JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps (42 page)

He entered the garage, his mind on one thing and one thing only. He was just reaching for the garage door opener when he heard a voice call out from the darkness in front of him. “Hey motherfucker, remember me?"

Everything happened so fast that he didn't have time to track it. He was able to make out a dim shadow popping out from behind the car fifteen feet in front of him and while it was hard in the darkness to make out discernable features for some reason he knew that it was Rudy Montego, the gang member he and Steve had busted almost two years ago for that cowardly attack in Echo Park. He heard the gunshot, then he felt the slug pound into his chest, knocking him back against the wall. He heard and felt two more shots plug into his abdomen and the last thing he remembered before the world went black was a sharp yell that abruptly cut off.

The next time Charley was aware of anything he was sitting on the floor in the first bedroom of his living quarters, rocking back and forth and cradling something in his lap.

His vision slowly came to focus and the first thing he saw was that his entertainment center was in shambles. Books and video-cassettes had been thrown to the floor. He felt something hard, round, and wet in his lap—the thing he was holding—and looked down at it.

Mother's head gazed up at him.

Charley screamed. He screamed and wailed, throwing his head back and closing his eyes to try to shut the ugly scene out of his mind. But when he opened his eyes again the image remained. Covered in blood, sitting on the floor in his room, cradling his mother's severed head in his lap.

A muffled noise caught his attention and he turned to the right. The bathroom door was closed and something pounded on the door from the other side. A trail of blood led to the closed bathroom door and Charley noticed with growing horror that a large, bloodstained butcher knife lay on the floor. The muffled thumping sounds came from the closed bathroom door again, followed by a scream. “No, nonononononoooo!"

Rachael Pearce.

“Stay away from me! Stay the
fuck
away from me!"

Charley didn't remember chasing Rachael into the bathroom. He didn't remember killing mother. He didn't remember trying to kill Rachael, either, but he must have as evident from the trail of blood that led to the now locked bathroom door where she had barred herself. But he must have. All he remembered was his fight with Rachael in his bedroom, then the flash of the knife and then his mind went blank. The next thing he remembered was sitting on the floor with mother's head in his lap.

Charley started crying. It was worse then he thought. He had been bottling up the hateful feelings toward mother for a long time now, and he seriously thought he had solved the problem tonight. He was going to take Rachael, take some of his stuff, and get the hell out of here. He had decided that the minute Rachael sat down on his sofa. She was the answer to his problems. If he could only have her she would help him. He had no intention of harming her; he just wanted to take her, take them both away from the pressures of the city, from the world. She would be his completely.

But something must have happened to set him off.

Charley closed his eyes, trying to remember what happened.

He and Rachael struggling
.

The flash of the blade as it entered flesh....

Oh my God
!

Realization set in. It rocked Charley hard. He gasped, broke into a sob.

His mind went blank.

He rocked back and forth, sitting cross-legged on the floor, cradling mother's head in his lap.

His eyes were fixed straight ahead. They saw nothing.

He rocked back and forth.

Back and forth ... ?

...back and forth ... ?

...back and ... ?

Chapter 27

Henry Watson was taking a shortcut through the vacant lot that bordered Highland Avenue and Fifty-first Street when he noticed the smell.

It was barely eight-thirty in the morning and Henry could tell that today was going to be a scorcher. He had slept behind a garbage dumpster last night and it had been so warm that he had actually taken his shirt and shoes off. He had tried to position himself behind the dumpster so that he could catch the slight breeze that occasionally blew through the alley to cool his sweat-drenched body, but was barely rewarded for the effort.

As a result, he slept fitfully and was awakened by the warm sun at seven o'clock. He put his shirt and shoes back on and staggered into Yong's donuts for a breakfast of a chocolate donut and some coffee, paying for it from the change he had panhandled last night. The Korean merchant who waited on him was a familiar sight. He smiled gap toothed at Henry as he took his order. “Warm last night,” the merchant said.

“It sho’ was,” Henry said, smiling back, hoping he didn't smell. He really liked the guy who ran this store and didn't like to offend people that he liked with his body odor.

