Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." (14 page)

“I’m fucking done here!” He then stands, smiling at her, and offers a final deal. “Janice, if you look into the mirror behind you and say exactly what I asked you to say on the phone, I will give
it
to you.”

She hesitates for a moment then, out of desperation, fulfills her part of the deal. She turns, faces straight into the mirror, and says, “Detective Cools missed his chance.” Joshua, standing behind her, also starring into the mirror, erupts into nasty laughter. Cools loses it and punches the glass, leaving no doubt he is there.

“Now it’s your turn,” she says.

He grins like a dirty boy, moves in close, and sits on the table in front of her. Then he holds out his phone and says, “Read this text message I sent to a friend as we were talking earlier.” The screen displays the time and date showing that the message was sent at 2:37 p.m. today, the exact same time they were talking on the phone. It reads:

Red—her panties are red.

Joshua leaves the police station without any further comments. He strolls out into the cold dusk of winter, where he’s bombarded by camera flashes and a slew of questions coming from the packed lower stairs.

“Do you know the whereabouts of Kimberly?”

“What did you tell the authorities?”

“Have you done something with Kimberly?”

Without answering, he merely turns, points accusingly back at the station, and yells, “Lies, lies, and more lies! They are all lost in a wilderness of lies and twisted truths!” The journalists ignore his allegations and continue their barrage.

“Where is Kimberly?”

“Do you know where Kimberly is?”

“Where’s your wife?”

Repeated shouts and queries from the crowd agitate his mind. He attempts to escape, but there’s nowhere to go.

“Where is Kimberly?”

“Where is your wife?”

“Did you kill her?”

He shouts, “I have nothing more to say!” He turns his back on them, considering retreating back inside the station.

“Where’s Kimberly?”

“What have you done?”

“Is she alive?”

The senseless repetition enrages him. He abandons all plans of maintaining silence. He faces them, holding his hands high, then seethes into a maniacal rant, transforming into a depraved preacher. “Do you not see the world machine? It controls all! It controls you! You believe you are calculating its measures, but you are not. Everyone presumes someone else is steering, but you are all only along for the ride. You only imagine to be pulling the strings through your politics, the courts, corporations, sciences, religions, even your military, but you are no longer in command. The world machine is running the whole lot, and every judge’s gavel is hollow, empty, and worthless. Its heavy shadow is cast upon you; the machine is the
great beast
!” With that he swiftly descends the stairs and fights his way through the mob, disappearing into the night.

Inside the station Janice gets a bottle of water and convenes with everyone back in the war room. She looks exhausted but appears to be wearing an odd smirk on her face.

“We got nothing from that skinny prick!” Cools yells, tossing his phone onto the table.

“No, no, we did get something,” Janice replies. “It was something he said.” Everyone looks to her. “He said Kimberly
did
when he spoke of having something inside that hates. Also he said she
was
a whore, referring to her in the past tense, as if she were dead! Meaning psychologically, he believes her to be deceased.”

Everyone’s eyes move to Milkowski. “That’s perceptive, and it’ll play well in a courtroom—the entire interrogation will—but it will not get us a search or arrest warrant. He’s smart; he knows full well what he’s doing. He is playing with you, and I get the sense he’s far from done.”

His words deflate what little was left of the room’s energy. The war room is emotionally drained. Captain Jackson sees as much and ends the day. “All right, I have a press conference to do, and it has been a long one. So go home or to your favorite watering hole—I don’t care which. Just get some R & R, and we meet back here tomorrow morning.”

Everyone leaves.

.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he day may have changed much but not everything: Cools, practicing habits of old, lounges at his table near the back of The Shelter in the company of a bottle of Jameson. There he sits, meditating on the alcohol swimming through the bottle and keeping a keen ear attuned to the nine o’clock news. He’s just witnessed his captain for the first time giving a high-priority press conference. According to Cools’s assessment, he did pretty well—dodging most questions, answering only the safe ones, using the typical routine rhetoric that leaves all the backdoors wide open. The waitress pops by for a split second to change his ashtray. She says nothing to him, just the way he likes it. Once she is gone, he lights another cigarette and watches the smoke climb from the tip, wondering again about the press conference, wondering if all the news is bullshit.

