Of Daughter and Demon (5 page)

“That her?” Gimpy asked.

It was you, Alice. You wasn’t naked or
nothin’, though I knew there’d be other pictures where you were,
but you had a bruise under your eye and tears in them, and you’re
wearing a swim-suit while sitting on a big pink pillow. I got outta
the car, put the picture on the ground, and I burnt it cuz it was
making me crazy, Alice, it was making it so I couldn’t think, and
if I’m to get them that done this to you, and this puke seems to be
one of ‘em, I need to think. I took deep long breaths and I could
hear Gimpy’s teeth clacking, he was shaking he was so scared, and
he was right to be scared, because right then there was murder in
my heart, Alice, it was long and it was nasty, and both Gimpy and
me knew it.

“Tell me more.” I said.

Gimpy kept talkin’, faster at first, telling
me where to go and what words to say and the secret knock I had to
use like some kid trying to get into the All-Pukes Club. But I got
one of ‘em, the one on the bottom, and all I gotta do is work my
way up to the top.

And Gimpy, he may a been a puke once, but
he’s a saint to me now, Alice. It makes me sick to say this but
there ain’t no way I coulda found all this out without him. I’ll
never be mean to him or slap him around or call him a puke again,
because maybe, just maybe, people can change. He didn’t have to
help me, Gimpy didn’t. Guy like him, he could disappear and I’d
never hear of him again, and I bet he’s done it before, other
places, other towns. But could be he was tired a runnin’, and tired
a bein’ what he was, and could be Gimpy was trying to do some good
with whatever was left a that rotten life a his. I thanked him big
and shook his hand for the first time ever, and it wasn’t a reptile
hand, it wasn’t slimy or covered in scales and he didn’t have
claws, it was just a hand like anybody else has. To be honest, that
kind of scared me.

I paid Gimpy, gave him a ride to wherever he
needed to go and thanked him again. Then I went to where he told me
to go, I said the words he tole me to say, and soon enough I find
the guy.

“Unnerstan’ you’re lookin’ fer merchandise?”
he asked me, this little prick. He’s about my height and skinny
everywhere but his gut, which makes him look like he’s pregnant
with twins. He has long black hair and needs a shave, Alice, but he
ain’t gonna shave, cuz he ain’t ever gonna see the sun rise
again.

He took me out to his car which was parked in
this underground garage a few blocks from the bar we was in. I
couldn’t have asked for a better place to kill him, Alice.

He reached in the back seat a the car and
brought forward a worn old briefcase. He took a key on a chain
around his neck out from under his shirt and worked it into the
worn old lock. There was a whole bunch a pictures in there, Alice,
and not just of you. I couldn’t look in that briefcase anymore; I
couldn’t see all them little kids.

“I heard about this little blond,” I says.
“Guess she ain’t around no more?”

He smiled again, and I noticed his teeth are
rotting out. Well, he won’t hafta worry about that much longer.

“She’s
real
sweet,” he says, and
brings out a small stack a pictures held together with a red rubber
band. He slid one out and handed it to me. You’re wearing that same
swimsuit in this as the one that I burnt.

“I got plenty more of these, too, all kinds a
costumes an--”

I stop him by punching him right in the
mouth. I grab a handful a his nasty black hair and pull his head
back. He’s about to scream, but doesn’t as he feels the tip a my
knife just barely diggin’ into his throat.

“I want you to blink once for yes, twice for
no, you dig?”

Blink.

“Good. Now. You take these pictures?”

Blink blink.

“You sure?”

Blink.

“You know who took ‘em?”

Blink blink.

“I was told you knew who was selling this
filth for the puke that took ‘em. Now,” I said, digging the knife a
little deeper, drawing the first bead of blood that got hung up in
the whiskers of his unshaven neck, “You know who took ‘em?”

Blink blink.

“But you get ‘em from somebody. I’m gonna
take this knife away from your neck, and you’re gonna tell me his
name, and where I can find him, OK?”

Blink.

I took the knife away, but kept it about
three inches from his throat, just enough room for me to really ram
it in there if he tried anything. “Where do you get them?”

“A guy, he lives outta town a way--”

“Tell me his name first.”

“Don’t kill me, you’re gonna kill me ain’t
ya? I ain’t ready to die--”

“Just tell me his name.”

