Take One With You (16 page)

It was the thirteenth officially verified TOWY murder-suicide in Greenville that cause the movement to go viral, led to the conflagration at Charlie’s house, and enabled the low-level NSA analyst to put all of the pieces together that would eventually allow the world to learn the full story behind one of the strangest socio-criminal enterprises the world had ever known.

Ironically, Charlie and Sarah, the creators of said movement, were probably among the last in the city to hear about it.

It was perhaps because the national news media and blogosphere had been obsessed with another partisan battle in Congress and a hostage standoff involving American oil workers in Nigeria that the developing series of deaths took so long to garner national attention, but when it finally did, it did with a vengeance.

Charlie had not been back to the house he shared with Brad since the day he and Sarah first made love, and it was their lovemaking that prevented them both from realizing, for a short time, exactly where they went wrong with the TOWY movement.

***

“When are you ever going back?” Sarah asked, not because she wanted him to, but because she knew he had to, and the sooner he did, the sooner they could get started on the rest of their lives together.

“I don’t know,” Charlie answered, outlining her nipple with his finger, a gesture that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He leaned over and kissed her, his lips opening only slightly to allow her tongue to push them apart in that awesome way she did when he was moving too slowly, which, so far, was every time they had sex.

This time she pulled away, which was unusual only because she had never done so with him in the weeks they had been together.

“You have to get more of your shit, dude,” she said, and he removed his hand from her breast and rolled over onto his back, staring at the ceiling.

“Right.”

Sarah turned on her side and moved her leg across his body, pushing in close and rubbing herself against his warm flesh. She took his hand and guided it back to her breast, the two of them kneading the soft flesh with fingers intertwined.

“I didn’t mean right this minute, chickless.”

Charlie laughed and rolled on top of her, moving himself between her legs and kissing her full on. Besides a virgin, the one thing he was definitely no longer, was chickless.

***

Thane was on the scene more quickly than the other murders because this time the Towy had sent a text to some goddamned news reporter, but he probably would have been dispatched whether or not it was immediately known to be a TOWY case.

It wasn’t every day that a bomb went off in a residential neighborhood, known more for its speed humps than its crime statistics.

The scene seemed like something out of Iraq, and it was probably a miracle that the TOWY farmer, in addition to himself and the pedophile whose name he’d plucked from the website, had taken out only a single innocent bystander.

A four year-old girl had been walking with her mother, who released her daughter’s hand mere seconds before the blast so she could run ahead and look at a squirrel that was sitting in the middle of the shady sidewalk, its bushy tail high and twitching as if it knew something much more dangerous than the girl was fast approaching.

The squirrel turned and ran up the gentle slope of a well-manicured yard just as the little girl’s eye caught something else, a man sitting in the driver side of a blue SUV, who appeared to be crying.

Their eyes locked in the instant before they both died, and each initially reacted to the sight of the other according to their nature. The man saw what might have been, a potential victim to his sick obsessions. The girl saw only tears.

The mother, once she was released from the hospital in the wheelchair she would need the rest of her life, told anyone and everyone that her daughter had had an almost sixth sense about the suffering of others, and would sometimes drag her over to adults they did not know, perfect strangers, offering them a hug and a smile and telling them that things would be okay.

“Feel better,”
her daughter would say, as if she knew of some inner heartache. It was the first sentence she’d ever put together as a toddler.

The scene rocked Thane to his core. Thanks to the text, the media had arrived before the cops, almost simultaneous to the blast, and it was chaotic just clearing the people out of the area to survey the scene. There were dozens of people standing in the street, most of them with cell phones, eager to take pictures of the carnage and pass it amongst their social network like some viral venereal disease.

“Get those fucking people back!” Thane screamed at two uniforms, one of whom had what looked like vomit down the front of his otherwise impressively turned out shirt. They were trying to put up police tape while people were running back and forth to the smoking hull of the twisted vehicle. Firefighters and paramedics were on the scene, as well, treating several onlookers. “And that goddamn tape should be all the way back at the corner!”

