Dawson's Web (13 page)

“Then what happened?”

“I went up to her and asked her why she looked so sad. I was trying to put a smile on her face, but it backfired. She started wailing when I finally got the nerve to ask what was wrong. Her girlfriends tried to console her and told me to leave, that they’d handle it. So I left them alone for a while and then they called me back for more drinks. She ordered a Pinot Noir. When I brought it to the table, I tripped over one of her friend’s purses and I spilled it on her. Her white blouse was ruined. I felt so sorry for my mistake I went and got some club soda and a towel to help with the stain. But I may have gotten a little bit familiar with her when I did. I don’t know what I was thinking. Her whole top was purple. I soaked her down with soda water and muttered something about it needed to be done so the stain wouldn’t set.”

“You were wiping her down at her wake and you were trying to cop a feel while you did it?”

“It didn’t start out that way, but, when she didn’t pull back, well, yes.”

“You’re lucky she didn't slap you.”

“Well, she didn’t slap me. I think she realized what I was doing. So did all her friends.  I was sheepish at first, but I continued to try to get the stain out and then went back to the bar. I was so embarrassed. I knew I’d crossed the line.”

Next thing I know one of her guy-friends at the table comes up to me at the bar. I thought he was going to give me some shit. But he didn’t. He told me he hadn’t seen Patty smile that much in the last five years. He said Patty and her husband had grown apart and were not on the same page. They were having problems, like so many other couples do.”

“He told you this at the wake? Unreal.”

“It was her husband’s best friend. He told me Patty’s husband was up in Vail with another woman when he had his car wreck. Fortunately, he was alone when he spun out over the mountain. He had dropped his girlfriend off in town earlier. “

“Why did he tell you this? He didn’t even know you.”

“I don’t know? He felt like he needed to. Anyway, Patty’s husband was a cheater and he saw what it did to her. He felt sorry for her too and said he hadn’t seen her smile as she had when I spilled the wine on her in years.  Patty didn’t know anything about her husband’s infidelity. No one but he knew. When he saw Patty’s reaction to me when I was trying to wipe her blouse off, he knew there was a spark between us. He could sense the same thing I did. Patty was as attracted to me as I was with her. He only wanted what was best for her, as he said, so that’s why he told me.

I was still embarrassed. I didn’t say anything to Patty the rest of the afternoon, but a couple of days later she called me and asked if I wanted to get coffee with her. We met at a local Starbucks. We spent three hours there talking. By the time I was done, I was hooked.”

“Uh, huh.”  Randy took a swig of beer.

“The rest is history. We’ve been together ever since.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Why would I kid you about this? I’m smitten and will be moving soon. This is the best of both worlds for everybody.”

“Oh, and by the way,” JR said as he was heading to his bedroom. “When I move out, I’m quitting my job at the HBYC. I spoke to the owner, pumped you up, and he said he’d hire you sight unseen. A waitress also quit last week, so Charlene can start tomorrow!”

“Holy shit bro, that’s awesome.” Randy put the cigar box with the 27 wads of thousands back into his suitcase, but not before getting up from the couch and hugging his friend.

They weren’t Italian, but it was that kind of moment.

Randy stopped his friend from going into the bedroom.

“I’ve gotta wake up my sweetie. She’s asleep on your bed.”

“No, you don’t bro.”  JR said half teasing, half not, but did stop in the doorway to his bedroom while Randy got Charlene up and moved her to the couch.

Two weeks later, Randy took Charlene up to Marina Del Rey for a celebratory weekend up at the Ritz Carlton. He would be starting his job as the bartender at KHYC soon, and Charlene just received her first paycheck. Because they had been living with JR for a month, they had had no private time together. They both needed that, which is why Randy splurged and rented the $200 a night room right on the Marina Del Rey harbor. He spent over a thousand dollars that weekend, but, as far as he was concerned, it was worth every penny of it. He and Charlene spent most of the time in bed and ordering room service that weekend.

Monday morning, when they checked out, Randy paid in cash, unrolling one of his rubber-band bound wads of hundred dollar bills.

The desk clerk was amused but said nothing.  He had seen this more than once since he started working there. The situation was even covered in training. To quote the manual: “If someone pays in cash, don’t question it. They might not want a credit card receipt. Be discreet at all times and respect the privacy of our guests.”

He put the hundreds in the cash drawer and Randy and Charlene left, sans receipt.

It took Randy and Charlene forty-five minutes to drive back to Hermosa to their apartment. As they rounded the corner on Hermosa Avenue and got near their place, they saw four police cars with their lights on parked in the street in front of their apartment, reminiscent of a scene from CSI. The requisite yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape cordoned off the area.

Randy slowed down but didn’t stop. He continued South on Hermosa Avenue and pulled over to the curb and called JR.

“JR, I drove by your apartment. The police are there and they were upstairs in the one next to yours.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. They found the body of the girl that lived next door to us two days ago in Redondo Beach. She was murdered. The police are there gathering evidence.”

“Shit, man, did you know her?”

“Yes. Her name was Roxy. She was very cute. I even asked her out a couple of times, but she was a little bit standoffish. She worked at a bank.”