“And you won’t kill me?”

“We’ll see.”

“David’s his name, David Bailey, he lives at
1021 Grand Avenue, out in Wilsonville.”

“Wilsonville?” I asked. It was maybe the
nicest suburb in the area, and that’s sayin’ a lot. You gotta have
bucks to live out there.

“Yeah! He lives in this big house on
Grand--”

“He live alone? He got a wife or
anything?”

“No one’s ever been out there that I ever
seen except him,
please
don’t kill me
I ain’t ready
yet
! Please, I tole you what you wanted to know, please--”

His lips were still begging me when I slit
his throat. I cut it ear to ear and it sprayed the shit runnin’
through his veins all over the windshield and the dash, filled his
briefcase, and flooded the pictures out onto the seat and the
floor. He slapped at his open neck while the gore ran down the
front of his shirt and through his fingers in a tidal wave of
crimson, I moved back against the passenger door where I could
avoid the splash but still watch the life fall outta his eyes. When
he finally stopped breathing I could almost hear his soul bein’
sucked down into hell, and it made me smile. It sounded like a
flushing toilet, and he got far better than he deserved. If I
wasn’t in a hurry, I would have taken my time with him, put him
through hell before I sent him to it.

I wiped the knife off on the part of his
shirt that wasn’t soaked red, then pulled one of my sleeves over my
hand and opened the door, then wiped down the handles both inside
and outside, the only places I’d touched the car. The boys would
find him soon enough, and don’t think for a minute any one a them
is gonna look real hard to find out who done gacked a low-life puke
like this, not with a suitcase filled with blood and those pitchers
a little kids in his lap like that.

I smoked a cigarette and walked back to my
car, and the whole time I didn’t see another person, not even a
hooker or a bum. That was you lookin’ out for me, Alice, I know
that, you tole me you’d help me when you could and you done more
than you ever shoulda had to.

1021 Grand Avenue, that’s what he said. I
didn’t spend much time hobnobbing out there and didn’t know the
area too well, so I go to this Internet cafe that’s real good about
not taking down your name, the owner’s a big privacy rights freak,
and pay five bucks cash for a half-hour at one of the slow
computers to look up the directions online. Again, I seem to have
been blessed. The gods of vengeance are grinning tonight, Alice,
ear to fuckin’ ear. His house is at the end of a huge cul-de-sac,
with only one neighbor on each side, according to the map I printed
out.

Half-hour later I’ve parked my car and start
walking up the street, and it gets better and better. You can
hardly see the houses from the sidewalk. I go right up to his front
door, digging my wallet outta my back pocket, and pound out my old
cop-knock on his front door, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM, wait about 30
seconds, ring the bell, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.

“May I help you?” from inside.

“Police, Mr. Bailey, open up.”

“Who is it?”

“Police, sir. Can you open the door?”

Nothing.

“Sir?”

“Can you show me your ID? Hold it to the
peephole?”

“Of course, sir.” I flip my wallet open to
the old badge I still carry and hold it up to the peep like he
asked.

“OK, one minute, please.”

About five minutes pass and I’m wondering if
I blew it comin’ on so straightforward, maybe spooked the guy and
he ran, then I hear his footsteps padding back across the floor and
the sound of many locks being undone. Funny, whether they’re in a
nice two story home like this or a shitty little crash pad like
Mikey’s, the locks sound the same.

The door opens a crack, as far as the chain
will allow, and I see his soft, doughy face appear. He has wolf’s
eyes in a sheep’s head, and he looks nothing but guilty.

“Sorry about all this, can’t be too careful,
you know.”

“Not at all sir, you are Mr. David Bailey,
sir? That correct?”

“Yes, officer, I’m Mr. Bailey. Or are you a
detective, I guess, since you don’t have a uniform?”

“That’s correct, sir. Sorry to disturb you so
late, I know it doesn’t happen much out here, but we got a call
about a prowler in the area, I was wondering if I might have a look
through your back yard?”

“A prowler?”

“Yes sir.”

“Who called it in?”

“We really aren’t supposed to say, sir,
confidentiality and all that.”

“Oh, right, yes. You want to meet me out back
then?”

“If you’d rather I not come through the
house, sir.”

