Presidential Cleaning: A Psychological Suspense Novel (2 page)

‘Sami or Locke,’ his toothy grin teased my fist to plant itself upon his mouth. I felt as they shattered upon impact, slightly grazing the tough skin on my hands.

Some might have said that ridding this fine gentleman of his teeth was a bad idea. I might have agreed if I didn’t find his less than toothy grin more appealing than the one he’d been flashing ever since he came to terms with the fact that killing him wasn’t on my agenda- at least not yet. He covered his mouth, interrupting the steady flow of blood that had previously been streaming through it.

‘If you’re not going to give me what I want, I’m just going to have to take it from you. Is that something you think you can handle?’

‘How much fun would this be if I just gave you all the answers right off the bat?’ With each word that escaped his mouth, a splatter of bloody saliva came flying in my direction. He was brave. A bit too brave. Men like this were used to being beaten upon. I knew then, that there was no way he was the one in charge. I knew that he was just a pawn in a spiel ten times bigger than he was. But if he knew where Lila was being held, then by the time I was through with him, I would know too.

I ignored his question. Having warned him that not speaking was one of the worst things he could do, it was time to show him just how true I stayed to my word. Sure, I could have gone around the building in search of Lila. I could have left this man to pick up the pieces of teeth that were scattered before him, but he hadn’t learned his lesson just yet. He and whoever was in charge, needed to know just how little a man like me cared about the screams of my enemy.

I looked around the room, in search of tools that would make our time together more enjoyable for me and more excruciating for him. On a table to my right, I spotted just the things I needed to ensure that Mr. Loudmouth didn’t wiggle away while I was getting things prepared.

‘Duct tape,’ I exclaimed.

He knew just what I had planned. I wound the tape around the upper half of his body, assuring that his bullet wound received the adequate degree of pressure it needed to shoot a new round of pain through his arm each time he moved.

‘Aah,’ he moaned, searching my eyes for a glimmer of compassion.

The table in this room was like a playground filled with sand toys that had my name written all over them. There were knives and needles, plyers and rope- all the things a man needed to introduce his enemies to insurmountable fun.

‘Get in that chair,’ I pointed to a lone metal chair that stood within close proximity to a dirty metal sink.

‘Come on man. What are you planning on doing?’ There was no hiding the fear in his voice. This was no longer the shoot and be shot game he was used to and he’d realized it.

‘I’ve got a knife in my hand, what could I possibly be doing with a knife?’ I whirled the shiny object around.

‘You’re a sick fuck, you know that?’

‘The problem isn’t me understanding how sick I am. The problem is that you bastards didn’t understand. When I told you that I wasn’t to be fucked with, you didn’t understand. When I asked you where my wife was, you didn’t feel like answering. You wanted to play. So now you’re getting what you want. Except, we’ll be playing by my rules. And if you should know anything about me, it’s that I don’t play fair. I play dirty. Do you like to play dirty, Loudmouth?’

He shook his head frantically. Closing his eyes as though willing me to disappear. In front of him I stood, gliding the rusty blade of the knife along his arms, pressing lightly at first and then hard enough to graze the surface of his skin. His eyes tried hard to stay shut as he anticipated the pain that was to come.

‘Nope,’ I smirked. ‘You’re safe.’

He slowly allowed his eyelids to expose his crystal blue irises. A loud breath of relief followed soon after. I could see the tears trying hard not to fall from his scared eyes and that made me want to hurt him even more. Who was he to try to play on sympathy that I didn’t have? His tears, whether forced or natural, felt like mockery. I turned away, not saying a word. Did he really believe that putting on a puppy dog face would allow me to forget the way he gloated over the phone? Did he truly believe that I’d forgive him for prying my wife out of our apartment?

‘I’m gonna set your hands free in a minute, so just sit back and relax while I take care of a few things.’

I could feel his eyes piercing my back as he watched me lift his friend’s lifeless body from the ground and hoist him up onto the table. Rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in as he’d been dead for less than an hour. I retrieved the rope, hopped on top of the table, pushing the body with my feet to ensure that I was properly grounded. With one swing, I got the rope around the metal pipes that lined the ceiling.

