.

  They seemed forlorn.

  Like they were waiting for me to come home.

  I picked up the napkin. It was soft and silken. "Kiss me," it whispered. "Touch me." I looked across the street at the motel room window, and I found myself becoming aroused.

  What was it they did to help people get over their fears? Made them face those fears? Made them confront their problems? I knew there was no way I could escape from the pillows. I would have to meet them head on.

  The waitress brought my check, which I paid. I waited until she left the room before standing so she wouldn't see my erection.

  I walked back across the street and stood for a moment in front of the window. The two pillows were pressed against the glass. The one which had taken advantage of me the night before looked soiled, dirty, and disgusting, covered with a crust of dried semen. But the other pillow, long and white, soft and supple, looked clean and fresh and innocent.

  Inviting.

  I licked my dry lips, thought for a moment, and took the key out of my pocket.

  I went into the room and closed the door behind me.

  Maya's Mother

  I wrote the story "Bumblebee" for Richard Chizmar's anthology Cold Blood. A horror story set in contem­porary Phoenix with a noirish detective for a protago­nist, it was written quickly. I cashed my check when payment arrived, shelved the book when I got it, and promptly forgot about the piece.

  But readers didn't.

  I don't think Cold Blood sold particularly well, but more than any other story I've written, "Bumblebee" has inspired fans to write and ask for a sequel. I finally wrote one many years later for the paperback magazine Palace Corbie. It was titled "The Piano Player Has No Fingers" (all of the stories in that issue were titled "The Piano Player Has No Fingers"; the gimmick for the issue was that all contributors would write a story using that as the title). I thought that would be the end of it, but still the requests kept coming.

  So for those of you who asked, here's another one.

  ***

  It was hot as I drove through the desert to the Big Man's. The place was out past Pinnacle Peak and at one time had probably been the only house out there, but now the city was creeping in, and there were only a few miles of open space between the last subdivision and the dirt road that led to the Big Man's compound.

  I turned onto the unmarked drive, slowing down, peering through my dusty windshield. The Big Man had made no ef­fort to landscape his property, but there was a lot more out here than just cacti and rocks. Doll parts were hanging on the barbed wire fence: arm and leg, torso and head. Mesquite crosses stood sentry by the cattle guard. A blood-drenched scarecrow with a coyote skull on its shoulders faced the road, arms raised.

  I hadn't expected him to be so spooked—or at least not so superstitious—and I was starting to get a little creeped out myself as I ventured farther into the desert and away from civilization. He wouldn't say over the phone why he wanted to hire me, had said only that he had a case he wanted handled, but the few details he'd given me were enough to pique my interest.

  His house was on a small rise, surrounded by saguaros, and was one of those Frank Lloyd Wrightish structures that had bloomed out here in the late fifties/early sixties when the Master himself had set up his architectural school north of Scottsdale. It was, I had to admit, damned impressive. Low, geometric, all rock and windows, it blended perfectly with the environment and bespoke an optimism for the fu­ture that had died long before they'd built the square shoe-box that was my dingy Phoenix apartment complex.

  One of the Big Man's men was out front to greet me, and he ushered me inside after allowing me to park my dirty shitmobile next to a veritable fleet of gleaming Mercedes Benzes. The interior of the house was just as impressive as the outside. Lots of light. Potted palms. Hardwood floors and matching furniture. I was led to an extra-wide doorway and ushered into a sunken living room approximately five times the size of my entire apartment. "He's here," the flunky said by way of an introduction.

  And I finally got to meet the Big Man.

  I'd heard of him, of course. Who in Phoenix hadn't? But I'd never met him, seen him, or even spoken to him. I looked at the man before me, underwhelmed. I'd been ex­pecting someone more impressive. Sydney Greenstreet, maybe. Orson Welles. Instead, this Richard Dreyfuss look-alike stood up from the couch, shook my hand, and intro­duced himself as Vincent Pressman.

