Vile blood, p.3
Vile Blood, page 3
MBT quickly became a morbid sensation. The stuff of urban legend. The case received wide coverage on TV, on the radio, and in print for weeks after.
The story was gruesomely frightening to all readers and listeners. Most assumed the victim had been brutally raped before she was murdered.
CHAPTER 13
When the news broke about the unknown girl, he became petrified.
He made a hasty call from a pay phone (so it couldn’t be traced back to him) at a busy 7-Eleven. Outside the phone booth, some teenagers were laughing at a friend they’d just pranked. Random motorists were passing by the booth either entering or leaving the store’s parking lot.
He stood, shivering a bit, waiting nervously for the other person to answer the call. When the person finally picked up, he talked fast and low.
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you talk?”
The person just grunted, listening.
They agreed to meet in secret.
The door was shut. No one else was around. They spoke in whispers, an agitated voice rising now and again to a normal pitch, then subsiding back into murmurs.
“There’s no way the police can trace the crime back to us. Just forget about it. Act like it never happened. Them finding the body was the best thing that could happen.”
“But—”
“The damn thing’s a skeleton, a pile of dry bones. There’s nothing that connects it to us. There’s no evidence. Now it just becomes an open-and-shut cold case.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Keep cool, chump. They have dozens still on the books. Nobody working them. And everyone’s forgot about them. I’m telling you, we’re in the clear.”
Part Three
Devil’s Play
CHAPTER 14
October 15, 1975, Harvard University, Cambridge
A drop of sweat made it past his soaked headband and trickled down his cheek.
He was losing badly again, and his jaw clenched in kamikaze-like concentration.
Shit! The prick’s too damn good. I wanna beat him one time. Just one time!
Slick stopped the play before he served again. It was cutting badly into both his index and middle fingers as he gripped the racquet. He tugged it off and set it down by the wall close to the court door. Just then another friend rapped on the door, flung it open without waiting for a response, and stuck his head in, almost bumping heads with Slick, who had jerked up at the sudden interruption.
“Hey, son, you’re going to be late for the kegger if you don’t hurry up,” the friend announced. He nodded curtly at Slick’s playing partner before turning his attention back to his buddy. “And I hear Betsy Farmer is going to be there, too.” His eyes twinkled suggestively. “Ooh-la-la!” He grinned before slamming the door shut.
He joined Slick near the door and planted his tennis shoe just so. In a hurry now, Slick took no notice of what his opponent had done, his mind fixed on the buxom, winsome Betsy. Slick quickly toweled off.
“Sorry to cut the game short. Gotta run.”
Slick opened the door to rush out but turned to needle him once more before leaving.
“After all, I won the first two games and was leading the third.” He sneered. “So, I guess that makes me the top dog. Again.”
His opponent carefully camouflaged his annoyance. “Yeah, SW, you always come out on top.”
“Always, man. The…champ!”
He stared at the back of the departing Slick with a look of pure hatred.
CHAPTER 15
1981, Religious Colony, Northern Mexico
He’d just turned six years old, the first time he saw his father copulating with another woman.
The other kids were outside playing. His mother had gone to a neighbor’s house (that of a second cousin) to visit. He’d been told to stay outside and play but had gotten thirsty after chasing the older children. He had come back inside to get a drink of water when he heard funny squeaking noises coming from the back bedroom. The big bedroom.
Max had crept down the hallway and peered through the large keyhole of the old wooden door. Then he saw them.
A strange new female, a young Mexican girl, was astride her naked father, grinding and moaning. He had never seen her in the house before. At that moment, Max hated both his father and the unknown woman…without really knowing what hatred was or what he was feeling.
Even at that young age, he sensed that what he was seeing was somehow wrong. Out of place. Somehow he knew it was disrespectful to his mother.
He didn’t know what sex was yet…but deep inside he knew that what his father was doing was bad. He began to equate young Mexican girls with bad girls in his mind. Yet he was curiously drawn to them, even as a child.
Of course, there had always been many women in the house at various times. His father seemed to like having them around. But he had innocently thought of them as guests. When he was smaller, only his mother was allowed to help give him his baths, dress him, train him to use the toilet, cuddle him, tuck him in bed at night, and pray her simple prayers with him before the lights were turned out.
Seeing the girl with his father in such a forbidden way forever destroyed his childlike innocence. The disturbing images remained burned into his memory. As he neared puberty, they haunted his dreams and daydreams. He began to view the changing cast of pretty, young women within the household with conflicting lust and loathing.
From that moment on, the boy began to pay close, sullen attention to his father’s doings with these other women. These other ladies who were not his mother. He saw all the extra little attentions and words and touches Milt paid them. He also began noticing just how much his father ignored his mother, Jennifer.
He was nine now. In the years to come, as he reached puberty, he would inescapably begin to desire young Mexican women like his father had, but also paradoxically despise them, because they represented a betrayal of his mother.