“They found her body two days ago? How was she murdered?

“The police haven’t given out any details.”

“Should we find another place while the investigation is going on?”

“No. I spoke to the investigator this morning after they interviewed me and they said they would be done later this afternoon. I told you, bro, you and Charlene are in. You don’t need to move.

Why don’t we meet and get some lunch? There’s a good seafood restaurant down the street. It’s called the Bluewater Grill. We can chill there and catch up until the police are done.  It’s only about four blocks from you. Keep heading south on Hermosa Avenue. You’ll see the sign on the right. We can grab a late lunch. By the time we’re done, the police will be out of there.”

Randy acknowledged and drove there.

After the five-minute drive from the Portofino Inn, Jeff Dawson pulled his car up to the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club. The little dive bar was no more than 400 square feet and was situated on the east side of Hermosa Avenue. Fortunately, there was a parking spot right in front—an unusual occurrence in this very crowded beach community.

He walked into the dimly lit place and scoped it out. It was deserted except for a couple of surfers and the barmaid.

He felt exhilarated.

He also felt spent because of his time with Roxy, but not enough to not notice the cutie behind the bar.

Charlene was beautiful.

She had started working there on Monday.

She was stunning.

He studied her and his reptilian brain hoped this might lead to future games.

Charlene’s peaches-and-cream complexion and the way her bangs fell on her forehead reminded him of Roxy and his stepmom.

He couldn’t believe his luck: two in one day.

Amazing!

He walked towards the bar, all the while staring at her, imagining things he wanted to do with her and to her.

Generally, after he succumbed to his demons, he was satisfied for at least two months and sometimes longer.

It hadn’t been twenty minutes since he murdered Roxy, but now all he could think about was what it would be like to seduce the barmaid, rape, and murder her. And this gorgeous creature stood no less than twenty feet away. It was maddening. It was also exhilarating.

In his reptilian brain, what he felt was natural.

The reptile sought prey and the satisfaction it would bring. It asked for nothing else.

His feelings were not to be judged, and were compelling him, driving him, making him frantic. These feelings needed to be acted upon again, and soon, lest he burst.

In his logical brain, which usually took over very shortly after he was done with his games (like the stillness in the air after a downpour of rain), he knew something was amiss.

He tried to control himself and his thoughts, lest he act irrationally and put himself at risk.

His reptilian brain was not to be distracted.

No more thoughts about right and wrong. He had to have this creature in front of him.

He approached the bar, stalking her with his eyes, as a snake hunts a rodent before coiling, striking and devouring its prey.

His mind was racing.

His pulse accelerated.

He started to sweat. Still, he kept his eyes on her as he walked ever so slowly towards her, struggling to gain control.

She was the prize. He had to have her.

He studied the way she moved when she was wiping down the bar. He noticed the deliberate way she methodically went about her business, cleaning, and then drying the surface until it was clean.

This creature was superb.

She was intelligent.

She was thinking about what she was doing and she was conscientious.

He could tell.

His logical brain struggled to gain control.

Maybe she had too much intelligence for him and his games.

He liked his victims dumb, but not stupid.

For him, it was a balance between cuteness, intelligence and innocence.

The right combination sent him into a state of euphoria. If they were too smart, his logical brain kicked in and warned him not to approach. If they were too innocent, it elicited the same response.

The reptilian brain argued, sometimes unsuccessfully, that brains and looks posed no threat to him.

It was making that argument now.

But his logical brain knew differently.

Only the right balance of cuteness, intelligence and innocence could produce that explosive spark of violence that drove him to fulfill his revenge.

When thinking logically, he knew it was this same combination of qualities that drew his father to his stepmother. Only, in his father’s case, it didn’t drive him to violence. Just the opposite: it drove him to adoration. His father was a good man and was not emotionally scarred as he was.

He loved his new wife.

He believed her and not him when Jeff went to him and told him what she had done to him when he was six years old. He still remembered the feeling of disbelief when his father chose to believe his stepmother and not himself.

He should be angry with his father for not believing him, but he wasn’t.

He only hated his stepmother for what she had done to him. He didn’t hate his dad. He understood him now.

She was the one that hurt him.

She was the one that let the demons into his life.

Her’s were the actions that needed to be avenged, not those of his father.

He sat down and stared at Charlene.

Snake Brain kicked into full slither mode.

His stepmother was beautiful.

The barmaid opposite him was beautiful.

His stepmother could feign innocence even though she had been a prostitute for several years before meeting his father.

She was also smart.

After all, she convinced his dad to marry her.

But in the end, she was not that smart.

She didn’t realize three repeats of child abuse would get her into deep, serious trouble with the authorities.

Jeff didn’t figure out this diagnosis of his stepmother’s intelligence by himself.

He learned it in counseling over the two years of therapy he was forced into at fourteen.

At that age, he was raging with hormones, which got him into trouble at school several times for “inappropriate” behavior.

This mostly involved him making inappropriate comments to some of his female classmates, which earned him his share of detentions, but in one case, he was actually found guilty of reaching out and touching one of them during a football game. But, because he was a minor, admitted what he did was wrong to the police and apologized, the charges were dropped and his record was expunged but only after attending counseling for two more years.

