The Hooker: A Reprehensible Acts Story Read online

  “C’mon, Mark,” English said all buddy-buddy. “Tell us. You know you want to.”

  “I did have an idea.”

  “And what was that?” Taylor said in a normal manner, not being an asshole for a change.

  “I thought he might have had something to do with that transgender that got killed.”

  “Why did you think that?” English asked, not making any effort to hide his interest.

  “My bachelor party was the night of the murder. Lance wanted to get me a hooker. He pushed and shoved, but I didn’t want any of it. We cruised Delaware, made total assholes of ourselves, and got nowhere. I thought that was the end of it, but Lance was dead set on getting me some action. I got pissed at him and said no. He dumped me on the roadside and I got a bus home.”

  English shrugged. “How does that link Lance to the murder?”

  “He was all bruised up the following day. My wife was pissed that he looked such an eyesore at the wedding.”

  English and Taylor glanced at each other and exchanged some cop telepathy. English noted something in the case file. I wondered if I was pushing the connection too far, but I didn’t think so.

  “Okay, you had an inkling that Lance was involved,” English said. “Did you confront him?”

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t you come to us?” Taylor accused. “We had appeals out for information.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” I said. “You really expect me to turn my friend in, on a feeling?”

  “He might not be dead right now, if you had.”

  I didn’t want a ride on Taylor’s guilt trip and let it go, knowing it only made me look more convincing.

  “But why didn’t you do anything when he came to you asking for money and telling you not to ask any questions?” English said. “That must have reinforced your fears.”

  “It did.” Abruptly, I stood, shooting my chair back at the wall. The cops tensed, but I instantly diffused the situation by pacing back and forth. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I should have come to you guys, but I didn’t want to believe it. And if the cash was going to solve things, then so be it. No one had to know and life would go on.”

  “But it didn’t,” English remarked.

  I slumped against the wall. “No.”

  “Did you think we wouldn’t catch up with you?”

  I shook my head. “No. I just hoped you wouldn’t.”

  “Take a seat, Mark.” English indicated at my chair skewed against the wall.

  I plopped into the chair.

  “Let’s take a few minutes,” English suggested.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  ***

  I wasn’t in trouble, of course. English and Taylor put me to one side while they had a tête-à-tête. Afterwards, they walked me around the precinct and we chatted about marriage and sports then we resumed the questioning, although there wasn’t any. They gave me a slap on the wrist for not doing the right thing, but at the end of the day, there was precious little I could have done to prevent things turning out the way they did…yadda, yadda, yadda, so on and so forth.

  I thought they were going to let something slip about the case, maybe drop Blade’s name into the conversation or let slip that Blade and Hope were pimp and whore, but they didn’t. That worried me some. I wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t believe me or whether it was a cop thing and they didn’t let that sort of info slip to civilians. When Taylor showed me the door, shaking my hand and explaining that he and English needed to check a few more things, I wasn’t sure where I stood.

  But I needn’t have worried, because Jane saved me. They quizzed her informally. Actually, I’d been hoping for this. She was perfect for my plan. She had an outsider’s perspective. Her account helped misconstrue everything. She confirmed that I had a bachelor party, that I wasn’t myself at our wedding, that Lance had a black eye, that Lance seemed weird after we got back from our honeymoon and that we did have some secret meeting on the night Lance died. So, English and Taylor went away with two and two adding up to four, but the four I wanted them to believe. They spoke to me again, but I sensed they weren’t talking to me to tie up loose ends and I felt their grip dissolve. I slid over home plate and the ump cried “SAFE!”

  ***

  A month later, Lance, Hope, and Blade were faded newspaper. The case was consigned to an archive somewhere. The cops were satisfied with the scenario I’d manufactured. And I was free and clear.

  Until the shit storm hit.

  I was in line at the police station to pay a parking ticket. While I was waiting, a uniform led a cuffed black kid through to processing. The kid and I locked glances. I recognized him instantly. It was the kid Lance and I had scared off in the park. If I thought I was lucky and the kid hadn’t recognized me, I was dead wrong. The kid leered. It was obvious he thought he had a get out of jail free card. And, I was in the shit.

  ***

  I lost it for a while, several hours in fact. I panicked. I thought I had hours before English and Taylor swooped in on me. The kid might have been a piece of shit, but the cops would check his story out and eventually it would lead to me. I jumped out of the line.

  I didn’t go back to work. Instead, I raced to the bank and cashed out my savings. Returning home, I stuffed clothes and other bare essentials into a bag. My paranoia convinced me that airport security was just waiting to scoop me up the moment I checked in, but I took my passport anyway. My plan was simple, drive and keep driving, use cash and don’t go anywhere where they wanted ID. My life jettisoned, I was on the freeway before I came to my senses.

  I didn’t have to run…not yet, anyway. What did the kid know? He knew I was with Lance when we went to meet with Blade. He could describe me, but he didn’t know me. It would be some time before the detectives were informed of the breakthrough and could tie the identification back to me. Time was still on my side and I turned the car around at the next exit.