‘Oh my god,’ Loudmouth exclaimed, his voice trembling with each word that escaped him. ‘You’re… You’re… You’re not gonna hang me or anything, are you?’

I observed his face for a few seconds before answering, ecstatic that he’d finally been filled with a new round of fear.

‘No,’ I answered, letting him off much more easily than I should. Again, a shadow of relief swept across his face only to be wiped away when I said, ‘hanging would be too humane.’

His eyes assumed their closed position and under his breath he whispered what sounded like a soft prayer. Unfortunately, men like these didn’t realize that even if there were a God, he had shut his ears to their cries a long time ago. Yes, he’d shut his ears to people like me too. Though the cruel things I’d done in the past were often written off as ‘for the greater good,’ they were unforgivable by the man in the skies and frightening to the man down below.

A slipknot secured the rope around the dead guy’s ankle while an open end dangled from the pipes above.

‘What’s his name?’ I turned to Loudmouth who still had his eyes shut and mouth moving.

‘Charles,’ he replied, refusing to pry his eyes open.

‘Okay, Loudmouth. I’m going to need some help with Charles, so whatever it is that you’ve got going on over there, you ought to suck it up ‘cuz we’ve got work to do. Understand?’

His head nodded hesitantly and it was easy to determine that he wanted no part in what was about to happen. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have a choice.

I jumped off the table, landing only a few feet in front of him. ‘Buck up,’ I said, as I skated the knife down his arm and over the duct tape. His body tensed as the roughness of the blade made contact with his skin.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, and headed to the direction in which I pointed. ‘The straws. Hand me the straws,’ I demanded.

‘Straws, what the hell do you need straws for?’

I flashed him a look that prompted him to do as he was told. ‘I’d say you weren’t in the position to ask questions. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Come on man. It’s all not that serious. Just give them what they want and you’ll get your wife back.’

‘Really?’ I snapped. My voice filled with anger as he tried to downplay the situation. ‘You break into
my
home and take
my
wife and try to tell me that it’s all not that serious. Let me tell you something you little fuck, I’m one of the guys you don’t fuck with. I’ve done things to people that shouldn’t be possible. I’m still haunting the dreams of the men who live to tell their tales. When I warned you on the phone, you thought it was all some kind of joke. You thought that your boss could protect you; that he was greater than great. But let me tell you something, I’m the kind of enemy the devil is afraid of and unfortunately for you, I’m an enemy that you have. So when I don’t ask a question, there’s no need for you to speak. And when do ask a question, it needs to be answered rapidly.’ I wasn’t sure if the constant nodding of his head was a way to tune me out or if he’d completely lost control of the trembling sensations that my words brought upon him. ‘Now,’ I continued, ‘you’re going to stand here like a good boy and keep your eyes open. You need to see this. You need to see this so that you can tell your boss just what he has waiting for him.’ 

I lost myself in the job I was performing, inserting the knife into the raw flesh of the body that lay before me. My hands didn’t shake, my feet didn’t tremble. Into the carotid artery and then into the jugular artery slid my knife, creating incisions large enough to allow the straws to slip in with ease.

‘Pull,’ I instructed Loudmouth who was holding onto the rope as though it were a line of hope. He followed my command. Blood seeped from the dead man into the bucket placed below him. I made my way over to him, took hold of the rope, knotted and secured it so that it could carry the weight attached to it. But then, her voice trickled into my thoughts and I could feel the disappointment she would have; the disgust she would feel, watching me perform a task as inhumane as could be. I tried to shut them out, to push the thoughts of her to the back of my mind- I failed.

My eyes searched the room for Loudmouth who was bent over in the corner, relieving himself of breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the first time in forever, I pitied a man. It wasn’t that I felt sorry for the things I did, but somehow, his weakness, his fear, they all poked at a soft spot in my rock hard heart.

‘You know,’ I said, my voice calmer than he’d ever heard it. ‘I was going to have you cut your friend down, tie the rope around you own ankles and bleed the answers out of you, but somehow, a part of me won’t allow that. So, before I change my mind, I think it would be wise for you to answer my questions. Where. Is. My. Wife?’

