Love Lies Bleeding (6 page)

“One hundred thirty-five pounds.”

“Have you weighed yourself since Grady’s death?” Mr. Doyle asked. Pamela’s face fell. “Have you eaten since Grady’s death? Not much I’d say. That’s true love for you. Tragic really.”

“We go traditional,” Shep declared. “I like that better.” He wandered away.

“You … you could just ask me questions.”

“And would you give me the same answers you gave dear Erwin?” Mr. Doyle clasped his hands, looking expectantly down at Pamela. Pamela rapidly tried to think of something she could say or phrase differently, but she had no other answers to give. “Hmm, I thought so. Shep’s method is much more satisfying.”

Mr. Doyle closed the space between himself and Pamela. “It’s too bad. You are lovely, in a common sort of way. One cannot help but to touch you.” He reached out to stroke her cheek, but then thought better of it. “Best not to get too attached. You would have been a good match to Grady. All his fire would have had a good hearth to burn in with you keeping his home.”

Pamela could barely bring herself to be surprised at this revelation, it seemed today that everyone was claiming to have known Grady. Still, she yearned to speak of her love, even though the pain at each mention of his name was a knife in her heart. “You knew Grady?”

“I offered him a job once. He turned me down. Erwin, as you saw, was much more accommodating. Or greedy, if you prefer.”

“I thought … Erwin said he was working for the government, but Grady was a medical officer.”
Mr. Doyle smiled. “Poor dear. You really haven’t figured it all out? What do the government and armies have in common?”

“War?”

“Very good. And what does a war need?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Why, weapons of course. Unfortunately, the largest difficulty with sustaining a war long enough to truly profit is a soldier’s mortality. And morality, of course. Grady had a problem with what — or rather, who — we were developing. So he went sniffing around, stealing secret formulas —”

“You killed Grady.” It wasn’t a question, but a quietly pained statement.

“Triggered the bomb myself,” Shep said, as he wandered back. “Isn’t as gratifying as face to face contact.” He thumped a small table down beside Pamela, its surface covered by a variety of artfully displayed pliers, hammers, chisels, and other hand tools. Shep’s pleasure in his work was evident in the care he took with the arrangement of those tools. “Blew his body to billions of bloody pieces. That’s why you had no body to bury.”

“I refuse to hear anymore. I can’t. I can’t.” If Pamela’s hands weren’t tied she would have brought them to her ears, but instead she just squeezed her eyes tightly shut and tried to will her ears to block the men’s voices.

“Now Shep,” Mr. Doyle tsk-tsked his accomplice. “We thought that the troubles would end with Grady, but then Erwin comes running.”

“Like the lap dog he was.” Shep, though currently mostly occupied with polishing his pliers, sneered.

“With the news that Grady had recently realigned himself with another agency, and without Erwin policing his reports, we had no way of knowing who he told what. More importantly, we had know way of knowing how Grady, brilliant geneticist that he was, might have improved on our little experiment.”

“That’s were you come in,” Shep added.

“You are the other agency’s go between.” Mr. Doyle was a fan of being correct, he was utterly sure of his deduction.

“No.”

“And those emails are coded.”

“Please.”

“Not yet, dear.”

“A chair for Mr. Doyle!” Shep yelled. The driver hurried over with another chair and set it opposite Pamela a few feet away.

“A little offset, please, so the sight line is cleaner.”

The driver dutifully moved the chair.

A goal was scored in the hockey game, and the remaining hoodlums roared loudly and patted each other on backs. Distracted, the driver turned to the TV.

As if woken by the cheering, the tall, coffin-sized crate began to rock and creak. Something pounded the boards from the inside.

“And get that fucking thing out of here!” Shep shouted.

“Sure thing, boss,” the driver answered as he muted the TV.

The hoodlums all rushed to the crate. Tilting it on its side, they hauled it onto the truck.

Mr. Doyle sat gracefully, then smiled charmingly at Pamela. “I do love to watch my Shep work,” he confided.

Pamela couldn’t take her eyes off the crate. Another fierce round of banging erupted, the hoodlums, seemingly truly terrified, dropped the crate on the floor of the truck. Something started to roar from within.

“Now!” Shep howled at the hoodlums, who scrambled around the crate looking busy and frantic, but without actually touching it further.

Leaving the crate lying on its side, the driver yanked the back door of the truck closed and sprinted up to the cab. One hood went for the loading bay door, the others staying in the back of the truck, though they sat on boxes placed as far away from the crate as possible.
 

