Hunt evil, p.16
Hunt Evil, page 16
“Eventually,” I said. “She all of a sudden pulled out this monster switchblade that she waved in front of me.” I scoffed. “Like that would make me drop my gun or something. Obviously it didn’t. But I have to give it to her.”
“What’s that?” She tilted her head.
“She managed to get me with the knife.” I grinned a little as I thought about it.
The broad gasped, a hand flying up to cover her mouth. “She did? Oh my God! Are you hurt?”
“Nah, she just grazed me with the tip. Here, I’ll show you.” I pulled up my sweater so that my ripped abdominals became visible. She stared down at them. I made myself sit up on the couch and glanced downward as well. There it was, the mark Mom had given me. The diagonal cut had scabbed over and was about three inches long. It wouldn’t even leave a scar, it was so superficial. But I remember that it had bled for a while and I wondered if maybe I should go to the ER. But then it began to close itself up, so there was no point in going.
“Dios mio…” the old chick muttered, studying the wound. “Did it hurt?”
I shook my head. “No. Not at all. Making it stop bleeding was the only part that was annoying. It bled like crazy the first half hour, destroyed my shirt. I had to throw it away. Then it stopped all of a sudden, just like that. It was weird. I guess I heal better than most.” I smiled.
“That’s good. So how did you get the knife away from her?”
“I grabbed her wrist and twisted it so hard that she was forced to drop the knife on the ground.”
“Uh-huh. And then you strangled her?”
“Yes, then my hands went around her neck and I squeezed until I was sure there was no life left in her. Just to be a hundred percent sure, I kicked her head a few times. Actually, more than a few.” I smiled to myself mostly. “Ever since she set me up, I’ve wanted to do that. Kick her in the face so hard her nose broke.”
“I can see that. Where did you leave her body?”
“Right there, on the ground. Well, I dragged her behind a big trash container. So the rats could feast on her in peace. I saw at least two big ones running around the trashcans. Oh, and I dropped Steve’s key next to her to make the cops believe he did it. I stole it from his house.” I grinned at her.
“Ha ha, yes, she deserves to have rats eat her… You were still in Queens then?”
“Yes, I was in Astoria. Not far from the 30th Ave subway station.”
She exhaled and got to her feet. “Would you like some blueberry muffins? You must be hungry.”
I was sort of hungry, not bad, but who could say no to blueberry muffins? “Sure, bring me muffins. And water.” I licked my dry lips. “I’m parched.”
“Okay,” she said and I watched her fat ass walk out of the room. I lay back down on the couch and put my hands behind my neck, stretching out. My body felt sore and tired. I thought about Mika and the last time I banged her, which had been about a week ago. She was a great lay. If only she didn’t talk so damn much all the time, I might’ve made her my girlfriend. But her voice was too annoying, driving me crazy. I needed to move on from her, find someone to bang whose voice I also could stand.
The old broad returned to the living room with a square wooden tray on which there were muffins and a tall glass of water. She smiled as I sat back up and took the tray from her. I put it on my lap and devoured one of the muffins in three big bites, then drained the water glass. Putting the glass back down, I let out a loud burp that made her giggle.
“So, what happened to the kid?” she asked and sat down on the footstool again.
I grabbed another muffin from the tray. “What kid?”
“Her kid. There was a kid with her, right? The little girl. I think her name was Neera or something.”
The sound of something heavy crashing to the floor exploded then, and we both winced, looking around the room.
“It sounded like it came from the kitchen,” I said, pointing to the doorway that showed part of a kitchen.
“Yes, let me go see what happened.”
37
Sean – About A Month Earlier
I went into the dark place called Palladium. It was full of people, mostly youngish men who either sat around the circular bar or at the small tables or leaned against the walls, checking out who was entering. There were some people dancing on the small dancefloor in the back. An old Madonna song boomed out of hidden speakers. Material Girl. I spotted some chicks here and there. Fag hags. They must love this joint. It was one of the most popular lounges for gay men on Manhattan. That fag Steve had told me about it once.
As often as I could, I wore my black Prada sunglasses on my nose when I entered my target place. It lent me an aura of mystique that I had come to notice gay men seemed to find particularly enticing. I made a mental note to get rid of those sunglasses soon, however. I didn’t want to be remembered as “the guy with the designer shades.” I didn’t long for the day when I would toss them. The shades did carry sentimental value to me.
They had once been my mother’s.
I sauntered up to the long bar counter, feeling lots of eyes sizing me up. I was tall and well-built with a pretty face, the kind of man fags loved, I had come to learn. I couldn’t stand the bastards. They were such freaks. I had come here tonight to take them on, one by one. I was on a mission to eradicate the gay disease. I didn’t believe it could be cured. No, instead you had to kill it. Kill all the gays one by one. I was the perfect man to do it. The fags always hit on me, trusted me, wanted to get into my pants. All I had to do was show up at one of their hangouts and they were soon all over me. I could easily pick and choose who my next victim would be. So far, I had only managed to get rid of two of the sickos, but I had just started. There would be more. Many more. I would get better and better at it. I would not stop until someone stopped me, which I wasn’t planning on letting happen.