At that moment, Thane wished he could bring back the asshole with the homemade
bomb just so he could kill the guy himself. He looked up and saw four separate helicopters, all jockeying for the best vantage point from which to obtain that perfect blood-soaked, long focus shot through the trees that lined the street on either side and formed a semi-canopy over the wide, suburban street.

He also wouldn’t have minded taking out the creator of that fucking website. He’d been vaguely intrigued by the idea at first, like many others, but this was taking things too far.

Thane walked over to the first officers on scene, both of whom saw him approaching and waited with grim expressions. He could see several body parts only a few feet behind them. He had a fleeting thought that perhaps everyone should move away, that there could be a second blast, which was a typical tactic of terrorist bombings in other parts of the world to draw in a second wave of victims, but he discounted it immediately.

There would be a second wave of victims, all right, and then some, but this was not the work of terrorists. This was something else entirely, something a little scarier.

This was regular people who’d just had enough.

***

As Thane was talking to first responders not far from where the coroner was collecting two sets of intertwined arms and legs, Charlie and Sarah were making love for the second time that day. Their cell phones were on mute and the laptop on which they’d created the beginnings of such havoc was turned off for the first time in weeks.

They each wanted to explore the other’s body uninterrupted by the events of the outside world.

***

“It looks like they were embracing each other at the moment of detonation,” the coroner said drily, speaking to Thane as his assistants carefully loaded the human remains into special zip lock bags like so much road kill. He noticed Thane’s expression. “Budget cuts,” he said, and the detective immediately understood why they were using veterinary bags for the body parts, although he would have advised against it.

As he might have predicted, there would be a minor scandal after that particular bit of information came out during the Grand Jury proceedings months later, but Thane held his tongue. He was more interested in what the coroner had said before.

“What do you mean, ‘embracing’?”

***

Charlie and Sarah were locked in a lover’s embrace, their bodies smooth and glistening and molded together. Had one been hovering above the bed, it would have been hard to tell where one body began and the other ended.

***

“They were holding each other,” the coroner explained. “Hugging.”

***

She slid Charlie back inside her easily, as easily as he’d slipped out. She was straddling him now, moving to her own rhythm and pace, grinding herself against his pelvic bone to try and orgasm. He relaxed and let her move atop him, content to let her take control and merely grip her thighs and thrust upward when it felt right. It was amazing to Charlie how she could almost lose him and then pull him in again, just when he thought he was out.

***

Thane just looked at the coroner and again held his tongue. The perp was obviously hanging on for dear life because the pedo was trying to get out of the car before the explosion.

***

Sarah put her arms around Charlie’s neck and hugged him tightly, grinding her hips against his in a tight, circular motion. He could feel her clench around him, which made him harder. He hoped she was going to come because he didn’t think he could hold out much longer.

“Wait for me,” she whispered, her voice husky and hot against his neck.

***

“I’d rather not wait any longer,” the coroner said, and Thane shrugged his shoulders and released him with a look. The asshole was going to catch hell for those doggy bags and probably lose his job, anyway, why should Thane make his last months on the job any more uncomfortable than they had to be?

He called one of his officers over and told him to send the DNA kits directly over to the coroner’s office and ride along with the doomed son of a bitch and wait with him until forensics got there. Truthfully, he’d rather do all that shit out of the public eye, anyway.
Sick fucks are mesmerized by this shit.

***

They climaxed together, or almost, anyway. The important thing was that they both came, arriving at the same place in close enough proximity that it felt like they’d passed some necessary milestone in their relationship. A sexual marker.

Sarah, the more experienced of the two, was more excited than Charlie, though the event was acknowledged by them both as a special moment in the way that young lovers mark such things. She knew just enough to understand that it didn’t happen all that often, whereas Charlie seemed to take it in stride and even look at it as a harbinger of things to come.

He had always been the more outwardly hopeful of the two, although inside, his darkest thoughts far surpassed her own.

After they almost came together, Charlie figured they simply weren’t totally in sync yet, but there would be many years to get things right.

That assumption, above all, was probably what sealed their fate, since it was his hope for their future that changed his mind about things, and which caused him to share those dark secrets he had, until that afternoon, kept so carefully hidden.