“Don’t worry, dear,” Mr. Doyle said in a smoothly soothing tone. “Be a good girl and you never have to find out what’s in the crate.”

The loading bay door was slammed shut from the outside. After a moment, the truck loudly pulled away. Pamela was now alone with Shep and Mr. Doyle.
 

“I don’t …” she whispered, knowing her protest was fruitless before she voiced it. “I don’t know anything.” Shep laughed.

“Really?” Mr. Doyle said. “Well, in that case, perhaps we should let you go.” His teasing tone caused Shep to continue to chuckle.

“What if … I don’t know anything, and all I want is to be with Grady. Could you … could you take me back to the cemetery?”

“Nope,” Shep said, seemingly distracted by the difficulty he was having choosing between sets of pliers.

“But … but I couldn’t talk to anyone between here and there and I would … I was planning —”

“Yeah, we know,” Shep said. “We’ve seen the bandages. Now, unless I’m asking you a question, shut the fuck up.” He settled on a smaller but pointier set of pliers.

Karli entered the warehouse, dressed seemingly as slutty as possible, her hair three times its normal size. For a moment, Pamela couldn’t equate this woman with her best friend. Her brain actually stuttered over the information delivered by her eyes. Karli seemed to be having a bit of a tough time negotiating between the four-inch heeled shoes she was currently wearing and how badly her micro-mini rode up with every step she took. She carried a paper bag and spoke in sing song voice while she looked around the warehouse.

“Oh, Sheppy? I had John drop me off with lunch. Your favorite. Montreal smoked beef bagel …”

Karli saw Shep where he loomed over Pamela. Mr. Doyle didn’t even bother to turn around in his chair. “Oh, I …”

Pamela, utterly flustered, opened her mouth to speak just as Shep slapped a hand across it. “What did I just fucking say? I ask. You speak.” He turned to Karli. “I’m a little busy, doll. Leave the lunch, hey?”

“Of course. Have fun!” Karli dropped the bag on the table and exited as quickly as her four-inch heels allowed.

“You knew her,” Mr. Doyle was watching Pamela. He was not pleased.

“I … yes, she … looked familiar,” Pamela answered. She never had been a good liar.

Mr. Doyle, on the edge of being actually pissed, looked to Shep, who sighed. “Ah, shit. I kind of liked the broad. I’ll take care of it.”

“What!” Pamela panicked. “I don’t know for certain.”

“Later,” Mr. Doyle snapped.

Shep nodded and returned to studying Pamela. “In order for me to gauge your reactions and answers, I need to get to know you a little.”

Pamela stared in panic at Mr. Doyle. “It’s all right, dear. Answer his questions.”

“So, what do you do when you’re not burying a dead fiancé?”

“Graphic design.”

“Advertising.”

“Marketing, actually.”

“You fucking with me?”

“No, I —”
 

“What’s the fucking difference then?”

“Well, in marketing —”

Shep lunged at Pamela and she squeaked in terror. He laughed. “That’s enough small talk.”

“Yes, rather,” Mr. Doyle agreed. “Start with the back molars. If she talks early on, maybe we can gift her mother with a prettier corpse.”

Shep grabbed Pamela by the jaw. Though completely hindered by the ropes tying her to the chair, she attempted to struggle, clamping her mouth closed.

He pried her jaw open and shoved the pliers in.
 

She gagged.

“Sight lines! Sight lines!” Mr. Doyle called with a terribly excited and somewhat sick edge to his voice.

Shep shifted his body so Mr. Doyle could see. He bent his shoulder into his work.

Pamela gargled a scream as Shep pulled a bloody molar out of her mouth. He held the tooth up in his pliers, grinning proudly as he turned to show off his prize.

Behind him, Karli had a small revolver, perhaps a .22 caliber, pressed to Mr. Doyle’s temple.

Even from within her haze of pain, Pamela saw Shep’s jaw drop. Karli thumb cocked the four-inch gun. Mr. Doyle didn’t look happy.

“What the fuck?” Shep couldn’t wrap his head around this new development.

“Yes, well,” Karli replied, more than a little put out. “I suppose this is as good a time to tell you as any other. You don’t do that well at all. Fucking, I mean. You seem handy with the pliers.”

Pamela groaned, “Karli?”

“I’m here, babe. In the flesh.”

“You couldn’t have pulled the gun earlier?”

“I had to get the okay to blow my cover.”

