The Mad and the MacAbre (6 page)

Charlie gave the dog another chance the next
night, with the same result.

"This is your last chance," Charlie warned,
tapping Kutter gently on the nose to emphasize his point. "If you
try to break into my room tonight, you'll be sorry."

He was woken out of a sound sleep by the
stupid dog jumping up onto the bed. Kutter curled up next to his
right foot. Charlie was too tired to bother getting up to remove
the disobedient animal, so he simply rolled over and went back to
sleep.

It was surprisingly comforting. When he woke
up the next morning, he decided that maybe the dog could sleep in
the bedroom from now on.

* * *

Charlie looked at the calendar on his desk
at work and realized that it was only a week until his next hunt
could begin. He was surprised--for some reason he'd thought it was
a couple more days than that. Great news.

Since he was going after a
higher class of victim this time, he needed to change his cover
story. He couldn't lure these kinds of women in with promises of a
warm meal. Well, he
could
, but he'd have to sell the idea
in a different way. Find out which unsuspecting women wanted to
grab a quick cup of coffee with the trustworthy guy with the cute
dog. Kutter would win their heart, Charlie would talk them into his
car, and the chloroform would do the rest.

Charlie wondered if he should make some
personal changes to assist with the success of his new plan. He'd
always kept his hair neatly trimmed, but what if he added a bit of
style? Nothing crazy and nothing unsuited to a guy in his
forties--just something slightly more contemporary.

Then he wondered if that was the first sign
of a mid-life crisis.

He'd do it. What could it hurt? He wasn't
quite ready to depart from his usual barber, but when he went in on
Friday he'd ask the guy to do something a little different.

* * *

It had been difficult to convince his barber
that "different" did not include coloring, spikes, or any sort of
hair product, but he'd eventually gotten the message across.
Charlie walked out with hair that was a little wavier on the sides
and a little mussed in the front. Though he wasn't sure if he liked
it or not, he'd promised his barber that he'd stick with it through
the weekend and give it a chance to grow on him.

They'd both laughed at the "grow on him"
comment, although the barber laughed a little harder than
Charlie.

Charlie knew that Kutter didn't care about
his hairstyle, and indeed the dog didn't treat him any differently,
but for the first time in his life Charlie found himself sort of
looking forward to returning to work on the following Monday.

* * *

"Nice! I like it!" said Alicia, giving him a
thumbs-up sign as she quickly walked past his desk on her way to a
meeting. Charlie was a bit disappointed that she hadn't stopped to
talk longer. The hair was staying for sure, though.

- 6 -

January 24th. The first night of the first
hunt of the year. Charlie put on his nicest shirt--a dark blue,
long-sleeved dress shirt that he hadn't worn since his job
interview. It was sort of a wasted effort, since he'd be wearing a
winter jacket over the shirt, but dressing well might
subconsciously cause him to behave in a more charismatic
manner.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Not
bad.

He took down a bottle of unopened cologne
that he'd received from somebody one year for Christmas--he thought
it might have been a work gift exchange from somebody who didn't
realize that he wasn't participating--and unscrewed the cap. He
sniffed it. Awful. However, women liked this sort of thing, so he
splashed some on his neck.

Charlie took a piece of folded paper out of
his pocket. Couldn't hurt to practice a few more times. He unfolded
the paper and tried to sound natural as he read the handwritten
words aloud.

"Hey, I know a great little coffee place,
maybe a two-minute drive from here. I can't promise you won't get
dog hair on you, but I'd be more than happy to drive us there and
treat you to a cup."

Maybe he should cut the part about the dog
hair. If somebody was genuinely fussy about getting dog hair on
their clothes, they might decline his offer based just on that. But
he liked the way it sounded--it acknowledged concern that Kutter
might have gotten dog hair on the front seat. Maybe he'd use it the
first time, and drop it if the comment seemed to be the deciding
element in somebody refusing to come with him.