The next story expands upon Joshua’s diatribe from the top of the police station’s stairs, sounding like a prophetic lunatic. Cools pours another shot and settles deeper into his environment. Everything around him is in motion, yet comforting: cigarette smoke flirting with the air, the ceiling fan casting musical shadows, the brown liquid rippling in the bottle. All are set to drown away the day’s events still playing in his mind. If Joshua killed his wife, why is he being so arrogant? Most guys in that position don’t try to attract attention, even assholes like him. And why would Kimberly lie and tell her lover she has AIDS? How does their religion tie into it all? Maybe…maybe Joshua and Kimberly were blackmailing Trace Friesen? But for what? Maybe Joshua is attempting to set up an insanity plea in case he’s trapped? Maybe he killed her as some sacrifice to his cultic religion? No! Fuck! The only thing that makes sense is that he’s a jealous husband who was screwed to tightly together to begin with. He discovers his wife’s affair with Trace, falls over the edge of sanity, where he’s been teetering most his life anyway, and kills his wife. But like a bad acid trip, he’s permaspun, never to return to reality. Then in my stupidity, I afford him almost an entire week to cover his tracks, as if the sneaky bastard left any to begin with. And now I have to deal with this crazy fuck and somehow put him away, or even make him pay myself; and I will do it if I have to; I might do it because I want to. Because maybe the pathway for evil to rise is left open solely by good men who stand by and do nothing!

His phone rings disrupting his mental tirade. It’s Michelle. “Hey, Brad, how’re you?”

“I’m okay, and you?”

“I just can’t get this guy out of my head,” she says in a slurred voice.

“Yeah, I know; me, too,” Cools replies, picturing her wet eyes.

There’s a long silence. “Where are you, Brad?”

“The Shelter.”

“Just wastin’ away in that dirty old bar…Why?”

Somewhat offended, he doesn’t reply. Then, in a more concerned voice, she says, “And I’m worried lately about you too, Brad; you’ve been a little off.” There’s a pause. “How’s your love life going, Brad?”

“Ah…wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Ha-ha…your knowing I do.”

Cools laughs a little, thinking how she always cheers him up. They’ve been partners now for some years and have been attracted to each other from the very beginning. But they also share a kind of brother-sister bond, and so far the sibling side of their relationship has ruled king.

“Chelsea—is that her name—yer flavor of the…month?”

“No, it’s not like that; I really truly care for her. She’s my one and only babygirl,” he replies, defending her insinuation that he’s some sort of philanderer.

“So…is she treating you good, Brad?” she asks, with a hint of envy.

“Well, not as good as you would,” he replies, teasing. “But we’re doing all right. Actually—you know what—I think I’ll give her a call right now. She always gets me out of my head.”

There’s another awkward pause. “Okay, partner, but don’t stay up too late. We have a freak to get off…offa the streets tomorrow.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I’ll see you in the morning. Get some sleep, okay.”

“Okay…okay, I mean, take care of yourself, and your little self,” she says, and giggles before hanging up.

Swallowing another drink Cools dials Chelsea, visualizing her inside the clear part of his cloud as the phone rings—a gorgeous Italian with auburn hair, dark olive skin, and brown jewels for eyes. The sexiest eyes he’s ever gazed into. When they are close, her smell is that of wildflowers, although Cools considers her greatest feature to be her naturally full lips. Sometimes it pains him to admit it, but her lips are also full of wisdom and good, common sensibilities. She is a rare true spirit and a constant optimist, who loves life and always bestows her refreshing purity upon those around her. Chelsea Simmons is not just the best thing to ever happen to him, she is the best thing that could ever happen to any man.

She answers in a deep husky voice, “Hello.” He immediately gets the joke and asks for Chelsea anyway. Again, using the same voice, she replies, “Not now, she’s resting. I guess she has some jerk for a boyfriend, some cop who doesn’t pay enough attention to her, so she needed me to come over to keep her company. I’m her very good-looking, twenty-year-old coworker.”

“Okay, baby, I’m sorry, and I miss you much. And you’re right, so how about you let me make it up to you. I can pick up some Chinese, and we can have a late dinner at your place,” he pleads.