Thus developed a love/hate relationship with young Hispanic woman he would carry into manhood.
CHAPTER 16
Shreveport
Bernie had moved to Shreveport after the first killing.
He was there two years before his second murder took place.
He always hated himself afterward for being with a prostitute. Sometimes his loathing became so great it simply had to erupt into rage.
He thought often of his mother. How she depraved herself for the johns. Her inner pain. Her dull, hopeless eyes. Eyes that had no longer looked at him with anything other than bitter regret right before she’d died.
“Call me ‘Babykins’.”
“What?”
“I said…call me…‘Babykins’.”
She cackled outrageously.
“You’re shitting me, right? Kinky stuff and role playing is gonna cost you extra, buddy.”
His eyes got hard and dangerous.
“Call me ‘Babykins’ and tell me, ‘Mama loves you,’ and smile for me. Or I’ll hurt you bad.”
“I ain’t your baby, you dumb bastard. Fuck me and be done with it.”
She lay beneath him now with a scowl on her face. The corners of her eyes and mouth and her forehead were creased with premature age lines and caked with heavy makeup. “Get rough with me, dipshit, and I’ll sic my pimp on you. Muthafucka’s six-foot-six and two-eighty. And he hates white dudes like you. So shut up and cram it in and get it the hell over with.”
He suddenly reached over, grabbed the cord of the phone by the bed, and ripped it out.
“What the hell you doing?”
Before she could properly scream, he’d already wrapped the cord around her slender neck and cut off her wind. Her eyes bulged as his muscles shook violently with the exertion and his chest heaved with labored breaths.
Finally, she was dead. He sat on top of her, letting his pounding heart and his breathing calm down.
“‘Babykins’…‘Mama loves you’…a beautiful smile,” he began repeating in a soft, singsong voice to himself over and over, still straddling her lifeless body.
His mother used to say that to him and smile for him…when he was a little boy.
CHAPTER 17
Houston
From puberty onward, he had coveted his father’s kept mistresses/maids.
They were young and pretty, and some were even still innocent when they joined the household. All were hapless. They needed a job and protection from immigration authorities, and Big Bob had provided that.
But he had to keep his nose clean now. He had big plans. A bright future.
Besides, with his looks, money, and charm, he’d always been a lady-killer. Gotten virtually any honey he’d ever wanted. His was the privileged life. He smirked with the pleasant memories.
From elementary school through college, he’d had his share of scrapes. A few serious. But his rich family name and connections always got him off the hook.
He thought about the stupid nicknames his friends had given him in junior high and high school. Because of his ability to score with the ladies and evade any consequences of wrongdoing.
He’d wanted to go into politics from his junior year in high school and knew he had to avoid controversy and maintain a good public image, moving forward. He had it all figured out. He would marry a pretty, rich socialite. Go to law school. Enter politics.
Mayor. Then governor or state senator. Then U.S. congressman or senator.
Hell, the sky was the limit. Texas had already laid claim to multiple vice presidents and presidents by birth or residence. Why not another?
Yeah. Maybe president of the United States, someday.
Part Four
Good, Bad, and Nada
CHAPTER 18
2003, San Jose
He startled at the sight, lurching forward in his seat and slopping the just-opened can of beer on his best pair of jeans and the expensive leather couch.
“Damn it.”
His jaw and eyes froze wide open in utter disbelief, the spill momentarily forgotten. “My God. It’s her. It’s really her.”
His breathing became shallow. “My baby.” He’d thought of her so many times through the years. Fantasized about her. Agonized. His intense feeling of loss was always coupled with murderous rage.
The film was They Came at Night. A soft-porn, zombie-horror, C-grade flick, it was already a cult classic among those who watched such movies. It was two thirty in the morning, he couldn’t sleep (again). He’d turned on the TV, popped open a can of brew, and was just sitting there. Channel-surfing. Bored out of his skull. Exhausted from mounting sleep deprivation.
When she appeared on the screen.
Even after all these years, he recognized her immediately.
As the end-of-movie credits rolled by, he discovered her new identity. Finally! He’d been searching for her ever since college. She’d disappeared seemingly without a trace.
He called the first thing next morning.
“Is this LA Investigations?”
“Yes, sir. What can we do for you?”
“I want you to locate an actress. She was in a movie called They Came at Night.”
There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. “Yup. Seen it. Broad with huge tits. Can’t act to save her life, but nice rack.”
The man’s laugh irritated him. He almost hung up. She was the one true love of his life, and this monkey was demeaning her. He took a deep breath. Told himself that probably thousands of jerkoffs like this guy had wet dreams about her. Who wouldn’t?
“Okay. Her stage name is, or was, Cherry Chesty.”
“Yup. Got it.”
