After that day, the other kids took to calling me Mike Ass-brook. The nickname stuck with me all the way to sixth grade. Thank Christ we moved away before I went to junior high school, giving me a fresh start with new peers who didn’t know about my rebel bowels.
That moment when I had first felt the poo shoot out of me as I hit the ground, I had felt horror, true and godless and Lovecraftian. Since that day, I’d felt it a few more times, but more often than not I felt simple fear or stress or embarrassment. I hadn’t felt horror on a regular basis until I’d met Sage and started rolling naked in gore and worked my way up to blasting jizz on the faces of the dead. But even the shock and dread of all that had faded in time, leaving a nauseous angst and self-disgust where horror had once reigned.
But here in this warehouse, horror had come home.
I felt it nestling into my marrow and chilling my teeth, as if my every nerve was exposed. Dread pulsed a slow tread through my veins. My sweat dribbled cold as icicles melting come sunrise.
“Hold on,” I said, but didn’t know what to say next.
“This is how it is, Mr. Mike,” Lester said. “Way I see it is like this—if ya whack this bozo, that puts ya just deep enough into the dirty work so that you’ll be too afraid to ever say peep to the fuckin’ cops. Cause if you squeal on me for murder, you’ll be squealing on yourself too. You go from an accessory after the fact to an accomplice, see? That, my friend, is the best insurance.”
Lester kept his pistol pointed at me and reached into his coat with his free hand, retrieving another one. I didn’t know anything about guns but I knew this was a revolver, maybe a .38, whereas his was the kind that takes a magazine, a Glock or something. His looked much scarier as he handed the revolver over to me. I didn’t reach for it.
“Take it,” he said.
He stepped in a little, the barrel of the Glock inching closer to my face. I’d never had a gun pointed at me before and worried that I might relive the poop on the playground incident all over again. I reached out slowly for the revolver.
“Now I’ve got ya in my sights,” Lester said. “You point that thing anywheres near me I’m gonna punch you so fulla holes you’ll look like fishnets.”
I nodded, assuring him I wouldn’t dare turn the gun on him.
“Now,” Lester said, “I’m gonna step back, and you’re gonna put a slug into this fat rat’s skull. Capisce?”
“Lester, I—”
“Look, man. Don’t feel too bad about it. Dom here turned to a rival crime boss and tried to get me to do the same. He created a lotta suspicion around me that I don’t fuckin’ need. On toppa that, this human cum-splat deals in kiddie porn, all right? So you ain’t killin’ some innocent man here. Besides, ya ain’t got much choice. The only choice is: you pop him or I pop you and then I pop him. Not exactly a hard decision to make, am I right?”
I looked to Sage, who was staring back at me. Her lower lip was trembling but I couldn’t read her eyes. She looked very distant and in that clenched moment I wondered if I had ever really known her at all.
“Don’t lookit her,” Lester said. “She can’t help ya. Ya wanna lookit somebody, lookit fuckin’ him.” He leaned his head toward Dom.
So that’s what I did. I looked at Dom.
He was hunched over, staring at the ground so I couldn’t see his face. He might’ve been praying or crying. I noticed there was some gray in his black hair and I wondered how old he was. He was at least my age. I wondered how many times he had felt real horror. I figured this moment in his life ranked somewhere at the top. He was bound on the floor of a blood-slicked warehouse with armed criminals, one of them demanding he be shot. I might have pitied him, but maybe he deserved to feel that horror. Lester said he was a child pornographer and a turncoat. He might deserve a good scare, or prison time, but did he deserve a bullet to the head? I would’ve felt a little better about things if I knew for sure that he was what Lester said he was, but I doubt it would have made it any easier for me to kill him. I didn’t back away from confrontation. I stood my ground with assbags like Galanos and was willing to teach a lesson to creeps like Tony the Douche when it came down to it. But pushing a guy into a grocery store end cap wasn’t quite the same as blowing a hole in his face.
“Whatchu waitin’ for?” Lester asked.