“It was hard to sleep last night."

“It was seventy-nine degrees last night,” the merchant said, pouring his coffee.

“Weatherman said it supposed to be one hundred and three today. That's hot!"

“You bet yo ass that's hot!"

Christ, a hundred and three? And the Bible described Hell as unbearable. If that was true, hell must definitely be on earth here and now.

After breakfast, Henry trudged through the alley, knapsack slung over his shoulder, and found some more bottles and cans. He emerged at the north end and looked across the street at the Bank of America sign across the street. The building had a digital thermometer that informed passing motorists and pedestrians that it was already eighty-five degrees. God wasn't wastin’ time today! No siree.

He trudged up Brand Avenue and turned left, heading toward the vacant lot he planned to cross to reach Baker and Main. It was then that he noticed the smell.

He stopped in mid-stride and sniffed the air. He lifted his arms and sniffed his armpits. He smelled there, sure enough, but that wasn't the smell that was currently invading his olfactory nerves. Henry hadn't bathed in three days, and the clothes he wore on his skinny black frame were probably soiled as well—the garbage bin he had slept behind last night had contained Chinese food leftovers and stale milk cartons and he'd carried that scent on his clothes all morning. But the scent he was catching now didn't resemble any of those. It was a dead smell.

Henry Watson hefted the knapsack that contained the junk he had scavenged yesterday. Currently nestled inside the sack was the hollowed out remains of an old Technics audio receiver, two cardboard manila file folders, a bunch of returnable can and soda bottles, and a couple of comic books. He knew a second-hand thrift store that might be interested in some of the junk, and the recycling plant on Forty-fourth Street would take the cans and bottles. He should be able to get enough to at least buy himself some dinner.

Part of his reason for cutting through the vacant lot on his way to the recycling plant was in the hopes of finding some more junk to scavenge. He had gotten lucky in this lot before. Once he had come across an old file cabinet that had contained nothing but a bunch of useless business correspondence ... but at the bottom of the drawer was a forgotten box that contained an envelope full of old coins. He had taken the coins over to Carl's Rare Coin's and Jewelry over in Echo Park and been awarded one hundred and thirty five dollars and eighty-five cents for his find. A number of the coins were dated pre-world War I, and a handful of the bills were even older. There were also a number of German coins that were issued during Nazi Germany, all of them bearing the swastika of the Third Reich. Henry had thought the swastika-adjourned coins would be worth some money, but he didn't think the other stuff would be, too.

Now Henry stopped in the middle of the vacant lot and sniffed the air. There it was again, riding high in the air. The stench was cloying and strong and it reminded Henry of something dead all right. It smelled like meat that had been left out in the sun for too long, which was probably what it was. The smell would only get worse the hotter it got. Henry was glad he was in the vacant lot now when the smell was still relatively mild.

Henry took a look out over the vacant lot. It looked like any other lot; a slab of land that occupied probably an acre of land, it was overgrown with weeds and thick grass that was long and yellow in the hot sun. The edges of the lot were littered with refuse and there were patches of dirt and rocks here and there. Henry took another couple of tentative steps, his eyes scanning the lot when he noticed it. There, almost at the edge of the lot, fifty yards ahead of him. A package.

Henry veered off his course and headed toward it. The smell grew stronger and as he reached the object he realized it wasn't a package at all, but a blanket of some sort wrapped around something. There was a makeshift cardboard box lying near it, and as Henry reached over to see what was in the box his foot kicked what he first thought was a large rock. The object rolled over and Henry looked down at what his foot had connected with.

His stomach plunged down an elevator shaft.

A woman's head rolled back, dislodged from its resting spot when Henry inadvertently kicked it.

Yelling at the top of his lungs, Henry dropped the canvas knapsack and started running toward Highland Avenue, screaming at the top of his lungs.

It was a little after eight-thirty and Daryl Garcia was sitting at his desk at Parker Center, his eyes red and his limbs light from the adrenaline running through him. Bernie Haskins sat beside him, nervously looking over his shoulder. “Christ, Daryl, let me take you home. You shouldn't be here. Shit, you shouldn't have left the hospital."

