Authors: Derek Blass
T H I R T Y-S E V E N
__________________________________________________
T
he computer screen seemed to hum electronically in front of Tyler. Matter formulated pixels which coalesced into pictures, text, numbers, which Tyler converted into information. The woman was easy to find. She was on the news all the time. He would just watch her daily habits going to and leaving work. There was no problem finding the lawyer either. A quick search on the state bar's website revealed that he was the only attorney named Cruz. Got his business address from the website. Tyler didn't bother looking for the cop. The other two would lead him there. The phone rang.
“
Hello?”
“
It's me.”
“
Daddy?”
A pause. “Listen,
you fuck
,” the voice hissed, “I've got one call this week so don't screw around with me.”
“
Not like you have anyone else to call.”
“
When you land in here too, I'm gonna feed you to the spics.”
“
You sure they'll still be hungry after tasting your sweet ass?”
Another pause as Tyler could hear Shaver breathing hard. Finally he said, “What did you decide?”
“
I was on my way to start taking care of business when you called.” The line went dead. “Prick.” Tyler set the phone down and went back to gathering his equipment. Binoculars, a bionic ear with recorder. Conversations a hundred yards away were crystal clear with that ear. Tyler recalled reading somewhere that bears had a twenty-one thousand times greater sense of smell than humans. They could smell a carcass from twenty miles away. One hundred yards seemed peevish in comparison. Pen and paper. He put these all into a small pack and went out to his car.
The apartment complex he lived in provided protection of the masses. There was so much filth and criminal activity going on that he seemed saintly. It was like hiding a diamond ring in a bag of shit. He cranked up his car and set out for the news station. The day was young and Tyler was an early riser. From four in the morning to six he could be alone in the world as it awoke. It allowed him to avoid the herd in their daily rush to stick their heads through a yoke. It happened to coincide well with when reporters get going. He checked both ways before turning onto a four-lane road that would lead him all the way downtown.
Strip malls, fast-food joints, porn stores, thrift shops lined both sides of his path. The number of strip malls per block seemed a reasonable way to judge the makeup of a community. They housed the Indian groceries, the Somalian dry cleaners, each with some name in foreign lettering above a carefully crafted name in English, “All Season Tailor.” Something innocuous and meaningless like that. Who knew if the two names even matched?
The buildings changed as Tyler drove toward the city. Building facades became renovated and shiny. Signs of gentrification emerged. Brown and black changed to white. The push to remove the poor from sight, to the outskirts of civilization, where they could collect like trash in garbage dumps. All of this facilitated by land value, capitalism. Tyler turned right into an alley that ran behind the news station. He stopped and pulled out the bionic ear. It was fun to switch it on and see what he could pick up. People were
completely
different when they didn't know someone was listening. Friends were enemies. Enemies turned out to be even worse enemies. Gossip, that's often what Tyler picked up. Men were pigs, but women were too. That's something the bionic ear taught Tyler. It also solidified his hate of other people. The sentiment that they were conniving animals, a brownish sticky substance pressed into the tread of his shoes.
He didn't pick up any chatter so he stepped out of the car and walked down the alley. He ran his hand along the grout lines in the brick facade of the news building, enjoying the roughness. The sun was just breaking the horizon, reflecting off a low-lying level of clouds. The clouds themselves radiated neon pink. Tyler came around the corner of the building and kept walking to a small park on the opposite side of the street. He took a seat on a bench in the park, partially obscured from the front of the news building.
The occasional person walked by as Tyler waited. Cars started to flow more heavily as time passed. He watched the clouds above him change from pink to a burnt orange, Monetesque in the sky. Finally, they settled on their daily color. The flow of people increased too. Tyler felt sorry for them, the walking dead. Addicted to productivity, to supposed advancement from one level of the caste to another. They woke, consumed, worked, consumed, worked, took a break, worked out, went home, consumed, slept and then repeated it all the next day. Maybe they changed the pattern two days a week, but not all of them. How did that differ from being an animal? How was that not
worse
than being an animal?