I looked to Sage again. She gave me a quick glance and then she did something that hardened my stomach. She shrugged—a completely weak, noncommittal gesture, as vague as it was apathetic. I wished I still had her on the floor so I could bash her face into the concrete even harder than I had while we’d been fucking.
“Do it!” Lester yelled, shifting something on his gun with an audible click.
I put both hands around the grip of the revolver and raised it up ever so slowly. Every muscle in my body seemed to tighten, and yet I felt like I was on the verge of collapsing. The blood puddles beneath my feet pulled on my shoes like quicksand as I moved in closer. Dom still did not look up at me. That was better. If I had to look him in the eyes what little nerve I had would be lost forever. I stood before him now, trembling, lost in the thick, choking arms of horror.
Murderer. I was on the verge of becoming a goddamned murderer.
Bad enough to be a criminal, an accessory to murder, a corpse fucker, and a blood-bathing ghoul. Now I was close to going whole hog and becoming a killer. Suddenly I wondered if this had been Lester and Sage’s plan for me all along.
Well, fuck that.
I lowered the pistol and stepped away. “Lester, I just can’t—”
“Ya little faggot!”
That’s when he came at me. He didn’t shoot but instead charged forward like he was going to grab me. Maybe he was going to put his gun to my temple and scream in my ear until I shot Dom. Maybe he was going to kick the shit out of me. Whatever he had planned, he didn’t get to do it. I backed away from his advance and Lester moved quickly, oblivious to the pool of blood I’d been standing in. His cowboy boots must have had zero traction, because his left foot slipped backward and when he tried to right himself his other foot slid out beneath him too. As he fell face-first he tried to put out his hands to break his fall, but he didn’t want to let go of the gun. When he landed he did so awkwardly and I heard his fingers snap as they bent in all the wrong directions. His pistol spun a foot away from him. I went to kick it further away and like an idiot I ended up slipping in the blood just as he had. I fell on my funny bone. Pain vibrated through my left arm, but I held the revolver in my right hand. I hadn’t dropped it. I pointed it at Lester as he scrambled to get up.
“Don’t move!”
But he didn’t listen. He made a grab for my gun.
Okay, I told myself, this is it. You have to shoot him!
But by the time I squeezed the trigger he had clutched onto the revolver in my hands and pointed it away from him. A shot rang out and the bullet disappeared into the shadows. Sage shrieked. I still held the gun, but Lester held my hands. We wrestled for control of the weapon while Sage stood over us, gaping like a dumbstruck mule. She was so close to Lester’s Glock. She could have picked it up and made a choice of who to help, but she didn’t. Instead she just hovered over us, staring like a kid sitting too close to the TV.
Lester was stronger than me. His good fingers wrapped around the barrel and I felt my grip loosening, my palm slick with sweat. The mangled mess of his other hand was close, the one he’d busted, so I opened my mouth and bit down on the twisted fingers. Lester howled but didn’t let go at first. He tried to bear it, but I was applying intense pressure to already broken bones. The pain must have been excruciating.
With a sudden jerk Lester ripped his hand away from me and I got control of the revolver. I wanted to tell him to freeze and get him tied up just like Dom until I could figure out what I was going to do with him. But Lester didn’t give me the chance and, to put it his way, it was not exactly a hard decision to make, am I right?
When he dove for his Glock, I fired. His body jerked an
d he fell on his chest into the red puddles, the fresh hole in his lower back steaming in the frosty air. He should have just stayed down, but Lester was a real hard case. He reached for his pistol, still hoping to get the upper hand, and I shot him in the back of the head. A red puff exited his forehead, adding fresh gore to the blood pool below him as his face fell forward in a wet splat.
I vomited so abruptly that I didn’t even think to open my mouth. At first it came out of my nostrils, but then I came to my senses and opened wide, the remains of my burrito dinner splattering on top of Lester as he died, sending him to hell in a blanket of undigested refried beans.
***
I cannot express just how awful it felt to kill someone. Even though it was self-defense—Lester would have killed me if I hadn’t killed him—the moment the bullet entered his brain I felt a horror that made all my other horrors seem like cheap Halloween scares by comparison. In the movies, Rambo and John McClane and all those guys make shooting villains seem cool and lightweight. They even crack one-liners before murdering the bad guys. But there’s nothing easy or comical about being a real-life executioner. It’s a truly harrowing experience.