“You got a better idea?” Daryl said, tapping away into the computer. It hurt to talk. His chest was sore—his entire abdomen was one entire mass of bruises from the three rounds the Kevlar vest had absorbed from the nine millimeter rounds, and his left arm was in a sling from a fourth shot that had grazed it. The doctors had wanted to keep Daryl in recovery for observation, but as soon as Daryl felt better he had pulled the IV out of his arm and gotten out of bed over the protests of the medical personnel. Between the time he he was shot by Rudy Montego and the time he finally left, five hours had elapsed.

Five hours too long.

The ferocity of the attack by Rudy had taken him by such surprise that when he felt the bullets hit him he thought he had been killed. The back of his head still pounded dully from where it had connected with his garage wall. He now had a mild concussion, and that was one of the reasons why the doctors wanted to keep him for observation. But as soon as Daryl had become conscious, he tried to convey to the officers that had arrived on the scene what was going on. But they'd ignored him, getting him whisked away to the hospital to have his wounds tended to. He learned what happened later through Bernie Haskins, who had gotten a call at his home an hour and a half ago.

Now Bernie was at his side as Daryl typed into the computer. Daryl accessed the DMV computer and typed in Charley Glowacz's name. “Daryl, what are you doing? We can't just head over to this man's house without proper authority."

“Fuck proper authority,” Daryl said, gritting his teeth. “You got a better idea?"

“Yeah,” Bernie said, looking at Daryl sternly, seriously. “For one, going to a private residence as an officer without your supervisor knowing about it, namely your lieutenant, is grounds for immediate termination. Second—"

“Let them fire me then,” Daryl said, jotting the address down and tucking the paper in his pocket. He rose to his feet.

“Second,” Bernie continued, rising to his feet with Daryl, his hand gripping Daryl's arm firmly, but gently. He spoke low, but firm. “If anything should happen to you and you need back-up, you don't want to be alone."

Daryl looked at Bernie. “So come with me."

Bernie grinned slightly. “I was afraid you'd never ask."

He learned what happened to him from one of the officers who accompanied him to the hospital. The officer relayed it with a grim expression. Rudy Montego managed to get off five shots before being taken down by Petey. That explained the sudden yell Daryl had heard before he was knocked out. It also explained the only brief glimpse he got of the crime scene when he woke up on a stretcher outside—the large pool of blood spreading out from under his car in the garage.

Rudy Montego had broken into the garage using a slim tool he had picked up somewhere and had lain in wait for him in the darkness. An accomplice was waiting outside in a car, and when the accomplice heard Rudy yell and the accompanying growls, he got out of his car, vaulted the fence to Daryl's property and ran into the garage. Petey's massive jaws were locked on Rudy's throat and lower face; the dog had literally pulverized the bones of Rudy's jaw. Rudy's head was flopping back and forth by a thin strip of flesh as the dog shook its head back and forth, spraying blood. The accomplice had scrambled out of the garage, got the back gate open, and ran down the driveway with Petey hot on his heels. The dog brought the accomplice down with a viscous attack that had broken the man's lower right leg and severed all the tendons and muscles of the limb.

It was the accomplice's screams of pain that had alerted the neighbors, who called the police.

Hearing what happened had been shocking to Daryl. Especially hearing the amount of damage Petey had inflicted. Ever since he had Petey he never thought of him as a vicious dog, but remembering what pit bulls were capable of when they were in a blood lust brought everything to stark reality. Petey had been so overwhelmed by the excitement of the attack that by the time the police arrived he'd almost turned on them.

But then something must have snapped in his mind, because Petey turned tail and headed down the street. Animal Control officers later arrived on the scene and managed to subdue Petey. His dog was now in a kennel at the Humane Society. Probably on doggy death row with other canines.

I love you Petey
, Daryl thought as they drove toward Highland Park.
And I wish
this hadn't happened to you, but I've got to find Rachael. I've got to find her first, buddy. I
hope you forgive me.