He read it out loud a few more times, making
his voice as friendly as possible, then moved on to another
prepared line: "He's a handful, but I love him." This was to be
used when somebody was cooing over Kutter, and he'd already tested
it out a few times. Responses were evenly divided between an amused
"I can imagine!" and the mock disbelief of "Nooooo, not this
sweetie!" Either way, the line worked.

The story of how he'd found Kutter worked
perfectly fine when he told the truth, and he was surprisingly
comfortable sharing it, so he didn't write it down. He practiced
the "handful" line a few more times, then refolded the paper and
put it back in his pocket.

"Okay, time to earn your keep," he told
Kutter, fastening the leash to his collar. "If you help me out
tonight, I'll give you as many bacon treats as you want." That
wasn't entirely true--he wasn't going to rush out to the pet store
to buy another bag if the first one ran out, but still, Kutter
would be entitled to a hell of a lot of bacon treats.

He'd considered putting Kutter in a doggie
sweater, but that seemed too far over the top. He wasn't looking
for bimbos, just women more attractive than his usual prey.

He put on his jacket, checked his appearance
in the mirror one more time, and then he began his first-ever hunt
with a partner.

Normally Charlie was content to hunt within
half an hour or so of his home. But since he had a Boston terrier
along for the ride, which might make him more memorable to possible
witnesses, and was planning to take home a victim more likely to be
missed, he decided to play it safe and drove for nearly two hours
before pulling into a movie theatre parking lot just after dark. It
was one of those enormous multiplex theatres, twenty-four screens,
and he figured that a place like this would be busy enough that he
could wander around and be relatively anonymous.

"Don't let me down, buddy," he said,
scratching the top of Kutter's head. They got out of the car and he
walked Kutter toward the theatre.

Kutter was an instant hit. Unfortunately, it
wasn't in a way that did Charlie any good.

People made a fuss over the dog, but it was
children with their parents, girls with their boyfriends or
husbands, and women in small groups. And some guys, too, which did
Charlie even less good. Nobody seemed to go to the movies by
themselves.

Of course they didn't. Everybody knew
that.

Charlie dragged Kutter--who
was loving the attention--back to the car after about fifteen
minutes. Stupid. How could he pick a movie theatre, of all places?
This was why he didn't get to kill beautiful women. This was why he
didn't
deserve
to
kill beautiful women. All of this planning, and he still screwed it
up. Pathetic.

He felt like hitting something, but it
couldn't be Kutter. The dog had done his part. Perfectly. The fault
was all Charlie's.

"Stupid," he said out loud. "Pathetic."

Kutter panted happily. He didn't seem to
think that Charlie was stupid or pathetic. Charlie put his index
finger out and Kutter licked it. He felt a little better.

All right, so he'd made a bad decision and
wasted some time. Fifteen minutes was nothing, especially not when
he'd driven over two hours to get here. Now was not the time to
start doubting himself. "No use crying over spilt milk," he
said.

He'd just have to laugh off this minor
moment of foolishness and drive someplace else where he was more
likely to find a single woman. No problem at all. He'd just drive
to the first public parking lot he could find, and then walk Kutter
around the area until he was successful.

Charlie found a parking garage less than a
mile away. "See?" he told Kutter. "We're back on track." He parked
on the third level. Maybe he'd be lucky enough to get out of here
quickly and only pay the single-hour rate.

He hadn't even shut off the engine before he
wanted to kick himself. He couldn't drive a victim out of a public
parking garage! Not only were there security cameras, but the
attendant would see him drive out of there with a
soon-to-be-missing woman. What in the world was he thinking?

He'd made mistakes before,
lots of them, but Charlie couldn't remember ever having been
so
dense
during a
hunt. Was Kutter just distracting him? Could he not think clearly
with a dog in the passenger seat? This was crazy!
Bonkers!

"I'm a creature of habit," he told Kutter.
"You're throwing off my game."