I suppose I should have been careful and grabbed Lester’s Glock before Sage could go for it and try to avenge her cousin. But I was in a daze. Not that it mattered. Sage didn’t go for the gun or attack me. She just stood there, looking down at Lester with dreamy eyes, a little girl at Disneyland gazing at some poor schmuck in a Mickey Mouse costume.
“Holy shit,” I said, panting. The remainder of Lester’s brains was oozing out of his blown-open forehead. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
“Calm down,” Sage hushed.
“Calm down? How the fuck am I supposed to calm down? I just blew your cousin’s brains out!”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I saw. Thanks a lot, by the way.”
“What?”
“I liked Les.”
“Sage, I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you did. All you had to do was kill this guy.” She pointed at Dom, who was still on his knees. “But instead you killed the only real family I had. Way to go, moron.”
“I didn’t want to kill anybody at all!”
“Well, you really blew that.”
I looked all around the warehouse without any idea of what the fuck I was looking for, hoping a solution would magically come to me. I picked up the Glock and stuck it into the belt of my jeans, still holding the revolver, a curl of cordite steaming from the barrel.
“Okay, let’s think.”
Sage sighed. “Let’s just go, Mike. I’m tired.”
“We can’t just go.”
“Why not? What’s done is done. I’m not happy about Lester, but he was trying to kill you. I can’t really blame you for defending yourself. I cared about him but, for some dumb reason, I care about you too.”
I was surprised by how good that made me feel.
I pointed at Dom. “What about him?”
Sage only shrugged.
“We can’t just leave him here like this,” I said. “And what about the Endrizzis? Lester must’ve talked to somebody before coming here. Somebody knows we’re here.”
“Well, somebody knows you are here. I doubt he said anything about me. He’s always careful to protect me.” She sniffled. “Or I guess I should say he was.”
I looked around the warehouse again. “They might even be watching us right now.”
“If they were, you’d already be dead.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, they’d have come in here by now and smoked you.”
This gave me some solace. Maybe nobody knew yet.
A man’s voice came from behind me, making me flinch. “Let me go.”
Sage and I looked down at Dom. When he raised his head, blood dribbled from his broken nose.
“Who are you, mister?” I asked. “Who are you really?”
“Just a guy.”
“What kind of bullshit answer is that?”
“Just an answer.”
I frowned. “You really into kiddie porn like Lester said?”
“Nah. No way.”
Sage scoffed. “Of course he’s going to say no if you ask him that, Mike. Don’t be stupid. Les had no reason to make that up.”
“Why’d Lester bring you here?” I asked Dom.
“The Endrizzi family thought I was dealing with a rival mob. Thought I was spilling their secrets to the Ciccarones.”
“And were you?”
“Does it really matter to you, man?”
“What were you dealing in?”
He took a moment to answer. “Just stuff.”
“Stuff, huh?” I sneered. “Lester was telling the truth, wasn’t he? You are a kiddie porn dealer, aren’t you?”
Dom spat blood on the floor. “Like I said, does it really matter to you?”
It did matter. It seemed like it mattered to Sage too. She may not have wanted kids of her own, and she didn’t mind having sex in a room they’d died in, but that didn’t mean she wished them harm.
“Shoot him,” she said. “Kill the miserable child-rapist.”
“Listen,” Dom said. “I’ve got money.”
“That you made abusing children?” Sage said. “No thanks, asshole.”
“Lady, you don’t know what you’re—”
“Shut up, scumbag,” I interrupted. I turned to Sage. “Maybe we should let him go.”
“What the hell for?”
“Hear me out. If we let him go, we can pin Lester’s murder on him, say he managed to break out of his ties and grabbed the revolver from Lester’s pocket. The Endrizzis should buy that, if this guy is a turncoat. It’ll save me from getting whacked.”
Sage ran her hand through her hair. Some of it was matted with drying blood. Dom didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to mind the suggestion. I guess he figured the Endrizzis already had a death warrant out for him, so what did he have to lose?