And so it would be trust that would bring them down, and love that would destroy them.

1 YEAR, 1 MONTH AFTER TOWY WEBSITE

Excerpted From Unsealed Indictment, Los Angeles County, California

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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

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S57814

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The People of the State of California,
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CASE NO.  BA235772

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Plaintiff

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v.

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John Michael Davis

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INDICTMENT

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COUNT 1

The said JOHN MICHAEL DAVIS is accused by the Grand Jury of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, by this Indictment, of the crime of MURDER, in violation of Penal Code Section 187(a), a Felony, committed prior to the finding of the Indictment, and as follows:

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In the County of Los Angeles, said JOHN MICHAEL DAVIS did unlawfully, and with malice aforethought murder Lawrence Gonzales, a human being.

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“NOTICE: The above offense is a serious felony within the meaning of Penal Code Section 1192.7(c).”

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“NOTICE: Conviction of this offense will require you to provide specimens and samples pursuant to Penal Code Section 296. Willful refusal to provide specimens and samples is a crime.”

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The Indictment continued along those lines with the names of two more victims, all reputed members of the Alwood Street Locos. The primary evidence of guilt was a cell phone video uploaded to YouTube showing the father of a twelve year-old boy whose birthday gift, an iPhone, was allegedly stolen by the victims, who allegedly had bullied the boy after school on several previous occasions.

The day before he allegedly gunned down the three men, John Michael Davis, a working class man with a history of violence and emotional instability, visited a tattoo artist in West Covina who had become well known in certain circles for recreating an image he had originally designed for a repeat customer about a year before, a pretty but sullen young woman who first inked her body in honor of her older sister, Claire.

The man in the windbreaker just looked across the table at Brad, who didn’t think he looked much like a hitman. Not that Brad would have known, outside of the movies, what a hitman was supposed to look like.

“How do you know the kid knows?”

“Excuse me?”

The man in the windbreaker sighed heavily. He didn’t like this guy the moment he spoke with him on the phone. Even before that, actually. His caller ID had given his real name, for starters. What kind of idiot called someone like him from his goddamn home phone?

“Look, Mister Smith,” the man said, using the name the idiot had given
after
calling from his unblocked home phone, “this is not something you undertake lightly. As a matter of fact, it’s something to be avoided if at all possible.”

Brad sniffed. “Are you trying to talk yourself out of a job or something?”

That was another thing he didn’t like about Brad. Everything he said came out like he was talking to an employee, which technically, he was not, at least not until he’d accepted the job.

Which he was, at the moment, disinclined to do.

He leaned across the table and gave Brad
the look,
and waited until he either spoke or returned his gaze with something that showed at least a modicum of sober caution and propriety he expected from all clients who hired him to kill people.

Brad opened his mouth and then shut it, as if he was finally thinking before he spoke.

Okay, I’m staying. But just.

“I actually don’t know for sure,” Brad answered finally.

“Then may I suggest you do a little investigation and make certain, because what I do is permanent and involves a bit of risk.”

Brad’s eyes narrowed. “For whom?”

Whom. Jesus Christ, everything about this guy bothers me.

“Who do you think, Mister Smith?”

Brad blinked. “Both of us?”

The man in the windbreaker smiled. “That’s right. And I like to mitigate my risks, which means I’m a last resort kind of guy. I’m the guy you come to when there’s no other choice, because that is a motivating factor for most people. I appreciate properly motivated clients. Clients with no other options. You seem like a man with options.”

“I can’t afford to wait,” Brad whispered. “He could ruin me if he knows.”

“And yet you don’t even know where he is.”

“I thought…maybe you…”

The man in the windbreaker just stared at Brad as he stammered out the words.

“Doesn’t that come with the service?” He asked hopefully. “I could add in some kind of…finder’s fee.”