‘I don’t know where she is,’ he moaned, wiping the mess from his face. ‘He had us take her and bring her here and not long after he picked her up. I swear to you, I have no idea where they took her. He told us not to call you until he’d left. He left a paper with what to say. The questions to ask. The demands to make. ’ His eyes searched my face, perhaps to see if I doubted him.

‘Who is
he
?’ I asked dryly.

His answer came fast. ‘Peterman. Harry Peterman. He’s the one in charge of all this. He’s Derrick Shaw’s brother. It’s not something everyone knows but I heard him talking on his phone and he referred to Shaw as his brother.’

‘Derrick’s brother, but they have different…’

‘Yeah, their last names are different because they haven’t got the same dad. At least that’s what one of the other guys said. Charles, the one you strung up. He knew a lot more than me. He’d been working with Harry for years now.’

‘But they detained Derrick Shaw’s entire family.’

‘His foster parents. They took his foster family. The cops weren’t able to make the connection between Peterman and Derrick because no one knew they had anything to do with each other. They only met a few years ago and kept their plans on the down low.’

It all made sense to me. I’d been the one to bring Derrick to his cell; a cell where criminals like him-criminals who became the president’s secret-were kept. Though rugged and filled with a lack of care for the world and the people in it, he didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who could conjure up a crime like the ones he was found guilty of. Sure, carrying it out was easy. All he needed to do was drop off a backpack, but the actually making the bomb; the coordination, they weren’t up his alley. He wasn’t smart enough, grounded enough of resourceful enough.

‘Call your boss and tell him I want my wife back,’ I said before turning my back to him and heading out the door. ‘Oh, and by the way, leave your friend hanging there and tell your boss that when I get my hands on him, I’ll be a lot more creative.’

Chapter 4

I had people; dark and dirty people. Ones who loved the smell of fresh blood and the sound of a heart taking its last beat. However, making contact with these men would mean buying back into something that I’d done everything-short of selling my soul- to get out of. Though tying a dead man upside down wasn’t something that should have made its way into my present- I did it for me- I did it for my wife. Contacting these men would mean that I owed them; that when they needed my help, saying ‘no’ wouldn’t be an option. That’s how things worked in our world. The men I could call were the ones I’d saved and thus, the ones who owed me- no questions asked. But was I ready to put myself into the position where-having had them help rescue my wife- I could be called at ghastly hours of the night to perform the unmentionable. Night after night, I told myself that the life I left wasn’t the one I needed to get back into. I could save my wife alone. I had the skills, the courage, the drive- but these men, they had the resources. A one man army wasn’t ideal when I had no idea what the situation ahead looked like.

I hated these men- Derrick Shaw, Harry Peterman, Loudmouth and numbers one through six- for reminding me of who I was; for bringing a past I’d moved on from back into my future. And though I wanted badly to tackle them on my own- to claim each and every life that had something to do with the disappearance of Lila- I knew that storming into the building where she was being kept and blasting through head after head was something she wouldn’t be able to forgive me for.  There would be no hiding things from her, as she’d have to walk through the building and past each body that I was responsible for relieving of its soul.

In the bathroom, I splashed a handful of cold water over my face. The four years that I’d been with Lila, had brought back a sense of life in my eyes. But as I looked at them, I realized that a cloud had replaced any twinkle that being with Lila might have given them. I was a killer. I had the eyes of a killer. My hands- like a killer’s- wore the pungent scent of blood. My former captain’s words resonated in my ears, ‘people like us, we’ll always be dead inside.’ Up until the time that I met Lila, I’d believed him. But Lila, she was easy to love. She made a human out of me. I’d tried so hard to be better. Only to have any progress I’d made of bringing life to a soul that most probably didn’t exist, fizzle away within the blink of an eye. I wanted to do better. For Lila’s sake, I needed to do better. I couldn’t continue to leave a trail of corpses wherever I went. However, each plan that came to my mind was one that involved a handful of people sealing their fate six feet under.