He sure wasn’t what I’d expected to find in a place like this.
I’d expected it to be empty. Barring that, the likely inhabitant would’ve been a withered old hag or a filthy bearded hermit in bib overalls.
This kid was a pretty pleasant surprise.
And no doubt about it, I was a great surprise for him.
He stared out at me and blinked.
I said, “Good morning. I’m Simone.”
“Hi.”
“I’m afraid my friends and I have gotten ourselves lost.”
“Yuh?” He leaned sideways and gazed past me.
“My husband and brother-in-law,” I told him. “Men can be such dopes.”
He laughed once. It was more like a snort.
“Can you tell me how we might get back to the interstate?”
He squinted into space. “Where?”
“The big inter ... never mind. Maybe if I could have a word with your mother or father?”
“Ma’s off at work. Ya know the Safeway market ... ?”
“Is your father home?”
“Naw, he’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Aw, he was a shit. Just ask anyone.”
I smiled. “Would it be all right if I come in for just a moment and use your bathroom!”
He blushed and his mouth dropped open.
“It’s awfully embarrassing to ask, but this is a real emergency. We’ve been lost for a long time, and those two just got out a while ago and peed on some cactus. You fellas are so lucky that way.”
I gave his crotch a good, long look.
He cleared his throat. He rubbed his lips with the back of his hand. “I reckon it’s okay if ya wanta use the ...” He shrugged, then stepped backward. “C’mon in.”
I did.
In the immortal words of Bette Davis, What a dump!
Not only that, but it was hotter than blazes and it stank.
I shut the door. That took care of most of the light. Only a dim yellow glow came in through the filthy windows and curtains.
I set my purse on the floor and said, “Did your mother leave you all alone?”
“Yuh.”
“Sure is hot in here,” I said.
“Yuh.”
Then I peeled off my T-shirt so I was standing there in my bra and skirt. With the light so lousy, I figured he wouldn’t be able to tell that I was a fake.
“That’s a lot better,” I said.
He said, “Uhhh.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Henry,” he said.
Same as that fucking dog.
He just stood there when I walked up to him. He was a couple of inches taller than me. I put my hands on his chest and rubbed him. He was slippery. And he was starting to breathe really hard. I wonder why.
He gasped out, “Didn’t ya . . . wanta use ... ?”
“You’re so handsome, Henry.”
I ran my hands up and down him. I even gave him a squeeze through the front of his jeans. He had a huge boner. Almost funny. I make a hell of a woman.
I pressed myself against him and hoped he couldn’t tell there was only paper in my bra.
He seemed just as thrilled as ever.
More so, in fact.
He put his arms around me. He was huffing and rubbing himself against me.
I kissed the side of his neck, then said, “I knew a dog named Henry.”
He didn’t say anything, but sort of raked up the back of my skirt and pushed his hands under the seat of my panties.
“You don’t bite, do you Henry?”
He went, “Uhhh, naw.”
“I do,” I said.
I did.
Chomp, right in the neck.
The moment I got my mouthful, I twisted him sideways as fast as I could to turn the gusher away from me. I also shoved him. He stumbled and crashed against a wall and sank to his knees, grunting and whining.
I chewed while I watched him.
Maybe he should’ve been an art critic—he had excellent taste.
I didn’t wait for him to die, but went off to find the kitchen.
Big nasty butcher knives look great when psychos go after people with them in the movies, and I’ll admit that they do have their uses. I’ve had some fun with them, myself. But I wanted a nice, small knife that would be easy to conceal.
I found a very sharp paring knife.
The kitchen was at the back of the house. Its windows didn’t have curtains, so there was some decent light. My chest and bra were splashed with blood, but there were only a few tiny spots on my white skirt.
I washed my hands. The sink was piled with filthy dishes.
Henry and his mother were apparently enormous slobs.
When my hands were clean, I took off my skirt. I draped it over the back of a kitchen chair. Some newspapers were piled on the table. I grabbed a page, tore it, and folded a small piece into a sheath for the paring knife. Hurrying out of the kitchen, I slipped the blade into the paper shield and pushed it up under the cross-strap at the back of my bra.
In the front room, Henry was still slumped against the wall. I helped myself to his blood—he had no more use for it, but I did. I spread some on my chest and belly and legs, though I tried not to overdo it on my bra and panties. I intended to keep on wearing them, so the less they got bloody, the better.
After finishing with the blood, I pulled off his belt.
Henry’d been using the sofa for a bed. It had a bedroom pillow at one end. I shook the case empty.
With the belt and pillow case, I went to the front door.
Talk about nervous. I felt like crapping.
But I was excited, too.
I put the pillow case over my head, then looped the belt around my neck and pulled it tight enough to cinch in the bottom of the case. I let the end of the belt hang down my back.
I wasn’t Simone anymore.
Now, I was Jody Fargo stripped down to her undies, bloody, captured alive by Simon, a pillow case covering her head so she can’t see where she’s going, a belt around her neck so she can’t run away—but she is running away, or trying to.
I opened the door. Sunlight lit up the inside of the pillow case. I sort of half-lurched, half-stumbled out through the doorway, flailing with my arms, then flung myself backward into the house again as if I’d been yanked by Simon at the other end of the belt.