  Time was when I wouldn't have even returned the man's phone call. I worked strictly for the good guys, followed all of the guidelines necessary to maintain my investigator's li­cense, dealt only with the law-abiding who had been screwed or were in some type of jam. I still try to keep it that way whenever possible, but there are gray areas now, and while I try to rationalize my behavior, I sometimes sit alone at night and think about what I do and realize that perhaps I'm not as pure and honest as I like to think I am.

  Which is a long way of saying that I now take cases that interest me. There are only so many lost dogs and missing teenagers and two-timing spouses that a man can handle.

  And the Big Man's case interested me.

  As I said, he didn't tell me much, but the hints had been tantalizing. Water turned to blood. A shadow that followed him from room to room, building to building. Obscene calls received on a disconnected phone. He claimed he didn't know who was behind all this, but I had the feeling he did, and I figured I could act as an intermediary between the two, bring them together and settle things out of court, as it were, without any bloodshed.

  At least that was my plan.

  I sat down as directed on a white love seat, facing the Big Man across a glass coffee table. He cleared his throat. "I've heard you're into this stuff, this supernatural shit."

  I shrugged.

  "I've had this place bugged and debugged, scanned by every electronic device known to man, and no one's been able to come up with an explanation for what's happening here."

  "But you don't think your house is haunted."

  He glared at me with cold steely eyes and, Richard Dreyfuss lookalike or not, I saw for the first time a hint of what made Vincent Pressman the most feared underworld figure in the Southwest. "I told you, someone's after me."

  I nodded, acting calmer than I felt. "And I asked you who it was."

  He sighed, then motioned for everyone else to leave the room. He stared at me, his eyes never leaving my own, and I held the gaze though it was beginning to make me feel un­comfortable. He did not speak until we heard the door click shut. Then he leaned back on the couch, glanced once to­ward the door, and started talking.

  "I had this maid working for me. Guatemalan bitch. She looked like a goddamn man, but her daughter was one fine piece of poon. Maya, her name was. Skinny little thing. Big tits. Always coming on to me. I don't usually like 'em young—I'm not a pedophile, you understand—but this babe got to me. She was sixteen or so, and she was always loung­ing around in her bikini, going to the fridge for midnight snacks in panties and a T-shirt. You know the drill.

  "Anyway, bitch mama gives me this warning, dares to tell me that I'd better stay away from her little girl. I see the daughter later, and she's got this bruise on her cheek, like she's been hit, beaten. I call mama in, give her a warning, tell her if she ever touches one hair on that girl's head I'll have her cut up and fed to the coyotes." He smiled. "Just try­ing to put a scare into her, you understand."

  I nodded.

  "So the girl comes back later, thanks me. One thing leads to another, I take her into my room and ... I fucked her." The Big Man's voice dropped. "The thing is, after I came, after I finished, I opened my eyes, and she was . . . she wasn't there. She was a rag doll. A full-sized rag doll." He shook his head. "I don't know how it happened, how
they did it, but it happened instantly." He snapped his fingers. "Like that! One second I was holding her ass, rubbing my face in her hair, the next I felt her ass turn to cloth, was rub­bing my face in yarn. Scared the fuck out of me. I jumped out of bed, and that doll was smiling at me, a big old dumb-ass grin stitched onto her head."

  He licked his lips nervously. "It didn't even look like Maya. Not really. I called on the intercom, ordered my men to make sure the girl and her mom didn't leave the house, told them to hunt them down and find them, especially the mom. When I turned back around, the bed was empty. Even the doll was gone."

  He was silent for a moment.

  "They were gone, too," I prodded. "Weren't they?"

  He nodded. "Both of them, and it was after that that the weird shit started happening. I put the word out, told my men to find the maid, have her picked up, but, as you know, she seems to have disappeared off the face of the fucking earth."

  "So you want me to find the woman."