“Ah, does that work with the other girls?”

“No other girls, baby, only you.”

“Okay, but I’m locking my door at ten,” she says and hangs up.

At 9:56 Cools catches his breath at the top of the stairs and knocks on her door. Chelsea answers, wearing only sassy panties and an expensive dress shirt— the one he left there on their first real date. The way it cuddles her breasts, he’s never asked for it back. She steps back, giving him room to enter, with fire in her eyes. It is clear she has been dying for their rendezvous.

Ms. Simmons has only been with a handful of guys in her life, a few in high school, and then she married. Her husband was a gentle lover, which was good, though she’d longed to be taken passionately the way she’d seen in movies and read of in books. But she was always too insecure to divulge those secrets. It wasn’t until she’d divorced and met Cools that true pleasure and sexual ecstasy entered her life. Never did anything have to be said, since he was somewhat of a ravisher from the very beginning—all that built-up aggression, she assumes. And tonight Cools displays the aggression of a bull.

He pulls her hard into his barreled chest, squeezing, touching. She wiggles playfully, attempting to break his grasp. He loosens, allowing her to break free, only to chase galloping naked legs down the hall. Soon he is recapturing and spinning her around in the hallway, diving lips-first into her sweet skin. She tears at his slacks, whimpering, “You can do anything you want.” Wasting no time, and with little gentleness, he turns her away, forcing her quivering body up against the wall. “Oh, Detective,” she groans, rubbing her round ass against him. His hand slips inside the back of black panties. She arches. The sounds of stitches ripping excite her more. Daringly his bulky fingers enter the awaiting wetness. She circles her hips riding his fingers, gingerly at first. Oh, I am going to fuck you! he says. With his free hand, he grabs a fistful of thick hair, reeling her head back to him, thrusting his fingers deeper. She turns, murmuring naughtiness, kissing feverishly, licking his tongue the way she now wants to lick him elsewhere. She spins, rips her shirt open, flashing bare breasts, now throwing her slave against the wall, taking control. Writhing all over, kissing, panting, and groping, she begs, “I want you to make me do it!” It doesn’t take long to get what she wants. With both hands he pushes her down. “God, I love you,” she moans, massaging him with her full lips, accepting him fully, purring. She is pleased to do it. She begins touching herself. He presses harder, and the more unrestrainedly he shoves, the faster she excites herself, inserting her fingers. Again he grabs a handful of thick hair, drawing her up, controlling her; they meet tongue to tongue.

“You’re going to get it so hard!”

“Oh yeah! I don’t think you can,” she replies, with a silly laugh, somewhat embarrassed by her own words.

With that, he again pushes her into the wall and slides deep into her from behind, thrusting vigorously and further with each stroke, smashing her hardened nipples against the wall, holding out laboriously as long as possible until her body begins to shudder; her sounds become deafening, more salacious, oozing her love all over him. “I’m going to come,” he announces, then wildly loses himself inside her. Together they hold tight, remaining locked, throbbing intensely, catching their breath.

Then Chelsea grabs his hand, leading her lover through the bedroom door, to her bed. There she takes care of him further, draining completely. The night is spent embracing, caressing each other romantically, and nourishing all of their erotic and sexual desires.

For Cools it is the greatest love-making night in memory, and immensely needed. The beautiful woman who sleeps contented in his arms holds the power to draw him out of himself and the ugly world in which he lives. She is his promise, his hope, his trust—Chelsea is his love.

.

Chapter Twenty

O
n the other side of the rainy city, Joshua lounges alone on his couch, enjoying an evening of laughter and drinking inside his dimly lit home, the only luminescence coming from the television and stereo equipment cascading shades of color onto the darkness. A bottle of scotch and ice stands tall on a glass coffee table positioned in front of him, and the liquor has already taken an effect on him, leaving his body warm and comforted.

He smiles into the shadowy room with pride glimmering through his eyes, enough so to almost to give an extra glow to the room. In his hands he clutches a blued-steel M4 assault rifle that’s equipped with a fully loaded magazine, flash suppressor, night vision scope, and nine-inch silencer. Somewhat excessive for normal, everyday home protection, it feels common in his hands, making sense in his altered state.