by JJ DeCeglie
Fucking.
Snake.
CHAPTER 16
A conversation had with the self:
Well Jack you really and surely fucked up this time, atta boy!
Cut the insults clown and think.
Ok, how about this then, she could be anyway by now…Sound right? Any fucking where!
Maybe so, but she had to get outta here first didn’t she?
Yeah she did…taxi, or maybe someone picked her up.
Taxi, had to be, she ain’t got any friends.
That’s a big assumption, and you know what they say about’em.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...they’re the mother of all fuck-ups, well I’ll be fucked if we ain’t past that goddamned stage already though ain’t we.
Good point son, good point. You did fuck this up royally didn’t ya, you gotta say so…Maybe your best ever effort yet.
The airport?
Probably you asshole.
She would have had to book it when she got there; she had no real idea as to when we were gonna be done.
Sounds right.
Speak to the night man.
Worth a shot.
You think?
He’ll see your face.
All bets are off.
Go fuck yourself Jack.
I’m way ahead of ya pal.
I burst out the room. Flanked the building and made for reception. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. The dark stunk of loneliness and betrayal. The night man was as aged as death himself. Decrepit and hunched over the desk drinking black coffee and reading a tattered paperback. I scanned the room for other humans, of which there were none. I did another check for the ominous scythe. It was free of that too. When I approached the desk he looked up at me with eyes that were so yellow you coulda sworn he had malaria. His hair was the same sickly colour. He stared at me with a pair of palpable ‘What the fuck could you possibly want’ eyes.
I could see this was gonna be bundles of fun.
Excuse me, uh, you haven’t seen a redheaded woman leave here have you?
He looked through me like he’d shit himself an hour ago and was still recovering from it. I tried again. Repeating what I’d gabbed on the first go.
I heard you the original time son.
I was in no mood to keep my cool. I let him have a version of it.
Good for you old man. Did you see her or not?
Haven’t seen a thing all night.
I was guessing he wanted to get paid. I laid a fifty on the counter. This old motherfucker!
How about now?
Well…
This elderly fuck was really getting to me real fast.
Well what old man, spill it will ya.
There was a taxi.
Right, what about it?
Came maybe an hour ago.
I fished in my pocket, found then slapped a second fifty on the counter. He was lucky I didn’t slap him, knock the false teeth right out his fucking mouth.
Nobody took it. Driver came in and said a woman ordered it for the airport. She disappeared though. He said he was running late. Should have been there twenty minutes earlier than he was. Wasn’t called through the front you see. She must have used the room phone.
A phantom cab huh?
That’s right…sound like your girl.
Maybe.
I thought a second. His geriatric stench was clouding my mind and choking my throat.
Nothing else then.
Just that. A no show, wasn’t the first time there’s been one, and it won’t be the last.
He’s a fucking philosopher now too. I bullshitted him some.
Yeah and time and tide wait for no man do they.
Never a truer word said son.
I put one more fifty on the counter.
You didn’t see or hear a thing right?
He smiled. It was horrible saliva ridden event I can tell you.
I never do.
I walked back to the car with my skull buzzing. It seemed I was perhaps finally fucked. This was the end of the road buddy. The curtains had closed. The coffin nailed shut. If she had gone to the airport there was no way I could find out what flight she’d boarded. Not with the way security was at those places was nowadays. The way I played it out in my head was that she had panicked when the cab was late and gone out onto the street to hail one down. Now she was flying her oh so lovely shape far away and never coming back. Business men were buying her champagne and looking down her top. It was a huge mistake to give her those documents before I’d gotten my money. I threw the hotel key at room door and got in the car and drove.
I was tired, I was hungry.
Everything had turned to shit.
Though I shouldn’t’ve been surprised, I’d always had that King Midas in reverse thing going for me, everything I touched went to shit, it always had and would.
I couldn’t believe I didn’t have the money. Just could not fucking fathom it. I’d been too busy planning what I was gonna do to her ass to cover every angle. Too hot for the sweltering sweet of her honeypot to see I was gonna get played. Where in fuck was I gonna find the rest of the money I owed.
Where in goddamned hell….
It struck me like a jarring uppercut I never saw coming, but instead of knocking me out, it buoyed me like a flotation device would a drowning man. It was all that money talk, the thought repeating in my head.
The money.
The money!
The goddamneded motherfucking money…
She couldn’t leave with all that.
She couldn’t board a plane with it.