  He leaned forward. "I want you to stop this shit. I don't care how you do it, just do it. Find her if you have to, leave her out of it, I don't care. I just want this curse gone." He sat back. "Afterward, after it's over, then I'll decide how to deal with her."

  I nodded. We both knew how he was going to deal with her, but that was one of those things he didn't want spelled out and I didn't want confirmed.

  I thought of Bumblebee, and while the memory of that situation remained sharp, the emotions had faded, and it seemed somehow more fun in retrospect.

  Well, maybe not fun.

  Interesting.

  Kind of the way this seemed interesting.

  "How did you find me?" I asked. "Phone book?"

  "I told you: I heard you handle this stuff."

  "From who?"

  He smiled. "I have my sources."

  I didn't like that. I hadn't told anyone about Bumblebee, and the only people who knew were either dead or had fled.

  "Word is that you're in tight with the wetbacks, too. I fig­ured that can't hurt."

  "You hear a lot of words."

  "I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't."

  I looked at him for what seemed an appropriate length of time. "All right," I said. "I'll do it. But it'll be twenty-five hundred plus expenses." That was far more than I usually charged, but I knew the Big Man could afford it.

  He agreed to my terms without question, and I knew that I could have and should have asked for more. But I'd always been bad at this part of the game, and once again my stu­pidity had screwed me out of a big payday.

  "You have a picture of this maid?" I asked. "And a name?"

  He shook his head.

  "Not even her name?"

  "I never used her name. Didn't matter to me." He mo­tioned toward the foyer. "Maybe Johnny or Tony knows."

  The arrogance of the powerful. I'd forgotten to take that into consideration.

  One of the flunkies came hurrying up. Pressman asked the maid's name but the flunky didn't know, and he hurried out, returning a few moments later, shaking his head.

  The Big Man smiled. "I guess that means we forgot to pay her social security tax."

  "But the girl's name is Maya?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "Maya's mother, then. I'll start there."

  "Do what you have to," he told me. "But I want results. I expect people to complete the jobs I hire them to do, and I don't like to be disappointed. Are we understood?"

  It was one of those movie moments. He'd probably seen the same movies I had and was playing his role to the hilt, but I felt as though I'd just sold my soul to the Mob, as though I'd jumped in over my head, painted myself into a corner, and was being forced to sink or swim. It was a scary feeling.

  But it was also kind of cool.

  I nodded, and Pressman and I shook hands. I had to re­mind myself not to get too caught up in the glamour of it all. These were the bad guys, I told myself. I was only working for them on a temporary basis. I was not one of them and never wanted to be.

  I drove back through the desert. There was only one per­son I knew who might be able to decipher this: Hector Marquez. Hector was a former fighter, a local light heavyweight who'd gotten railroaded by Armstrong and his goons a few years back for a payroll heist he'd had nothing to do with. I'd gotten him a good lawyer—Yard Stevens, an old buddy who still owed me a slew of favors—but even that had not been enough to counter the manufactured evidence and co­erced witnesses Armstrong had lined up, and Yard had told me, off the record, that probably the best thing for Hector would be if he disappeared. I'd relayed the message, and ever since there'd been a warrant out for Hector's arrest.

  I hadn't seen him after his disappearance, but I knew someone who knew someone who could get in touch with him, and I put the word out. I expected a long-distance phone call, expected Hector to be hiding either in Texas or California, but he was still right here in the Valley, and the woman who called on his behalf said that he wanted to meet with me personally.

  We set up the meeting for midnight.

  South Mountain Park.

  A lot of bodies had been dumped there over the years, and though the city had been trying for decades to clean up its image, the park remained a haven for gangbangers, drunken redneck teens, and the occasional naive couple looking for a lover's lane.

  In other words, not exactly a family fun spot.

  The view was spectacular, though, and as I got out of my car and looked over the edge of the parking lot, I could see the lights of the Valley stretching from Peoria to Apache Junction. Phoenix looked cleaner at night. The lights cut clearly through the smog, and everything had a sweeping cinematic quality that reminded me of how it had been in the old days.