During those sessions, he partially began to understand that what he did was wrong.

He didn’t totally understand it because his reptilian brain and logical mind were battling while the psychologist was trying to reach him so Jeff could have a clear picture of his inappropriate actions.

The reptilian brain wouldn’t hear any of it.

The logical part of him saw the differences between right and wrong, but the lines were blurred when viewed through the serpent’s eyes.

In one of the therapy sessions, he opened Pandora’s Box and exposed his rage towards his stepmother. The reptile was in full control at that instant.

During that afternoon, while Jeff was unloading all of his venom towards his stepmother, the counselor considered having Jeff arrested because he seemed to pose a threat to himself and potentially others. By law, he would have to report it.

But shortly after Jeff’s outburst at which time he swore and physically got up from the couch and started making stabbing motions with his hand as if holding a knife, Jeff’s logical brain took over.

Snake Brain took a back seat at exactly the right time.

His rational brain understood the thin ice he was venturing out on while he was describing what he would like to do to his stepmother if he ever saw her again. Fortunately, he was able to stop himself from describing in detail the plans he had for her: plans that involved a very sharp knife and very much pain.

The logical brain gained control and Jeff calmed down, sat back down on the couch and acted as if nothing had happened. He was, after all in hypnotherapy, and because of that, the acting out he did might only have been because, in retrospect, the counselor hadn’t brought Jeff deep enough into relaxation.

His counselor got a front row seat on the schizophrenia stage play that was occurring but failed to recognize it for what it was.

The shift Jeff made from snake to logical brain had occurred too quickly.

He later wrote his patient had had a breakthrough that day and even considered writing a scientific paper describing how his use of hypnotherapy had saved this nameless young man.

He never did write the paper, and after two years of counseling, during which Jeff never allowed his reptilian brain to control the conversation again, he released Jeff.

He wrote the court that Jeff was “cured.” He described the groping incident as a one-off situation brought about because Jeff “was simply going through a phase of adolescent rage driven by hormones.”

The court agreed.

Jeff didn’t need counseling anymore.

Case closed.

Jeff’s reptilian brain went into hibernation after that and only emerged sixteen years later when he found himself in a loveless, cold, and otherwise failed relationship with his flight attendant wife.

Frequently, after an incident with one of his victims, his logical brain took over and he could analyze the situation in fine detail as if he was watching himself in a slow motion video. He could discern what attracted him to the victim in the first place.

That was scene one.

He would play that scene over and over again in his mind. He always liked that part, when he first noticed his victim, imprinted on her and imagined what it would be like when the games occurred.

He knew all the while in his logical brain that it was his hatred for his stepmother that drove his insanity.

He knew this to his core. He would hold on to that feeling of control as long as he could so he could replay it later until his reptilian urges became too intense. The snake in him has no conscious.

As he watched the scenes play out in his mind, he convinced himself to be repulsed by what he had done. He told himself it was another person committing those acts. And it worked sometimes. The logical brain became stronger afterward saving him from himself.

During the times in between the killings, he could control his urges.

But with the exact right combination of beauty, intelligence, and innocence, his reptilian brain took over, which was what was happening now.

There were two local surfers deep in conversation at the bar as he sat down, but other than those two souls, he was the only customer.

Charlene approached him. “Hello, I’m Charlene. What can I get you to drink? You look like you could use one.”

Apparently, Jeff, in his haste to get there, had left on his blonde wig and was still wearing his lifts.

He looked out of place.

Charlene noticed he was staring at her and it felt creepy to her.

“I’ll have a rum and coke on the rocks,” Jeff said, his eyes penetrating her soul.

Jeff removed the wig, muttered something about being in an impromptu costume party and sat on it.

“I really do need a drink. The party I was at was outrageous.”

Charlene didn’t know what he was talking about, but in the week she had worked there, she had seen many strange things. She passed his comment off, never giving it a second thought.

Jeff couldn’t believe his luck.

He had just finished with Roxy and here was a veritable clone of her standing in front of him. She was a rose, in full bloom waiting to be plucked. He was starting to get excited again.

Maybe he should go down to the store and buy a lottery ticket. He was definitely feeling lucky tonight.

The lottery numbers were running in his favor.

Charlene brought him his drink and he sat there silently, half-listening to the surfer dudes who were talking about the gnarly waves that were coming in because of a tropical storm that had pushed the waves towards the south-facing beaches.

He wasn’t interested.

He sipped his drink and continued studying Charlene. He ordered another one, and when he finished it, he left. His Snake Brain didn’t like alcohol, allowing his logical brain to kick in.

He was too tired and too drunk to drive home, but he did anyway.

As he was leaving, his reptilian brain began a significant debate with his logical mind trying to convince him to go back and repeat with Charlene what had occurred with Roxy earlier that night. He wasn’t sure who was going to win, but it gave him something to think about while he drove the hour to his home in Malibu. It would also keep him sober enough to not get a DUI.

He was happy his wife was in New Jersey.

He didn’t need any of her hassles tonight.

The debate raged on throughout the drive.

In the end, logic won.

He pulled his car into the garage, went in and went to bed.