“Find out where she currently lives, her contact info, marital status, umm, also her financial status, recent pictures, etc., etc.”
“Yup. Got it.”
“When can—”
“I should have something within forty-eight to seventy-two hours for you, sir.” The man paused. “And sir, you know it’s illegal to use the information we find to stalk or harass the subject. Right?”
“Look, just do your job. We were sweethearts in college once.”
“R-i-g-h-t.” He could almost see the P.I.’s filthy smirk.
“Her real name is Margorie Mullins. She went to Harvard the same year I did, prick.”
There was silence on the line.
“You there?”
“Yup. Just writing it down, sir. So. This broad had some brains to go with her, ah, beauty, huh?”
“Just find her, man.”
“It’s sixty dollars an hour plus expenses, and I require a hundred-dollar retainer up front, sir.”
“Email me your standard contract. I’ll pay the retainer with my American Express.”
When the business at hand was finished, he sat back at his computer table and idly drummed his fingers on the desktop, wondering. Did she have any feelings for him after all these years? In the film, yes, she was no longer the innocent ingenue of her youthful college days, of course, but—she was still amazingly beautiful in his eyes. Not haggard or prematurely aged. He’d met so many women in their late forties who looked ten to fifteen years older. Her figure was as amazing as he remembered. Huge, natural breasts that incredibly didn’t sag. An hourglass figure. And a smile that could light up an entire room.
After twenty-seven years, he was still madly in love with Margorie Mullins.
CHAPTER 19
Houston
“Mr. Blackman, I’m letting you in on the ground floor, so to speak. There are a lot of successful investors interested in these gas wells. These units are guaranteed to produce fifty-five hundred dollars a month in income.”
Henry Blackman was just his current victim.
Chuckie was good. Really good.
He could sniff out the chinks in the mark’s armor and zero in on their fears and desires. If a wealthy retiree’s concerns were about security, he’d push a totally bogus history of consistently high past production. “You know we drilled a well nearby in west Texas that had these exact same readings, and the early investors all made millions.”
If the issues revolved around return on investment, he’d boost about the incredible once-in-a-lifetime profits to be made. Or that it was so successful that most shares had already been gobbled up by shrewd, aggressive investors. “There are only four units left in this project.”
He’d dabbled in small-time drugs in his youth. But that had proved to be too risky, the larger the drug deals and the older he got. He wasn’t a killer. But other dealers were. And the threat of serious jail time scared him even more.
For the past twenty-two years, he’d been running a lucrative con game. Selling shares in fake oil and gas reserves to suckers. Sometimes with a couple partners. And sometimes on his own. He’d become so adept at the game that he really didn’t need the others. But using less-experienced or more trusting partners did make it easy to frame them as scapegoats. For when things went south.
Twice now, he had thrown others under the bus. Avoided convictions or penalties when the heat was on. He’d learned the law. The loopholes. The seemingly innocent clauses to put into partner agreements. The things to say in court (or have his attorney say) to appear the aggrieved, unknowing, victimized junior partner of their wild schemes…the one who wasn’t privy to the insider details.
In between scores, he’d do other things to get money. Like making his current wife pretend to slip on a recently mopped floor (where a shopper had dropped a huge jar of pickles five minutes before), fake a serious injury, and sue the large grocery chain for a big settlement with a sleazy contingency-fee attorney.
Anything to make a quick buck.
CHAPTER 20
The parking spaces were all full. Throngs of people milled around. Inspecting the four representative portable buildings that had been erected on-site. Or walking in or out of the big modular office in the center of the huge lot. His two salesmen had already closed eight deals that day. Five contracts for custom buildings and three for standard design models. And it was only one thirty-five in the afternoon.
The grand opening had started at nine that morning.
Morning attendees had been treated to tasty breakfast tacos. And from noon on, a catering crew had been serving Texas BBQ and baked beans. Kids were given colored balloons and adults their choice of red, white, or blue Houston Astros baseball caps. On opposite ends of the lot stood tall poles, the two large American flags waving proudly with the occasional gusts of wind.
“So glad you came out today.”
Rodríguez smiled at the older couple whose teenager was standing behind them, bored, wishing he was anyplace but there. He reached out and shook the hand of the father.
“What can we do for you, sir? Are you looking for anything in particular?”
The man cleared his throat before he began speaking. “We have two grown daughters. One is married. Both out of college. We made the mistake of allowing them to store excess stuff in the garage they no longer had room for in their…tiny apartments. Over time, our garage has gotten so jammed with their stuff, we can’t even park one car inside. Let alone two,” he added, irritably, under his breath.
“I understand.” Rodríguez stood with his hands folded over his belt buckle, listening intently. He waved his hands outward, meaningfully. “So, I take it you want to put a portable building in your backyard for your daughters’ things? Maybe instead of paying exorbitant monthly rent on a storage unit?”