  I was suddenly illuminated by headlights, and I turned around to see three silhouetted men standing in front of a parked Chevy. One of them started toward me.

  It had been three years since I'd seen Hector, and he definitely looked the worse for wear. He was probably in his late twenties but he looked like a man in his early fifties, and his old smooth-faced optimism had been buried under lines and creases of disillusionment and disappointment. His fighter's body had long since softened into pudge.

  "Hector," I said.

  He walked up to me, hugged me. The hug lasted a beat longer than was polite, and I understood for the first time that he had really and truly missed me. I didn't know why he'd stayed away if he was still living in the Valley, but I could only assume that it was because he hadn't wanted to get me into trouble, and I felt guilty for not making an effort to keep in touch.

  He pulled back, looked me over. "How goes it, man?"

  "My life doesn't change."

  "Solid."

  "As a rock."

  He laughed, and I saw that he had a new silver tooth in the front.

  "I don't know if Liz told you what I'm looking for, but I'm working on a case and I need to find a Guatemalan witch used to work as a maid. Her daughter's named Maya. I thought you might be able to introduce me to someone, set me up."

  Hector thought for a moment. "I don't know much about Guatemalans. But you talk to Maria Torres. She run a small I bodega on Central between Southern and Baseline. In an I old house by the Veteran's Thrift. Her son married to a Guatemalan girl. She can get you in."

  "You couldn't've told me that over the phone?" I ribbed him. "I had to come all the way out here in the middle of the night?"

  "I wanted to see you again, bro."

  I smiled at him. I'm not a touchy-feely guy, but I grasped his shoulder. "I wanted to see you too, Hector. It's good to see you again."

  We caught up a bit on our respective lives, but it was clear that Hector's friends were getting antsy, and when the lights flashed and the horn honked, he said he'd better get going.

  "I'll call," I promised. "We'll get together somewhere. In the daytime. Away from Phoenix."

  He waved.

  The next morning I learned that Hector had been fol­lowed.

&nbs
p; Armstrong was the one who called me. Gleefully, I thought. He told me they'd found Hector in a Dumpster, burned beyond recognition. His teeth had been knocked out first and his fingertips sliced off so there'd be no possibility of positive identification. The cops had been able to ID the men with him, however, and one of the women who'd come down to claim the body of her husband said that Hector had been hanging with these guys and had ridden with them last night and was in all probability the other man.

  The lieutenant paused, savoring his story. "That Dump­ster smelled like a fuckin' burnt tamale."

  I hung up on him, feeling sick. Immediately, I picked up the phone again and dialed the Big Man's number. I was so furious that my hand hurt from gripping the receiver so tightly, and when he answered the phone himself and gave me that silky smooth "Hello," it was all I could do not to yell at him.

  "You killed Hector Marquez," I said without preamble.

  "Is this—?"

  "You know damn well who this is, and you killed Hector Marquez."

  "Sorry. I don't know anyone by that name."

  "I'm off this case. You can find some other sucker to do your dirty work."

  "I wouldn't do that." The Big Man's voice was low, filled with menace.

  "Fuck you."

  He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. If something happened to someone you know—and I'm not saying it did or that I'm in any way involved—then it was probably a mistake. If you'd like, I could look into it for you."

  "I want you to make sure it never happens again. If I'm going to continue, I need to have your word that no one is going to be murdered, no one I talk to is going to be at­tacked. You want to follow me, fine. But just because I'm getting information from someone doesn't mean they're in­volved with this. You let me handle this my own way, or I'm off. You can threaten me all you want, but those are my terms, those are my rules, that's the deal. Take it or leave it."

  "I understand," he said smoothly. "A slight misunder­standing. As I said, I am in no way connected to the death of your friend, but I think I have enough clout that I can assure you nothing like it will ever happen again. You have my word, and I'm sorry for your loss." He paused. "Do you have any leads?"