The Sapphire Express (12 page)

I got very emotional when I savored my treasured Supreme, and a memory of a terrible nightmare, unexpectedly, surfaced from the murky depths of my mind. I had seen that cruel vision a long time ago at my grandfather’s log cabin in Halifax, and in that mother of all night terrors, my favorite Chicken in a Cannon had run out of Chicken Supremes, and I was pushed out in the cold parking lot with just a small Dr. Pepper and a tiny white packet of pepper in my trembling hands. Tears were flowing down my cheeks uncontrollably, and I curled into a fetal position on the dirty asphalt and started convulsing violently, unsure if I would even survive. I woke up screaming that night, my sweat was cold, and it smelled like fear. I was so afraid because the Chicken Supreme was something that I simply couldn’t live without. It was such an amazingly wonderful sandwich that I always held it gently in my hands like a precious diamond for a solemn moment before I sank my teeth into it. It was a full-blown spiritual event and an ode to the incredible ingenuity of the human species and our ability to create true wonders of the world when we really wanted to. It was the ultimate accolade in that rare workshop where mankind successfully cooperated with nature and produced something truly revolutionary. The sandwich wasn’t better than sex between two tanned, oily bodies under the balmy sky of midnight Ibiza, but it was better than masturbating with a half boner next to my sleeping wife.

I was almost done with my dinner when a young family of four sat at the table next to me. They had ordered a lot of delicious food and wonderful drinks, and the children looked happy and excited. The parents were very good-looking, and it was obvious that the young father had been a star athlete in college. The mother was beautiful, too, and her body would have made a group of self-conscious eighteen-year-olds turn green with jealousy. The kids were well dressed, and the group looked like they belonged on the cover of a parenting magazine. There was, however, just one problem: it was clear that the stone-faced couple hated each other. Their eyes never met, and they only talked to their children. The young, muscular father was probably regretting his marriage because he knew deep inside him that he could still walk into any bar in town and find a pretty girl to sleep with. He could still destroy ten shots of tequila and be the star of the party. The mother probably thought that it was so unfair that she had to stay home all the time with the kids, especially since she had always been told that she was smart and talented. They both seemed to think that there was so much more to life than what they had, but, unfortunately, they were wrong. That was it for them, and the sooner they realized that, the happier they would be. At least that was my humble take on it. But perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I was just a nosy old bastard with nothing else to do than come up with theories about other people’s lives.

After getting my chicken fix for the evening, I walked back home and started my nightly routines. I drank two beers, brushed my teeth, and took a quick shower. Then I turned the lights off and went to bed. I fell asleep immediately, even if I knew that something unusual was going to happen in less than twenty-four hours—I was going to kidnap a vicious man-beast and kill him dead. Kill him dead!

The next morning, I woke up and felt nothing. No anticipation, no stress, no fear, no sweaty hands, no empathy, no remorse, no nothing. It was evident that I had finally transformed into a semipsychopath—a torch of death devoid of any emotion. I just wanted to put the filthy consultant into the Econoline and get the damn thing over with.

The day dragged on slowly like a drunken snail, and I tried my best to kill the hours that were awfully reluctant to die. I flipped the TV channels like an idiot, but nothing interesting was on. I even watched the weather channel for half an hour, but all they were talking about was some freakish weather system that was moving erratically in the eastern Atlantic. I was bored to death and couldn’t even leave the house because the van was all prepped and ready to pick up a midnight passenger. I desperately wanted the harvest moon to arrive and cast its eternal light on the shiny blade of my twisted righteousness.

The clock finally hit 7:00 p.m., and it was time to go. I put the deliveryman’s uniform on and jumped into the Econoline. I slapped my right cheek hard, pulled the baseball cap down low on my murderous skull, and drove to the address that Ramses had shown me. I parked the van under a large maidenhair tree near the consultant’s house and double-checked that I was in the right place. I did that even if there was no doubt in my mind that it was the target’s home I was staring at with my bloodshot eyes. It was the biggest house on the street, and it smelled like money.