What a farce, huh?
The idea was that I’d let them have a quick glimpse so they’d figure Jody was here and I was having fun with her. They were sure to want in on it—wouldn’t be able to stand the thought that they were missing some action.
The idea sure worked.
By the time Dusty came charging in, I had the pillow case off my head and the knife in my hand. He got about two strides through the doorway, then tried to stop, then tried to back up fast and get away from me.
He’d been too eager. And way too careless.
You’d think such a paranoid would’ve exercised a little more caution than that. But maybe he figured his bulletproof vest would protect him like magic. Or maybe he was so hot for the gal that he forgot to worry about running into trouble.
I punched the wadded pillow case into his face so hard it knocked his head back. I went in under his chin with my knife. Just drove its blade straight in through his windpipe and gave it a good hard twist before yanking it out. Then I real quick slashed the side of his neck and shoved him out of my way.
He was down on his hands and knees, busy dying, by the time my old friend Ranch showed up. I was off at the side of the doorway with my back to the wall. The first thing that came in was Ranch’s Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver.
I hadn’t counted on that.
He got off one shot, but it didn’t come anywhere near me. He didn’t even know where I was until it was too late. The gun went off because he jerked the trigger when I swung in from the side and stuck my knife into his right eye.
After that, he dropp
ed the gun and slapped his hand to his face and fell to his knees.
I kicked him in the side of the head. He tumbled over, so then I crouched behind him and reached around and cut his throat.
Chapter Thirty-five
What a morning, huh?
But, boy, what a mess! You should’ve seen me. I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked like I’d come out the loser in a food fight at Cannibal High.
So I climbed into the bathtub for a shower. Didn’t even take off my wig, bra, panties, or shoes—they needed it as much as me. The only problem with that is what happened to the stuffing in my bra. All those tissues got turned into sodden muck. I had to take off the bra and scoop it out. Then the stuff clogged the drain, so the water started to rise.
Well, no big deal. I used plenty of soap on myself and my hair and undies, then rinsed off with hot water, then stood under cold water to cool myself down for a few minutes before climbing out.
There weren’t any clean towels, wouldn’t you know it?
Henry’s mom must be a real loser.
I went into the only bedroom, which was hers, and dried myself with a clean sweatshirt I found in a drawer.
The sweatshirt was mammoth.
The mom’s obviously a porker.
Her sweatshirt worked okay as a towel, but I knew that none of her clothes would even come close to fitting me.
Not that I wanted to wear her stuff, anyhow.
I went to get Jody’s nice pink T-shirt, but it turned out to have blood all over it. I’d left it in the front room after stripping it off for Henry’s benefit. Big mistake. That’s where Henry, Dusty and Ranch bled on everything.
Jody’s white pleated skirt had survived fine, being in a different room from where I’d done the killings. I took it off the kitchen chair and put it on. I still needed a top, though. Couldn’t go around outside in just a bra and skirt.
Henry’s clothes were in cardboard boxes in a comer of the front room. The boxes had gotten splashed pretty bad, but things at the bottom were okay. I found some sort of shirt that looked Hawaiian—a shiny thing with bright pictures of pink flamingos, blue water and green palm trees all over it. It was pretty big on me, but didn’t look too bad. The way it hung down, its front covered the specks of blood on my skirt.
I checked myself in the bathroom mirror. My wig looked damp but otherwise okay. The bandage and makeup had come off my face, so my dog bite showed. I figured I’d take care of that later on in the car. My chest was flat. I decided to go for socks, this time, instead of tissue.
Basically, I looked pretty good.
I looked like a babe who’d maybe just come back from a day at the beach and was on her way to a luau.
I went to the mother’s bedroom, found some socks in a drawer, and stuffed my bra with them. Then I picked up the sweatshirt that I’d dried myself with after the shower.
I used the sweatshirt to pick up Ranch’s .357 and wipe the blood off it. Then I wiped the blood off my purse, opened it, and stowed the revolver inside. Dusty always kept a two-shot .45 Derringer in an ankle holster. I found it and stuck it into my purse. I put the little paring knife in there, too. You never know when you might want to make a slit.
My hands got messy taking out Ranch’s and Dusty’s billfolds and generally searching their pockets. Ranch didn’t have keys, so he’d probably left them in his car. I wiped my hands on the sweatshirt, then put the billfolds into my purse.
The longer it took for cops to identify these guys, the better.
Burning the place down was a bad idea. I like to make fires. They’re great for destroying evidence. Without one, though, the bodies might not be discovered for hours. That’s what I wanted, so I couldn’t torch the place.
In the kitchen, I washed my hands. Then I stripped down to my undies once more. Too bad I hadn’t thought of this earlier and taken care of it before my shower. I left the shirt and skirt on the kitchen chair, out of harm’s way, then found a big heavy butcher knife (of the sort preferred by psychos). On the stove was a skillet where somebody had fried up bacon within the past day or so. The bottom had a layer of old grease that had hardened and turned gray.
I took the skillet and knife into the front room.