The man shook his head. “When you find out where he is, call me back,” the man said, standing up. “It’s not imperative that you know everything he knows, but a motivated client probably would have that information, and I appreciate – ”

“ – properly motivated clients,” Brad finished, causing the man to briefly smile, a feeble thing that barely survived the atmosphere of his craggy, serious face and never quite reached his eyes. For the first time, Brad noticed how scary-looking the man was, and decided that windbreaker or no, he definitely looked like a hitman.

Brad stood up, too, and there was an awkward pause as he tried to decide whether to shake hands with his potential murderer-for-hire.

The man in the windbreaker grabbed his hand and pumped his arm once, like a casual acquaintance of recent inception.

“Keep in touch,” he said, smiling, and turned to leave the restaurant.

Brad just stood there, as the man assumed he would.
Guy doesn’t know whether to shit or wind his watch.
The man in the windbreaker was almost to his car at the far edge of the parking lot before Brad realized he was standing in the middle of a bustling diner and staring into space like a complete fool.

As soon as he sat down, a pretty waitress with dark hair and brooding eyes came up to the table. “What else can I get you?” she asked, slightly sullen, and it was at that moment that Brad knew not only how to find Charlie, but what to do when he found him.

Maybe he wouldn’t need the man in the windbreaker, after all.

***

“When the fuck were you going to tell me this?” Sarah said, her voice rising.

“Why are you so upset?”

“Because you lied to me!”

Charlie couldn’t believe how badly the conversation was going. Here he had finally figured out women, and now this.

“I didn’t lie,” he said. “Not really.”

Sarah threw off the sheets and jumped out of bed, and the pungent smell of sex and sweat wafted out into the open and nearly overwhelmed him. He wanted two things so badly he could barely contain himself from screaming out at the top of his lungs. A shower, and to go back in time two minutes and take back his “confession”, or so she was calling it.

Sarah just stood there, naked, watching him squirm. It was like she was daring him to allow his eyes to crawl over her body so she could hit him with that, as well.

“Not really,” she repeated, sarcasm practically dripping from her lips.
“Not really.”

“Hey, I said I was sorry!” he shouted, starting to lose it. Five minutes ago he would have answered, if asked, that he thought he could have taken anything she said or did without any complaint whatsoever, so strong was his love for her. Now he felt himself slipping into some sort of angry abyss she seemed determined to pull him towards for no reason other than that she could, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He knew what was happening, but he was powerless to stop himself.

And
now,
he understood that women, and other matters of the heart, were not to be ‘figured out’ at all.

“You dragged me into this – ”

“What are you talking about?”

“ – because you didn’t have the balls to kill your stepfather!”

Her words stung him because they made him seem petty and weak, and because it was mostly true. He wanted to build the website because he basically planned to slip Brad’s name on it without her knowledge, in order to entice someone else to do what he didn’t have the courage to do himself.

He just looked down at the floor, feeling the disgust in her eyes, and it was at that moment that, for very different reasons, they both realized the import of what they had actually done.

It was one thing to speak of the website in an academic sense, to rage and quake against the pedophiles and rapists and murderers who went unpunished for their crimes. To pretend to be callous and tough as their generation had learned to be in an online world without real world consequences, but several real people had died for their sins.

But whose sins?

In spite of their crimes, those hated human beings had been warm flesh and hot blood and solid bone, who would never again draw breath because of their website.

And what about the innocent people that were perhaps coaxed into murder and suicide?

Everything that had come before suddenly welled up inside the two of them and threatened to spill out like the blood of the farmed.

What they had been doing together the last several weeks while they found more and more names to judge, names from the state website and names from stolen police

files and names from the local newspapers; it all seemed obscene.

They’d been tasting each other and feeling each other and sucking and fucking and playing and laughing while others took the lives and deaths of other human beings into their hands like so much clay, molding them on the whims of children, which was suddenly how both of them felt. Like imperfect, immature beings with no certainty of emotional advancement.

Neither of them spoke, but they each became acutely aware of their nakedness and began to get dressed in silence, like two long-ago partners after eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

After they were clothed, Charlie fired up the laptop and Sarah turned on the TV, and the founders of the TOWY movement, by way of a dying Native and a disconsolate sister, saw just exactly what their arrogance and naiveté had wrought.