Tyler perceived his killing as a method of elevation. Out of the race to uniformity and oblivion these people so willingly participated in. He had no schedule, no office, no secretary, no Outlook and PowerPoints, no productivity meetings, no donuts on the first floor, thank-you-very-much. His life wasn't marked by the tedious passage of time. The monotonous chug of existence. Life was constantly thrilling. Tyler recognized that his way of life appealed to an animal sense as well. The predatory aspect instead of the working aspect. He identified targets, stalked them and finally hurled himself at them, his mouth clenched around their necks, both bodies breathing furiously from the chase.
She came out of the building and he recalled her allure. Not that Tyler cared on any level other than an appreciation for the creation of beauty. He was not a hetero or homosexual. Sexually, he was ambivalent, removed. All of his sexual fulfillments came in those moments when he was crouched over his victims, watching life drain out of their eyes. Despite that, Tyler could still recognize physical beauty. She had it. Glossy black hair, of medium height and perfectly figured. Her heels clacked authoritatively as she walked. Her skirt rubbed against her skin as she moved. Form-fitting,
ass
-fitting.
He stood up and walked briskly to his car while watching what car she got into. Her car crossed in front of the alley as he pulled out and fell in a couple of vehicles behind. 54XTS7. License plate number. He followed as she wound through the city. Technically, all he needed was the license plate number. That would tell him where she lived. This was the stalk though, the study of a person's small movements in their daily lives. This is what Tyler would shatter.
She slowed and put her right blinker on to parallel park. Tyler continued past her and parked around the corner. He saw her walk into a restaurant and then reappear on the patio, escorted by a hostess.
She picked up a menu, looked at it, looked at her watch, then cell phone, took a sip of water. This is what he would interrupt. The hostess reappeared with a man. Tyler took his binoculars out and focused them on their table. It was the lawyer, Cruz. He sat in a chair next to her and picked up his own menu. They laughed, he drank some water. Tyler could have used his bionic ear but it was unimportant. Plus, he didn't have to listen to see they were in love. They exchanged playful touches, laughed together, talked about people together. Tyler put the binoculars down, feeling something empty inside himself. That is what he would shatter.
* * * *
The darkness was all-encompassing. His limbs were foreign, non-existent. All that remained was a kernel of thought, fleeting glimpses. The faintest shimmer in someone else's dream. It might be suggested that some thought would be welcome, but it was terrifying. Locked in absolute isolation, those brief moments of thought only promoted awareness of what was happening. Sound usually triggered the thoughts. From time to time voices were noticeable. They flew at him from a distance like a shout in a desert, wind-borne and solitary. He ached to reach out, to show some acknowledgment of the voices, but he had no control over any part of himself. The self-awareness was murderous. It would have just been peaceful darkness without that.
Then a collision of epic proportions, big-bang-esque, and Raul sucked in a roomful of air with one, prolonged gasp. Darkness collided with light. Senses with numbness. Silence with sound. A set of recurring sounds, beep—monitors, Raul recognized. His mind was slow. Thoughts fell into a vast chamber like individual grains of sand. They hit, echoed, and remained until the next fell. He cracked one eye open, which he shut immediately. Light burned. He requested that his right index finger move. It did. Got control of you again. Middle finger, thumb, ring finger, pinkie. Other hand. Both feet.
His arms ached and when he tried to lift himself up nothing happened. He cracked his eye open again and was able to tolerate a couple of seconds. Progress. The granules of thought were falling faster, piling up. What happened? Where am I? Am I alone? He tried to muster speech, a call out, but his vocal cords felt rusted over. He cracked both eyes, several more seconds. The beeping rose in volume and frequency. He heard rustling coming from somewhere. Then muffled footsteps. A presence. Someone was next to him.