I ordered a frou-frou drink with a purple umbrella on it that made me seem extra gay. The fags loved girly drinks like that. I hated them, but it was a necessary evil I had to suck up. Ha! I was so clever and funny. Maybe I should consider stand-up… No, I needed to keep a low profile always, so that couldn’t happen.
The bare-chested bartender came over with my drink and let his fingers linger on my hand a few seconds too long as he took the cash I gave him. I wanted to punch him in the face, but I didn’t. Instead, I gave him a smile and flirtatious wink. I had to keep playing the game.
“Keep the change,” I told him and he lit up. As he should—I was tipping him more than the drink cost me.
“Thanks,” he said and reluctantly moved on to the next customer, a fifty-something, balding, fat dude beside me.
I grabbed my drink and turned around so that my back was facing the bar, then I grabbed the straw like a good homo and had a sip of my cosmo. Several men either seated or standing in the bar area were checking me out, drinking me in. I could tell that most of them liked what they saw. And why wouldn’t they? I was young and muscular and good-looking, all they cared about.
One of them, a tall, effeminate-looking dude in his late twenties perhaps, fired off a smile in my direction, then lowered his gaze to the floor, as though he was shy. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, I had seen it all with these freaks. It didn’t matter either way. I could not care less if this dude was a fragile flower. He wouldn’t live much longer anyway.
I walked up to him and said, “Hey.”
He raised his gaze and met mine. He had wavy brown hair and an oval face in which his large eyes dominated. Until he smiled, which he did again, displaying a row of perfect white teeth. He was one of those people who smiled with their whole face, his eyes nearly disappearing they transformed into such narrow slits.
“Hey,” he said and switched the wineglass he was holding into his left hand so he could extend his right to me. “I’m Alan. Nice to meet you.”
I shook his slender piano hand. “I’m Sean. Nice to meet you too. You come here often?”
“Yeah, it’s my favorite hangout at this hour. You? I haven’t see you here before.”
I gave a lopsided smile. “That’s because it’s my first time here.” I took in the area around us, as though assessing it. “And I don’t think it’ll be my last. Looks like a good place.”
Obviously it would be my one and only time. I wasn’t so stupid I went back to the same place twice. That would be like asking to get caught.
“You’re not from the city?” Alan had a sip of his wine, holding my gaze all the while.
“No, I’m from Philly. You?”
“Born and raised right here on Manhattan. Love it here. How’s the scene over in Philly? Can’t remember the last time I was there.”
I laughed. “Pretty much sucks. What do you do?”
“For a living? I’m a lawyer. Corporate. It’s boring, but it pays the bills. What do you do?”
“I’m a trainer. I’m obsessed with working out.”
He let his gaze slide over my body in a way that clearly showed how much he wanted to rip off my clothes right then. It took all the mental power I had not to throw myself over him and beat him to a pulp. What made it all worse, much worse, was the wave of excitement that moved through my body, making me hard. Why did that keep happening? I wasn’t one of them. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to have at least a neutral face.
“And it’s paying off,” he commented, licking his lips. “I like to work out, too, but I’m so busy with work I don’t get to the gym as often as I would like. What gym do you work for?”
“Equinox in the Village. Started three weeks ago.”
He nodded approvingly. “That’s a great club. I’m a member of Equinox, but I go to a location in Tribeca. Wish I lived closer so I could go to your location and work out.”
“Me too,” I said and held his gaze a few beats too long. I wanted this little conversation to end as soon as possible. For that, I had to really show how much I—supposedly—wanted him.
“I like your body,” I said to him. “You’re slender, but athletic. We should work out together sometime.”
“I would love that. I’m available most weekends.”
“Maybe we could go workout and then grab an early dinner or something?”
“That sounds great.”
I had another sip of my pink drink. “Hey, how about you and I get out of here?”
A smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. “Sure. I was just about to leave anyway.”
“Good.” I put my drink on a small table and started walking toward the exit. I could feel him joining up beside me. Like the first time I went to pick up a fag, I had come here during the day when they served food to use the bathroom so I could check if it had security cameras and where in that case. This place did have a couple, one at the dancefloor and one just above the exit. As Alan and I approached the exit, I kept my head down so the camera couldn’t get a good shot of my face. I had learned the trick while in juvie and it served me well now.
I wasn’t about to let something as trivial as a security camera stop my mission.
38
I must have slept for longer than Dr. Navarro had wanted me, because far more than an hour had passed when she finally woke me up. And I had had the strangest, most vivid dreams. I had dreamt I was this asshole guy named Sean who was drunk and was speaking to some trashy-looking Latina woman with lots of makeup and bling and ridiculous-looking red hair that looked like it could have been a wig. We had discussed me killing Mom, strangling her to death, and laughed about it.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes to clear my head. Whew. What an insane dream!