“Ah. Perhaps you’re the one who should be tied to the chair,” Mr. Doyle said, sounding just as refined with a gun threatening to blow his brains out as he did without.

“Only you like it like that, grandpa,” Karli snipped.

“Watch your mouth, little cunt,” Shep growled. Then he spread his arms to display his meaty girth. “You think that pea shooter can take me?”

“I think that, this close, it’ll blow right through Mr. Doyle’s brains. And, BTW, if you didn’t like your girlfriends so slaggily dressed, I could have concealed a bigger gun.”

“My whores, you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Whatever. Untie Pamela.”

Shep just glared at her. Karli pressed the gun harder against Mr. Doyle’s temple and he sucked his breath through his teeth in annoyance.

Shep pulled a long hunting knife out of his boot and crossed to cut Pamela out of the chair.

“Stand,” Karli commanded Mr. Doyle. He complied. “You coming, babe?”

Pamela slowly stood while pressing a hand to her jaw. “If I bring the tooth, can they reattach it?”

“FUCK THE TOOTH!” Shep screamed. “You fucking wanted to fucking kill yourself twelve hours ago!”

Pamela flinched and quickly crossed to Karli. “Yes, you’re right. I’m not thinking clearly.”

“Let’s go. You stay,” Karli commanded Shep. “Mr. Doyle is a valuable asset, and I’d hate to do anything permanent. But in the end, one more off the streets always gets you a medal. The laptop, Pom-Pom.”

Pamela took the laptop from Mr. Doyle. He made no effort to resist, doing so would have been beneath him. Karli, using Mr. Doyle as a shield, slowly backed toward the exit.

Pamela pulled one of the pink poof flowers off the waistband of her skirt. She stuffed it in her mouth to staunch the bleeding of her gums.

Shep didn’t move as they fled.

•••••••••

Karli, Mr. Doyle in tow, and Pamela burst through the warehouse door and scrambled toward Erwin’s car. Mr. Doyle fought to retain his dignity even while being dragged along at gun point, but the lapel of his suit was being severely crushed by Karli and the loose gravel scuffed his custom Italian leather shoes.
 

“Pamela, the trunk,” Karli said.

Pamela ran ahead, fumbling open the unlocked driver’s door and pulling the latch to pop the trunk. Karli followed with the gun still pressed to Mr. Doyle’s temple. She gave him a shove toward the trunk, but he balked.

“Get in,” Karli growled.
“I will not,” Mr. Doyle emphatically answered.

“You will get in or I will shoot off your dick.” Karli shifted the gun from Mr. Doyle’s temple to his groin. “I know you like to watch freaky shit. How do you think you’d like that show?”

Mr. Doyle inhaled, lifted his chin as if to make some retort, and then, having weighed the choices, climbed in.

Karli slammed the trunk closed and saw Pamela still standing there, just staring. “Pamela!? Get in the damn car!”

Pamela scrambled to the passenger-side door as Karli dove for the driver’s side.

•••••••••

As she climbed in, Pamela tossed the laptop in the back seat, then hauled the remainder of her dress inside the vehicle. Karli scrambled into the driver’s seat and reached for the keys. They weren’t in the ignition.

“The keys! The keys!”

“Erwin must have … must have had them,” Pamela answered, dazed and obviously in a lot of pain.

“Does he have them or not?”

“Maybe in his dead mob pockets. In the bottom of some river.”

Karli, mouth agape, stopped to stare at Pamela as if she was stuck in the process of realizing just how damaged her best friend might be.

“Is that inappropriate?” Pamela continued. “You know, river, sleeps with the fishes. Is that racist? Is that disrespectful of the dead?”

Karli shook her head as if to clear it, then began fiddling with the steering column. “Why, why didn’t I drive? I’ll have to hot-wire it.”

The door to the warehouse slammed open and Shep exited. He was sharpening his hunting knife as he walked toward the car and the women.

“Fuck, fuck,” Karli said, slamming her palms into the steering wheel twice. “I can’t do it that fast.” She opened her car door and turned to Pamela, “Run.”

Pamela didn’t move. Shep was about halfway to the car now.

“RUN!” Karli screamed at Pamela one final time before she twisted out of the car and stood up to confront Shep.

•••••••••

Despite her unsteady footwear, Karli calmly spread her legs and raised her gun in a classic shooting stance. She aimed her tiny gun at Shep, who continued to steadily close the gap between himself and the car. She breathed and then pulled the trigger. She missed.