It was already dark outside, and the Econoline was almost invisible under the shadowy cover of the yellowing tree. The evening sky was overcast, and a light drizzle made the windshield sweat like a nervous juvenile delinquent about to commit his first pharmacy robbery. There wasn’t a soul on the street, and I knew that the stars had been perfectly aligned for my mission. It was time to put the gloves on and go to work.

I jumped out of the van and walked to the cargo door. I pulled the hand truck out with eager hands and left it standing outside the door. Then I jumped into the van and pushed Larry carefully on the truck’s nose plate. The wooden man settled firmly on the truck’s strong frame, and I closed the door and started pushing the glorious delivery toward the consultant’s house like I didn’t have a care in the world.

The house was absolutely beautiful, and I really liked the architecture. It was made of natural stone, and it looked like an old Scottish manor house. The landscaping was stylish and elegant, too, and there was a lighted fountain in the middle of the front lawn spewing magical purple water high into the air. I estimated that the place was worth at least a couple of million—at least. That didn’t surprise me, though. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from a bona fide sociopath. They were a somewhat murderous bunch, sure, but they had a knack for making money.

I arrived at the front door and rang the doorbell with steady fingers. If I was nervous or scared, I didn’t know it. I operated like a robot that had been programmed to kidnap a wicked man and put him in an oblong box. Or maybe I operated like a man who believed that everyone else had turned into robots, I wasn’t sure, but one thing was still absolutely guaranteed: I was going to remove the disgusting consultant from his house and send him to hell.

After about twenty seconds of silence, I heard deep coughing and saw the consultant’s silhouette through the textured glass door. The shadow grew larger with each step the doomed man took, and he soon pulled the door wide open, still coughing, and looked at my ugly face with annoyed eyes.

There he was, the mighty consultant, standing in front of me in a blue dress shirt that had his initials sewn on the cuffs in gold letters. The man had no pants or shoes on, just red satin underwear and a pair of black socks pulled high up on his tanned legs. He looked relaxed, and a little tipsy, too. I almost felt sorry to interrupt his perfect evening in a house where solitude was, no doubt, a rare and valued commodity. It was, after all, his private evening in his own home—a home that was far, far away from his disgusting in-laws.

“What is it?” the consultant said to me coarsely after subduing his cough with sheer willpower. His face complemented the mounting irritation echoing in his voice perfectly, and he looked like a man whose much-anticipated masturbation session had been cut short by a cruel intruder in a brown baseball cap.

“You have a delivery, sir. I need you to sign this, please,” I said cheerfully and handed him a fake delivery document that I had printed from the Internet.

“Isn’t it a little late for a delivery?” he asked without looking at the paper.

“Yes, sir, it is. But I was here already earlier today, and no one answered the door. My boss said that I should make one more attempt because this is a very special delivery, and we really want you to get the parcel today. There is something expensive in the box, a gift of some kind.”

“Sheesh, it’s probably from one of my clients,” the consultant said with a sigh that was meant to conceal his smug contentment about the gift. “OK, come in. You can leave the box there,” he said and pointed at a wood-paneled home office just off the front door.

“Thank you, sir,” I said and pushed Larry deep into the office. Then I took a golden pen from my pocket and handed it to the consultant and said, “If you could sign next to the X, please.”

When the consultant leaned down to sign the document, I looked at his dark hair that was now only inches away from my nose. It was a gorgeous man-mane, and I genuinely admired its health and the natural thickness that the gene Gods had so generously blessed him with. The masterpiece even smelled like paradise, and it was obvious that someone with very skillful hands and some dangerously sharp scissors trimmed it at least once a week. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was absolutely undeniable that the hair was never going to leave the lucky man. The only problem was, however, that the consultant only had a couple of hours left to enjoy it.