  I parked in the parking lot of a small ACE Hardware opposite the police station and I waited. My little loss of mental stability had lasted just over two hours. The kid wouldn’t be out of police custody for several hours to come.

  I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter after three. The little punk would be running his mouth off right about now. They’d probably just be starting to believe that the dirt bag had useful information and that he wasn’t mouthing off to save his precious skin from an ass fucking at a boys’ ranch somewhere. I hoped it wouldn’t be long before they released him.

  In cop time, it wasn’t long, but for me, time leaked by like water dripping from a cracked pipe. But I had no option, I had to wait. As much as the kid didn’t know about me, I didn’t know anything about him, not his name or his address. It was dark, close to eight o’clock, when he stepped out of the precinct.

  I had the engine running before he was out of the station. When he went, I wanted to be right behind, and I was. I knew he was on his way out when I saw his little bitch getting out of a battered Honda to pick him up.

  I’d been hoping they would go home, but they didn’t. They parked in the shadows of a recently closed down Kmart. The abandoned lot lacked other vehicles, so I parked on the street, between two cars.

  After a couple of minutes, the Honda started rocking on its springs. Those kids really needed a room to themselves.

  Sitting there, watching the kid make a home run between his girl’s thighs and knowing what I would have to do to them, I wondered how the hell I’d gotten myself into this position. I wasn’t an angel, but I wasn’t an amoral killer. I was a good guy with a college degree, a stable job, a wife, a home and a pension that would see me all right when I got old. But I’d killed two people, one my best friend, and I was going to kill two more. On life’s resume, I hadn’t expected to list murderer as a past achievement. A chill rocked me and I shivered.

  Had all this carnage stemmed from a transgender giving me a blowjob I didn’t want? It was hard to believe, but it was true. It was all Lance’s fault. It
was his idea, his pressuring that got us into this mess. But he was dead and out of it. Me, I was still in it and digging deeper. I thought about Lance and the sorry state he was in the moment before I killed him. I did him a favor as much as I did one for me. As much as I wanted, I couldn’t really blame him for what had happened. I could have intervened at any time and changed the outcome. But I didn’t for the simple fact that I didn’t want to go to jail. I’d killed Hope and it didn’t matter how legal spins could be used as a defense, I had murdered someone and that meant jail time. As the windows steamed up and the cold seeped into the car, it was that exact moment that I knew and accepted there was no going back. As crazy as it sounds, I knew I was doing the right thing.

  My future victims were finished and the Honda roared into life with a bronchial gurgle. I gunned my engine, slipped out of my parking space and followed them to their next port of call.

  They roamed for miles through the city before stopping at Taco Bell. They went inside and I waited in a neighboring parking lot. When they finished their meal, they didn’t leave. They returned to their car and sat inside. They waited. I waited. We waited. It was boring stuff. I just wanted to kill them and go home.

  It was twenty minutes before my boredom was killed off. An old model BMW parked two stalls away from the battered Honda. The kid got out but his girl stayed put. He did his best not to look conspicuous. Marks out of ten? Two. It wasn’t particularly difficult to see that a drug deal was going down. Nothing major league, weed by the looks of it. It was a little bit of reefer action to finish off the night. It explained the aimless driving around. They had a time and a place, but they were early. The deal went through without complication and took less than two minutes. The transaction completed, everyone went their separate ways and I trailed the battered Honda again.

  Everything was going swimmingly. I kept a discreet distance behind them, because I knew where they were going. They were heading out of the city over to the dam where Lance and I had dumped the Club. It was going to be easy to take them.

  But then it turned to shit. It was a weeknight and close to midnight. Where before, I had two or three cars between them and me, now I had none. They could see me and I could see them. I don’t think they knew who I was, but they knew it wasn’t good. They kicked up the speed and so did I. I should have let them go, but I couldn’t take my foot of the gas. My panic kept telling my brain that this was my only chance to get them and if I didn’t, I was screwed. We belted along the county road at fifty-five.

  The county road had a thirty-five miles per hour speed limit and it shouldn’t have been a surprise when the sirens wailed and the lights flashed. I saw the nose of the Crown Victoria and jumped off the gas. I didn’t want a ticket. I didn’t want anything that could link me to a time and place. My speedometer needle crept back to the legal limit.

  The Honda didn’t see the Ford and sheriff’s car zeroed in on them. The Honda cranked up the speed to get away. When I think about it now, I think the kids thought I was an unmarked cop car following them after the drug deal and the sheriffs leaping out only added to their delusion. I didn’t want them to get away and not know what happened, so I ramped my speed up.

  I maintained a steady distance behind the chase. The Ford easily caught the Honda. It had the power and the good maintenance schedule to keep pace with the jalopy, but the kids weren’t backing down. They straddled the lanes to block any overtaking maneuver. It was a classic Cops episode in the making.

  If they thought they could run the red light they were insane. The light was red over a hundred yards before the Honda reached the intersection. The sheriff slammed on the brakes. The Honda didn’t. The gas tanker was broadside, in mid-turn, when the kids buried themselves under the tractor-trailer section. Luckily for the truck driver, the tanker didn’t explode. Unluckily for my witnesses, the Honda was decapitated by the underside of the trailer before the back axles crushed what was left. I made an illegal U-turn when I saw a pair of wheels wedged inside the car’s cabin. There was nothing more to be seen.