Sage huffed. “So this pig gets to go on fucking babies so you can stay in good standing with the mob?”
The way she put it made me feel sick. “If he really is a child pornographer.”
“I’m not,” Dom said.
“You know he is, Mike.”
“Lady, I deal in stolen cars, okay?”
“Had time to think of something now, right, Dominick?”
“Look,” I said, “this guy’s dead meat either way. The Endrizzis will see to that. He’ll be too busy running for his life to make any movies.”
“And if he gets away?” Sage asked.
I sighed. Why did she have to pick now to grow morals and convictions?
“I can’t kill him, Sage. I just can’t do it. Shooting Lester was different. That was self-defense. This guy is on his knees with his hands tied behind his back.”
“Fine.” She held out her hand. “Give me the gun. I’ll do it.”
“Sage, I just killed someone and let me tell you, you don’t want that on your conscience. Killing someone is—”
“And what makes you think I haven’t killed someone before?”
Her eyes were like razors, sharp and unforgiving. I gulped as the cold reality hit me. I didn’t know this woman. I didn’t know her at all.
“You’ve killed someone before?”
A Billy Idol sneer rose up her face. “Hey, when you develop a fetish for blood, you end up doing some crazy things to get off.”
Time slowed down for me as Sage flapped her fingers against her palm, asking for the gun.
“So, you’re a thrill killer?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Just give me the shittin’ gun, Mike. I want to go home already—maybe have some wine, paint my toenails, and binge-watch The Gilmore Girls. That’s what you think all women do, right? They couldn’t possibly be killers. I’m not your lame-ass, soccer-mom wife, buddy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit on the wild side.”
I moved back another step. “If you murder people just for the sexua
l thrill of it, then that makes you as bad as he is.” I pointed at Dom.
“The fuck it does!” she snarled. “I never hurt any little kids! That’s a hell of a lot worse than killing hobos, hitchhikers, and prostitutes, people with no redeeming values, people society never even misses when they’re gone. And I always gave them a hot meal and a place to stay first. Their last day with me was probably one of the best days of their pathetic little lives. Hell, I did them a favor by murdering them!”
I hung my head. “Jesus.”
“Don’t you fucking Jesus me, Mike Ashbrook. I don’t need to be judged by some corpse-fucking failure! So I killed off a couple of nobodies. Big whoop. Besides, it wasn’t even that many. I was young then, okay? I was new to all of this. I had to do something.”
I put my hand to my forehead and ran it down my face. “So, just because they were poor, they were expendable, huh? Just because their daddies weren’t rich, they deserved to die?”
“Spare me the bleeding-heart liberal stuff. I didn’t say they deserved it, I just said it didn’t matter. I picked them because they were alone. They had no families, no friends. Nobody would call in a missing person.”
“Spoken like a true serial killer.”
Dom laughed. “See! The crazy bitch admits it. She’s the one you ought`ta kill.”
“Shut up,” I said. I didn’t tell him he had a point.
“How about this then,” Sage said. “If this fat dago really does have ties to a rival mob, what’s to stop him from using them to get revenge on us?”
“I won’t do that,” Dom said.
“Shut the fuck up!” I said, pointing a gun I had no intention to use.
But he didn’t shut up. “Why would I want revenge if you let me go?”
“‘Cause you mob ginnies are all the same,” Sage said. “You’re all black rose deliveries and horse heads under bed sheets.”
“Lady, this ain’t the movies. Maybe you should just sit your pretty ass down in the corner and let the men talk.”
Everyone fell silent. Sage reared back with her snow boot and kicked Dom in the face. Blood burst from his already broken nose in a crimson mist and he fell sideways onto the floor.
“Fucking misogynist pedophile!” she said, giving him a kick to the kidneys. “If I can’t shoot you, I sure as hell can stomp you to death!” She kicked and kicked, barraging him with flailing boots. Dom tried to roll away but it was no use. He was bound, defenseless, and Sage was rampaging. “I’m gonna bash your skull in and fuck myself with your brains!”
Toxic Love Page 14