The wooden floor made a good cutting board. I stretched out one of Ranch’s hands and chopped off the end of his thumb. Then I gave it a toss into the pan. It made a soft thump. With the sweatshirt, I mopped most of the grease out of the pan.
That was to improve the sound quality.
So the rest of the thumbs and fingertips gave off nifty, ringing poinks each time they hit.
There’s a fine line between taking time “to smell the roses” and wasting time. I only needed to remove the finger and thumb tips from Ranch and Dusty. It would’ve been excessive to hack off Henry’s, even though I was enjoying my work.
I took off his thumbs, just for the hell of it, then made myself quit.
Cops can do stuff with palm prints, so I peeled the skin off the fronts of their hands. Not Henry, this time.
As insurance against visual identification, I took most of the skin off Ranch’s face, then Dusty’s.
All the skin went into the pan.
In the kitchen, I put the skillet back on a front burner where I’d found it. Then I turned the burner on, went to the sink and washed again. There was nothing clean to use as a towel and I was tired of running around the house, so I shook my arms a few times then went ahead and got dressed.
By then, sizzles and crackles and pops were coming from the skillet. The patches of loose skin had turned dark and shriveled down to about half their original size. I used a fork to poke them over to one side. The ends of all those fingers and thumbs looked like stubby little sausages. They were browning up nicely except for the nails, which had curled oddly. Some of the nails had fallen off.
Have you ever noticed how sausages wiggle and shake once they get going good? Sometimes, they even roll over on their own accord.
These pieces of the dead fellas did that.
It’ll be great to tell Jody about this. She might appreciate it to the extent that Dusty’s trigger finger was in there, and so were the fingers Ranch used on Jody’s little girlfriend, Andy’s sister whatever-her-name-was, shish-ka-sister.
Jody wouldn’t know about that, but I can make sure to tell her.
After a while, I forked out one of the fingertips. I chose one that had lost its nail (I mean, who wants to eat a fingernail?), then blew on it a few times and gave it a try. The pits. It probably could’ve been spruced up with salt and pepper, and might’ve been halfway decent marinated in teriyaki sauce. But it was mostly bone, anyway. I’m afraid I can’t recommend eating fingers.
Anyway, I kept the burner going until everything in the skillet was black and crispy. After that, I poured the excess grease over the dirty dishes in the sink, and hunted around for a bag. Henry’s mom had a whole closet full of brown paper sacks from Safeway. I shook one open and dumped the tidbits into it.
Then it was time to go.
I took my purse and the grocery sack, and went out the front door.
It made me a little nervous, walking to the car in broad daylight after leaving three bodies in the house.
Nobody came along, though. No nosy neighbors, no cops, no nobody.
At the last minute, I had this awful fear that Ranch might’ve locked his keys inside the car. He’d done it a couple of times before, that I knew about. He’d also run out of gas on trips. I used to ask him if he’d been out to lunch the day they passed out the brains. He wasn’t stupid, though. Just absentminded.
Now he’s really absentminded.
Absent everything, more or less.
It turned out that he’d left the keys in the ignition. The car doors weren’t locked, though.
I climbed in behind the wheel and set my purse on the passenger seat. I started to put the bag beside it, but saw dark brown spots where grease had leaked through the paper the way it does with fries or onion rings you
might get at a fast food joint. I didn’t want to ruin Ranch’s seat upholstery, so I set the bag down on the floor.
Then I took off.
It was great to be back inside the car, tooling along the roads, the air conditioner blowing a chilly breeze against me.
About a couple of blocks from the house, I spotted a ratty old gray dog by the side of the road. I had an urge to swerve and hit him. That’s what I like to do. But I was in a generous mood, so I stopped near him and put down the passenger window and tossed the bag out.
Pulling away, I looked in the rearview. The dog had already split the bag wide open. Its head was down. It was snapping up all that fresh, cooked meat.
This was his lucky day.
After getting rid of that evidence, I concentrated for a while on looking for a Jody substitute. Then realized I didn’t need one.
Which is to say, not until tonight.
Killing Ranch and Dusty has changed a few things.
The good news is that there shouldn’t be anybody at Tom’s tonight who knows for sure what Jody looks like. Mitch and Chuck will be there. They got closer to her than anyone except me, but it was dark outside and mostly they never got a chance to see more than her back. With Dusty dead, I shouldn’t have any trouble tricking the gang with a fake.
The bad news is that I’m fucked. With a lot of luck, maybe I’ll be able to pull off the trade and get me and Lisa out of there alive. But they’ll catch on to things, sooner or later. They’ll find out I handed over a fake Jody and they’ll figure out I killed Ranch and Dusty. Then it’ll be hell to pay.
They’ll hunt me down and kill me, sure as shit.
Unless I get them first.
Oh, man.
I can see it now, bust in there with a gun in each hand, blasting away like mad.
Suicide.
Forget it.
Hmmm. If I’ve got the element of surprise on my side ... after all, look how easy it was to handle Henry, Dusty and Ranch.
Who’s gonna be there?
Tom, of course. They’ll probably be in his garage, which is where we’ve been taking most of the dead bodies for the past few years. We’ve taken some live ones there, too. That’s where they’ll have Lisa.