“Well, I didn’t mean you couldn’t come
through the house, I just--”

“Great! Let’s get this over with and I can be
out of your way. Sorry again to have barged in on you like
this.”

“Uh, well, OK.” He closes the door, unhooks
the chain, and lets me in. He shuts the door behind me and I follow
him toward his back door. When we pass the stairs leading to the
second level of the house I clap one of the cuffs on his wrist and
he turns around.

“Hey now what in the fuck--”

He couldn’t finish what he was sayin’ because
the barrel of my gun is jammed into his mouth; chipping one of his
perfectly capped pearly whites. He immediately pissed his pants and
I saw in his eyes he knew, he
knew
what this was about.
Steering him with the gun I backed him toward the stairs and told
him to cuff himself to the banister. When he did, I took the gun
out of his mouth.

“You know why I’m here, Mr. Bailey.”

“Can I see the warrant?” he asked, in the
voice of a spoiled child who is finally being told no.

“There ain’t no warrant, cuz I ain’t really a
cop. Not no more, anyway.”

“B--”

“Shut up. Now you got one chance to make this
easy on yourself, and one chance only. I need to know where you get
the pitchers a that little blond girl, she’s dead now, and so are
you, but you can choose to die really quick, won’t feel a thing, or
you can die for days and days. Me an’ you? We can stay here in this
little house a yours and I can kill you all week if I got to. You
will
tell me everything I want to know, that’s not the
question. Question is; how much of you will be left when you
finally tell it?” Out of the inner pocket of my Mack I bring out a
pair a poultry shears that gleam in the light of the two thousand
dollar wall fixtures.

Mr. Bailey began to cry then, softly, and
eventually he told me what I needed to know. I couldn’t avoid the
blood this time. I’d taken off my coat and pushed up my sleeves and
got in close. He tried to resist at first, but I got tired of
cutting off his fingers after the first four or so, and told him
next would be his nose, then his balls, and he opened up pretty
quick. But now that Mr. Bailey wouldn’t be doing anything to no
kids no more, I took a quick shower and then looked around his
place. Pretty standard yuppie at first glance, but there was a room
hidden behind his huge walk-in closet, a room with the walls
covered in pitchers a all kinds, I seen a few a them was you,
Alice. In the center a this little room was a metal table with four
heavy leather straps on it, and them straps went around the arms
and legs of a dead little boy.

I went back into the bathroom and puked,
wishing Bailey was still alive so I could kill him again,
slower.

I folded up by the toilet, turn your head
Alice, I don’t want you seein’ me like this, laying all curled up
on the cool linoleum and crying so hard I don’t know if I’ll ever
be able to stop.

But I do stop, eventually. I stop and wash my
face and go back through the house, wiping down every surface I
touched, leaving a trail a lights that leads from the front door to
the little room of death in the back a his closet. I get my
handcuffs back, still crusted with blood, and put them in the
pocket of my coat, same with the poultry shears. Later on I’ll call
in an anonymous tip, which every once in a while, like tonight,
means a cop killed someone who needed killing, and they don’t wanna
bother cleaning up after themselves.

I get back in my car and go where he told me
to go, and when I get to the black door hidden in the back corner
of a dark alley, I knock like he told me to knock, same one Gimpy
showed me, but with another couple beats tacked on to the end.

The man who answered the door was dead. Every
breath he took was borrowed, every thump a his heart was the last.
He was a small man; skinny, pale, and wearing a long black robe. He
dressed like a priest, but without the collar. Maybe this was the
guy Mr. Dulouz was after, Alice. Maybe when we meet I can tell him
something, give him some news.

The man introduced himself as Bradley and I
had to shake his hand, and his hand was slimy, Alice, it was slimy
and it was cold. He offered me a drink. He thinks I’m here to talk
about making a video with me an’ some little kid, a little kid just
like you Alice, tortured and scared and alone.

He smiled at me, Bradley the Dead Man did,
and it was a knowing smile, a secret smile between two friends, and
I gave it back. His smile flickered a bit, he mighta’ seen
something he didn’t like in mine, but he was a stupid, evil man,
and men such as them never go with their better judgment. He moved
a large sea-chest away from the wall and revealed a little panel
cut in the plaster. That panel held a little metal door with a
combination lock on it.