It had to be a bluff.
Had to be.
Call a cab asking for the airport, dodge it knowing the driver will go to the front desk. Knowing I’ll do the same thing too. Walk her perfect ass down the street and get another and hole up some place else. The fact that the thing was late was just a bonus to her, made it look more legit, or maybe she caught him down the road and told him to do it, then he loops around and picks her up anyhow. With how she looked she could tell a man to jam a cactus in his ass and he’d do it just on principle. Just to say he did it, and that she had asked him to.
The further I drove the more I convinced myself. She’d paid me twenty-five already, agreed to fifty plus expenses; let’s say she had ten times the initial at least. She wasn’t getting that on a plane with it stacked nicely in her suitcase.
No way, no day.
I parked the car by the river as I’d told Chenko I would and then walked down closer and took a look over at the city stuck there paralyzed and the stagnant river below it. I spit in the water and then walked back toward my place. I was exhausted. I slipped in through the yard of the house I’d slipped outta before and then jumped the back connecting fence like a acrobat. I let myself in, stripped naked and just collapsed on the bed.
I’d had enough but knew tomorrow would bring more.
She was still in town, and I was gonna find her.
She was still in town and I was gonna fuck her.
Yeah the mantra went like that, over and again, a furious repetition in sync with my swollen pounding heart.
Like a drum being smacked at by some crazy-ass demon, it went and it went.
Oh yes, oh yeah, oh yep, that little fucking bitch and her second to none ass would sure as shit be mine.
CHAPTER 17
I was awoken all of a sudden by an inhuman hammering on my front door. The sun was up already and it clawed my eyes as soon as I opened them. Now came the best part, as soon as I stood up I got the rush of a prejudiced hangover slung at me.
Yeah, I was hurting.
Hurting real bad.
I had to make way to the nearest sink and throw up red, white and blue. Followed by the appalling dry heaving, all the while those assholes wouldn’t quit trying to smash my door down. I drank some water from the faucet above the sink I’d vomited in and then went and put a pair of shorts on.
When I looked through the door
I could see it was the cops, even though they were plain clothed dicks they still had enough off an air of jerk-off to give’em away.
Because they were cops I went back and took a handful of painkillers from the cupboard and swallowed them with some more water direct from the faucet. Both to piss them off some more and to prepare myself for the impending assault. Then I ambled back up and finally opened the door. Fuckers crashed through it when I did. I knew it had something to do with Evie, I just wasn’t sure what.
You Jack Andrelli?
No…I’m Michael Jordan.
The fuck’s he talking about?
There were two of’em. Both big bullish bastards. One was more restrained than the other.
He’s a smartass.
Oh is he?
Yeah I am...so what?
The less restrained jerk-off pushed me with a sharp prod in the shoulder. Fucking Dirty Harry over here.
You gonna come easy dickhead?
Depends on where we’re going.
I knew the answer, I just couldn’t help being a wiseass.
You’ll see dickhead, you’ll see.
Then the other one pipes up.
Go put some clothes on would ya, we wanna get this done before lunch.
You buying?
Me being an asshole again. They were getting sick of it fast. I was impressing myself with the serration of my wit considering how shitty I was fucking feeling.
This guy doesn’t quit.
I got serious, mostly because I felt that I may faint if I didn’t take a cold shower soon.
Say, what’s this all about anyway?
We’ll tell ya when we get there?
Dirty Harry prodded me again, this time in the chest. They could play the game too, he was warning me.
Just let me wash my face then.
Sure dickhead, go for it. Just don’t take all morning. And put some fucking clothes on like my partner here asked you to.
If you girls want a coffee just help yourselves.
I called it out as I went back in. All I heard was the distant confusion.
The fuck did he say?
I washed up and dressed leaving them in the doorway waiting awhile. It was gonna be question time in town but I couldn’t see where I fit in. By the time we were driving the tabs had worked some magic and the nausea had all but left after I’d stuck my fingers down my throat a couple of times back at the house before we left. It was a sun spangled day and the grass and roads and trees were in form and sparkling. I wished I had enough left in me to give a shit. They were straight at me once we were in the room and the tape recorder was on. Like alternating jabs from a boxer trying to wear me down in the ring. The one guy sat, while Dirty Harry lurked about the room in wait.
You know Jack a really beautiful woman went missing last night, we think she was probably murdered.
What woman?