“How are you feeling, Shane?” Dr. Navarro wanted to know. She was contemplating me with a sadness in her expression that was so intense it confused me. And her face was swollen and shiny, like she had just scrubbed it hard with soap and hot water. Why did she look so sad? Had I done something that upset her? It sure seemed like it.
“Are you okay?” I asked her and pushed myself up into a seated position.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied in a voice that spoke of the opposite. She was anything but fine. In fact, I noticed that her hands were trembling ever so slightly as she pushed some hair behind her ear. She cleared her throat. “I think I may be coming down with a cold.”
I cocked an incredulous brow at her. “In the last hour, you mean?” My phone rang then and I reached for it. Checking the caller ID, I saw that it was Rachel.
“Rachel,” I said into the phone. “What’s going on?”
“You need to come down here. Neera has awoken, but she’s in bad shape. They think… they think she might not make it.”
“I’ll be there right now.” I disconnected the call.
“What did she say?” Dr. Navarro asked.
“Neera is awake and she’s not doing well,” I replied tightly as I got to my feet. “I’m heading over to the hospital.”
That sad look came over Dr. Navarro’s face then. “I can’t let you leave, Shane.”
I stopped moving and stared hard at her. What the hell was she talking about? I was heading to the hospital to see my sister. She could always try to stop me. I ignored her and pulled on my sneakers.
As I started toward the front door, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a large man in a suit coming out of the office. What the fuck? Was that Dr. Navarro’s secret boyfriend or what? Well, it didn’t matter. I had to go. So I strode toward the door and opened it when I reached it.
Agent McHenry and another man stood right outside, blocking my way.
“Shepard?” I blurted, shocked to see him of all people standing there. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be interrogating Steve?”
“I was,” he replied, his face stony but his black eyes were sad in the same way as Dr. Navarro’s face was. It was though he was in deep pain but tried to ignore it. “But now I’m here. Please turn around and go back into the apartment, Shane.”
“What? Why?” I glared at him, sensing that something was really, really wrong here.
McHenry exhaled and adjusted his tie. “Don’t make this any harder for me, Shane. Just do what I told you.”
Since there wasn’t room for me to slip past the two agents, I had no choice but to go back into apartment. The agents followed me and closed the door behind them.
“Now turn around,” McHenry said to me, his full lips having disappeared into a thin line.
“Why?” I asked again.
“Because you’re under arrest for the murder of your mother.”
My eyes got so big it felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets. “I’m under arrest for the murder of my mother? Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?” My gaze jumped from one guy back to the other. “Because if it is, lemme tell you, it’s not fucking funny!”
“Turn around or we’ll make you turn around,” McHenry said ominously. There was a pair of silver handcuffs in his big hands.
I was too stunned not to do what he wanted, so I slowly turned around. He was obviously not joking. As I felt him snap on the cuffs around my wrists, I had a déjà vu moment. It was as though I was transported back six years in time, and a police detective handcuffed me. Like that detective had done, I heard Agent McHenry mutter, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any…”
Was this really happening? I glanced over at Dr. Navarro now and saw that she was crying, although she did try to hide it by covering her face with lots of tissue. What was going on here? Why did they think I had killed Mom? I wouldn’t forget something like that, even if I had been very drunk. Seriously, that was impossible. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. If this was one of those weird, vivid dreams I’d had lately, I wanted to wake up right now. But this felt different, too sharp, too real to be a dream. Still, I kept biting, hoping I was wrong, and that it would end with me waking up and lying in my bed. I didn’t wake up.
“Can we go to the hospital?” I asked, my voice pathetic-sounding. “I want to see my sister. She’s awake and in really bad shape.”
“That’s not a good idea, Shane.” McHenry pushed me toward the front door and his two suited buddies joined us, one on either side of us.
“Why not?” I croaked, turning my head in an attempt to see him. Did they think I had done something to Neera now as well? I would never hurt Neera! Hell, I had killed to save her, that’s how much I cared about her wellbeing. Maybe I needed to tell them that.
“We’ll talk more down at the precinct,” McHenry said and pushed me out the door.
“But what if she dies before I get to see her? I need to see her!”
“Stop talking, Shane. It won’t change anything. You’re going down to the precinct. We’ll keep you in the loop regarding Neera.”
“But what if she dies? Rachel told me she’s in bad shape!” I was getting frantic.
“There’s nothing I can do about that right now. Get in the elevator.”
One of the other guys had gotten the elevator to come. Defeated, I walked into the car and the others followed.
“Please let me go see her at the hospital, Shephard,” I muttered as the elevator kicked into motion. “Please…”
“I sincerely wish I could, Shane, but I’m not allowed to. I’ve orders to bring you straight down to the precinct. Even if we took you to the hospital, the NYPD wouldn’t let you see her. I’ll see what I can do once you’re at the precinct.”
Sensing there was no point in pleading with him, I shut up and let them take me to the dark government sedan parked on a tree-lined street near Dr. Navarro’s apartment building. One of the agents opened the backseat door and pushed me in, holding my head down. McHenry followed me into the back and the other two got into the front seat. Soon we were on our way, and it started to rain.