“
Alguien llame al médico. El Se
ñor h
a regresado.
” He turned his head, more like a flop, and opened his eyes again. A woman in blue clothing stood next to him, one hand on his shoulder, the other pushing buttons on a machine. “
Con calma, Raul
.” Darkness returned.
* * * *
Cruz sat with his glass of water half-held up to his mouth. He scanned the street in front of the caf
é
. Sandra reached over and touched him on the forearm, “You all right?”
“
Yeah. I've just got this overwhelming feeling that we're being watched.” Sandra understood the feeling. Ever since she had been kidnapped she fought bouts of anxiety and paranoia.
It was difficult for her to trust anyone, especially men. She checked out the street too. Cruz went to set his glass down on the table without looking and missed. It fell to the concrete patio and shattered, silencing the caf
é
chatter.
“
Shit!” Cruz said as he grabbed his napkin and started to clean up the mess. A staff person ran out and swept the glass away, leaving just a puddle of water under Cruz. “Dammit, I'm sorry Sandra.”
“
No worries...we're all on edge.”
“
I don't get it. Even with Shaver in jail it seems like there's a constant threat.”
“
Shaver in jail doesn't mean this is over. He's got to have connections out here. It makes sense for us to stay vigilant.” Cruz looked at her and admired her calm and strength. She was absolutely gorgeous, all facets of her, and Cruz wondered how he had missed it for so long.
“
I'll be right back,” Sandra said as she stood up and walked into the caf
é
. Cruz watched her and then stood up. Something overpowered him. Something rich and otherworldly. His heart pounded as he strode several feet behind Sandra. She took a quick glance over her shoulder and smiled when she saw him.
“
Bathroom too?” she asked. Cruz shook his head no. She appeared slightly puzzled but continued to the women's bathroom which was around a corner from the caf
é
's main seating area. Cruz closed the distance between them and pushed the door to the women's bathroom open from behind her. Their bodies brushed together and sent electricity running up and down both of them. The bathroom was small, no one but them in it.
Sandra was startled but then melted when Cruz put his arm around her back and kissed her passionately. “Hey, I can't be seen...” Cruz ignored the comment and used his hand to raise her skirt. Her leg answered and curved around his thigh. They embraced each other in a half-starved craze. Sandra hooked her arms under Cruz's and pulled him in tight. The temperature in the room skyrocketed. Cruz felt himself become aroused as Sandra rubbed her leg and then her hand on his penis. He finished pulling up her skirt and grabbed her under her thighs, lifting her up to his waist and pressing her back against a wall. She grabbed the hair behind his head and mouthed love across his neck as he slid into her. They both groaned as their bodies swung in unison. Cruz with both hands full of Sandra's ass, squeezing tightly, as Sandra flung her head back and used it as leverage against the wall to push out against Cruz. Sweat streamed down Cruz's temples and started to bead on Sandra's chest. The rhythm became faster, harder. Their panting played off one another. The symbol of enjoyment kept taking them to higher levels of ecstasy. Cruz felt Sandra grinding into him, setting her own circular pattern to his vertical thrusts. Both of their bodies started to tense. Sandra's back arched and her nails dug into the back of Cruz's head. The sweet pain sent tremors through Cruz. They were in perfect unison now, not a single mis-step. Sandra started mumbling “Oh my god” as Cruz mustered all of his strength to pull Sandra closer. He slammed her against the wall as her fingers curled with fistfuls of hair. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the climax ripped through every nerve, every muscle in her body. Cruz exploded at the same instant. He thrust and matched Sandra's climax, holding himself there as they shuddered together, a magnetic pulse bouncing between them. Cruz locked his lips on Sandra's who had to pull away to breath, her breath coming out in short expulsions. When her breathing slowed they kissed again, slowly, deeply. Cruz let Sandra down gently. He put out his hand and leaned on the wall. Aftershocks coursed through their bodies, an eternal release.