Her name is Evangeline Lorenzi; we found your name and number in a notebook she had in her handbag. The handbag was in the hotel room she was maybe murdered in… but you probably knew that didn’t you Jack.
Dirty Harry threw the notebook on the table. There was my name and number alright, clever little cunt.
What hotel?
Where were you last night Jack?
Drinking.
By yourself?
No. You call Larry Chenko. He was at my joint drinking with me some of the night.
You blow each other while you were at it?
Dirty Harry had said that whilst behind me creeping about in stealth. The other guy really didn’t seem too bad in comparison, only half an asshole. He picked up the police file that was sitting on the table and handed it to Harry. It was mine and he started flicking through it like he’d never seen it before.
I'm looking at this file here Jack. You were a citizen a long time ago. Studied literature at university? How’d he fucking manage that? Oh you didn’t, you flunked out. Things really turn to shit though don’t they Jack. Drunken disorderly, mayhem, resisting arrest, assaulting a cop, withholding evidence. Associating with known felons. Three hundred bucks owing in public urination fines.
Pissing in public, well, what I can say fellas, very good policing there, you fucking got me.
There was a knock on the door and then another cop just went ahead and let himself in. He whispered something into the Dirty Harry’s ear and he smiled wide like this guy had told him ‘No Harry, your dick ain’t as small as everyone says it is, look right here son, I got the stats to back this shit up too!’. This other guy walked out and then returned. This time he had another man with him, well more so a kid, about twenty-four maybe, mouth pursed like he was constipated and had been for days. I figured him for the night man at the hotel we’d played it out in and stared right at him without blinking. He scrutinized me for about five seconds and the shook his head saying.
It’s not him, he was bigger, much bigger.
You bet he was.
Get him outta here.
I gave them both a big smile, Harry first and then the other.
You’re still a murder suspect asshole, that don’t mean shit.
Can I go?
Hold up a minute there Jack.
I knew what was coming. He’d held it for now and pretended like he’d just happened upon it in the file still sitting there in his hand. He was a prize motherfucker this guy.
You’ve been a murder suspect before I see. Girl died in your house huh, suspicious circumstances, alotta blood, played out as suicide in the end but you probably did right Jacky, killed her too didn’t ya, you must be getting pretty good at it by now, this murder thing, comes easy when you practice…she was your girlfriend huh.
All the talk about Lexy was getting me pretty steamed. I kept my cool for the moment though, all I did was smile.
Am I supposed to psychologically implode now?
I don’t know, I’m just saying, that’s all…
Saying what?
I’ve got a degree you know Jack, I actually finished it unlike you shit for brains, it’s in criminal psychology and I got it on those mean streets.
Like I said, a prize motherfucker.
I got a degree myself.
Yeah?
Yeah…it’s a Masters in Suck My Dick Faggot.
Dirty Harry didn’t appreciate that one.
I think you killed Evangeline Lorenzi…and I think you killed your girlfriend.
You mention my dead girlfriend again and you’re gonna be unhappy about it you fucking asshole.
What was her name…Alexis… nice name… pretty…did you make plans together, shit like that…oh look at this she was only…
By then I’d had enough.
The red mist settled in my vision like a fresh and fine blood spray.
My ears were ringing with a swarm of looming locusts.
The switch had flicked and that was that. I kicked the table full force so that it cannoned into his thighs and sent him lunging forward at me, then I took a handful of hair and punished his head hard as I could into the top of it three times over. The other asshole just sat there stunned and Dirty Harry went to ground groaning like he was gonna give birth.
He came up raging, a monster from the sea, bleeding from the nose, mouth and the gash above his eye. It was dripping all over place like an overfilled cup of coffee. I swore out loud because of what I’d done and thought to myself ‘Shit…this’ll cost ya’.
When he went for me the other asshole restrained him and yelled for help. It took three people to get him outta there. Coughing and bleeding, spitting and swearing at me simultaneous. After the tape was played back to a senior officer I was let go. Whole thing took about ninety minutes. I threatened that I’d go to the media with the whole thing. Not sure what actually happened behind closed doors and on first retrospection thought they may have bought the whole newspaper, television bullshit I’d spun. Though with further thinking it was more likely old Dirty Harry had a bad rep and was on a warning of some sort. He’d done this k
inda thing happen before, though probably he’d dished out the pain and not taken it. Even more likely was that his partner was sick of this shit and had said so. Had refused to doctor some story that got their asses out the fire. I’d just got lucky was all.