The official hunt was over for tonight.
Charlie couldn't risk making another stupid mistake. He'd drive
around for a while and try to find a suitable location, and then
return the next evening. Better to waste a four-hour round trip
than get the electric chair, lethal injection, or the gas chamber.
There had to be a good place to hunt where there were no security
cameras.

When he drove past the dog park, Charlie
burst into a fit of giggles so intense that he had to pull off to
the side of the road for a few minutes to recover.

* * *

She was perhaps the most beautiful woman
Charlie had ever seen. Her dog was ugly as hell.

"What's his name?" she asked, as her bulldog
and Kutter exchanged undignified sniffs.

"Kutter," Charlie replied. "With a K." He'd
thought of clarifying the "with a K" part during the drive over
that afternoon, and was very pleased with himself. It made him
sound friendly.

The woman stroked Kutter's fur. "Well, he's
a sweetheart."

"Thanks." The woman's bulldog caught sight
of another dog and tugged on its leash. Charlie knew he had to act
now. "Would you like to get coffee?"

The woman smiled. "I can't, sorry. I don't
do caffeine."

"It doesn't have to be coffee. It can be
anything."

"I'd love to, but I can't."

"Why not?"

Her smile vanished. "I just can't."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I've gotta go," she said,
letting her bulldog lead her away.

Charlie made himself shrug. He hadn't done
anything incorrectly that time. He'd just try again with somebody
else. Nobody, not even movie stars, got a "yes" every single time
they asked somebody for a date. He had plenty of time.

* * *

"What's his name?" asked the woman, letting
Kutter lick her palm. She was probably in her fifties, but still
nice-looking.

"Kutter," Charlie said. "With a K."

"Hi, Kutter. You're a good boy, aren't
you?"

Charlie tried not to grimace, Yeah, he
talked to Kutter way more than he wanted to admit, but at least he
didn't ask idiotic questions like that. What did she think Kutter
was going to say? "No, ma'am, I'm not a good boy at all, but I
appreciate your vote of confidence."

The woman had a wiener dog. Charlie didn't
want to touch it. He knew he had to make some small talk before
asking her out.

"What's your dog's name?" he asked.

"Harvey. With an H."

Charlie frowned. What other
letter would the name Harvey start with? Did she think he was a
moron? She
was
the
one with the hot dog dog, not him.

Then he realized from her smile that she was
trying to be amusing by referencing his "with a K" comment. Duh. He
shouldn't have needed extra time to figure that out. If she thought
he was a moron, she was absolutely right. But if she was joking
around with him, then she trusted him, and if she trusted
him...

"Do you want to get some coffee?" Charlie
asked.

The woman held up her left hand, revealing
her wedding ring. "I don't think my husband would like that."

"I didn't mean like that. Just coffee."

"I'm just here to get Harvey some exercise.
But I appreciate the offer."

Charlie started to insist that he merely
wanted to get coffee as friends, but no, it wasn't a good idea to
appear desperate. The last thing he needed was for her to tell the
cops that there was a creepy guy harassing women at the dog
park.

"No problem."

This wasn't working at all. Apparently only
the dregs of society could be convinced to go anywhere with him,
even with a Boston terrier in tow. It was time to give up on this
idea and return to his old hunting grounds.

No. He had as much right to be here as
anybody else, and it wasn't a crime to ask somebody to go out for
coffee.

It was definitely a nice
park--a lot nicer than the one near his house. Would hanging out
here all day without bringing home a victim
really
be such a wasted day? Kutter
seemed to be enjoying it, if nothing else.

There was a circular purple object lying in
the snow. A Frisbee. Charlie picked it up, shook off the snow, and
let Kutter sniff it. The dog seemed to approve.

Charlie flung the Frisbee, which went in the
exact opposite direction that he'd intended and struck a tree that
was about four feet away. As soon as the Frisbee hit the ground
Kutter had snatched it up in his mouth and brought it back, holding
it up expectantly.

Charlie took hold of the Frisbee and tugged
gently, but Kutter didn't let it go.

"Give it to me so I can throw it again," he
instructed.