I took one final sniff of the crowning glory and pressed the stun gun hard against his neck. Then I pushed the little red button on the top of the handle with my right thumb, and the Cheetah bit the consultant viciously with its electric teeth. The big man started shaking uncontrollably, and he hit the ground like a crumbling tower of shit. I could feel the impact under my feet when his skull smashed violently on the hardwood floor. That was the moment when things turned real, and I knew that I had crossed the Rubicon and entered the real danger zone.

I leaned down and choked the limp man for twenty seconds for extra security. Then I walked quickly to Larry, removed the lid, and pulled out a roll of duct tape and a bundle of plastic wrapping. I taped the consultant’s mouth shut and wrapped his body tight inside the plastic. Then I secured the package with five more rounds of tape, turned Larry on its side, and pushed the consultant inside its wooden belly.

I looked at the plastic man curiously for a couple of seconds and made sure that he could still breathe through his nose. He seemed OK, and I hammered the lid closed like a perverted Bob the Builder and lifted Larry in an upright position. Then I slid the hand truck under the package and wiped the sweat off my forehead with my left sleeve. I had successfully completed the first phase of my project, and the magic box was ready to take the consultant on a trip of a lifetime.

I closed the door behind me and pushed the peculiar parcel under the fan-shaped leaves of the mighty maidenhair tree. Then I opened the Econoline’s rear doors and carefully maneuvered the hand truck next to the cargo space and used the truck’s hand winch to hoist the box into the van. I had practiced the move at home a couple of times and learned that it was a fairly effortless task for a man with strong arms and the determination of a true predator. That proved to be true also when there was a real man inside the box instead of logs and stones.

The package was safely in the van, and I closed the doors quietly and jumped into the driver’s seat. I turned the car key calmly and glanced at the consultant’s stylish house for one last time. The place was definitely more spacious than the abode I had persuaded the man to move in, but I figured that Larry was probably just the perfect size for a filthy bastard who had bludgeoned two innocent women to death.

I pushed the gas pedal gently, and the Econoline started its journey toward the slim man’s gravesite. I had no reason to pick a new location for my second nightly errand because I really liked the forbidden forest and all the peculiar sounds that a fearless man could hear in the darkness if he listened carefully. It was also a safe place for a little nightly interrogation that required total privacy.

The old oak soon welcomed my quiet guest and me with its gracious elegance, and I parked under its rustling leaves and smiled a shy smile. I felt so small and insignificant under the ancient tree, and I knew that I was just a foolish man who had intentionally thrown his moral compass overboard. I was nothing but a corrupt soul, poisoned with disease and resentment, and the oak was unselfish, generous, and full of life. It put me to shame, but it didn’t say anything.

I turned the engine off and jumped out with peculiar lightness tingling in my feet. I opened the van’s rear doors and peeked inside carefully. It was quiet in there, and Larry looked just like any other skillfully constructed oblong box—except that there was a semiconscious man in his underwear inside.

I jumped in and opened the box enthusiastically like it was a Christmas gift from a forgotten Tasmanian relative. I was prepared for the worst, but the consultant was alive, and the big fellow regained some of his strength when he saw my sweaty face staring at him. He was wriggling his body like a plastic cobra, and I had no other choice than to let him taste the excruciating bite of the Cheetah again. His body deflated immediately, and I had to make sure that he was still breathing by putting my right index finger under his nostrils. Then I removed the wrappings from his body and lifted the sleeping noodle on the metal chair that was bolted to the floor. The big man fit in it perfectly, and I handcuffed his arms and legs and removed the duct tape that covered his mouth with one swift, painful pull. I was absolutely certain that the aikido master was going nowhere, and I started to feel my muscles relax a little. The job was half-done, and I knew that I would survive the night. Nothing could save the consultant now; not even the gods.

I sat on the floor opposite the consultant and looked at him curiously like a tiger that had bumped into a crippled bear. His head was hanging low like a ripe mango, and saliva was dripping from his mouth that still had traces of tape adhesive around it. The man looked evil, and I knew immediately that the two prostitutes hadn’t been his only victims. He was addicted to blood, and his erection was the strongest when he could smell fear in the air. He was a human hunter in expensive underwear, the vilest beast of them all.