  I was luckier than I ever imagined. My two witnesses were dead and I didn’t have to kill anybody this time. Somebody somewhere liked me. I couldn’t stop smiling.

  But I had nothing to smile about when I got home. Turning into my street, I spotted English and Taylor slipping into an unmarked police cruiser. Reflexively, I pulled into a neighbor’s driveway until they had passed. My hand was trembling when I put the key in the lock to let myself into the house.

  Jane was in the living room. I expected her to be upset by a late night visit from the cops, but she wasn’t. Her expression was odd though, a mixture of emotional detachment and disappointment.

  “Don’t worry, I covered for you,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t try.

  “They won’t be coming back. I tied up all the loose ends for them. Unless they’ve got something concrete they don’t have a case. So as long as you’ve done your bit, we’ll be okay.”

  Water gurgled in my ears. I wasn’t sure if I was going to fall, so I put a hand out against the living room doorway to support myself.

  “The only thing I don’t know is who did it. Which one of you killed the hooker, the transgender or whatever it was?”

  My brain engaged my mouth and I spoke. “Jane, you don’t understand...”

  “Mark.” She cut me off before I could bullshit my way out. “I’ve just committed a felony. I’m an accomplice to murder. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll call the cops back.”

  “I killed the hooker.”

  She nodded like she’d known all along.

  “Lance wanted to get me a hooker before I got married. I didn’t want to do it.” I stopped before carrying on. I heard myself. I sounded like a ten year old with his hand caught in the cookie jar. It was pathetic. “We were duped by the hooker. Lance paid her to give me a blowjob. I lost control when I found out it was a man.”

  “Did you come?”

  “No!” I flared, but instantly calmed down. Actually, I was glad of the little rush of blood to the head. If it hadn’t I think I would have passed out. “No, I didn’t come.”

  “You two must have been pretty drunk not to have been able to tell the difference between a man and a woman.”

  “We were.”

  I could have made excuses, but why try? I couldn’t stand any longer and flopped into my easy chair. Jane sat on the sofa. Alone, she looked small, vulnerable. I should have gone to her, but her piercing gaze asked for nothing but the truth. It was me who needed the comforting.

  “Lance shot the pimp,” I blurted after a long moment of silence where Jane just sat examining me.

  “But you finished him off…then you killed Lance.”

  My vehement denial died in my throat, although I’m not sure there was one. Truly, I was scared at that point and I could tell no lie. When I’d killed Hope and Lance, I was merely fearful and that fear made me ingenious and devious. I became a liar of Olympic standard, but not when faced with the truth. English and Taylor were bad guessers, shooting half court baskets with no chance of success. But Jane was different. She knew the grim realities of what had happened. I was an honest man again. I was relieved.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “I saw you do it.”

  My hands were cold and I rubbed them together to generate some heat.

  “You weren’t fooling me. I knew you two had done something when Lance came to the wedding with his messed up face, but I didn’t know what. I followed you and Lance to the park. I saw everything, Mark.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  She faltered, unsure of herself, but quickly recovered. “Shock, I guess. I didn’t know what was going on; only that it was serious. I was scared of you, Mark.”

  It was understandable and I nodded.

  “Are you scared now?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “You were identified. That’s why the
cops were here.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you taken care of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that where you’ve been?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  We sat in silence for a couple of minutes although it felt like hours. Jane stared at me. I couldn’t look at her and examined the carpet’s pile.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  “What do you mean?” she answered, shaking her head.

  “Do you want me to turn myself in?”

  “No.”

  Funny, I didn’t feel relieved at her answer. I should have, but I didn’t. They say birds and animals can sense when an earthquake or a twister or some other catastrophe is imminent. Jane saying no and protecting me from the law only heightened my sense that something devastating was just over the next ridge. Animals in that situation resort to the fight or flight instinct. I wasn’t so wise. I did neither.

  ***

  With the eyewitnesses dead and no other leads, the case died for a second time and the cops left me alone. English and Taylor provided a plausible explanation and parceled the evidence into a nice, neat box that wouldn’t raise any further questions, although it needed considerable shoehorning to pull it off. I haven’t heard from them in nearly a year.

  So, I was free. But only from the law.

  Jane wanted a Lexus, but we couldn’t afford it. Our credit was maxed out. But Jane wanted a Lexus and it was my job to provide. There were consequences if I didn’t come through for her. She liked to dangle a key to a safety deposit box to let me know what those consequences were. I didn’t know what she had in the deposit box and it didn’t really matter. The message was clear, a sword would always hang over my head and I’d better do as I was told.

  Jane got her Lexus. She had a frail aunt in Iowa with a lot put aside for her favorite niece. In July, I took a trip to Iowa, introduced myself and put a pillow over the old girl’s face. By the way, the Lexus is black.

  It’s November and Jane wants a baby, a girl. She wants to name it after the dead aunt. We’re still maxed out, credit wise. But that’s not the point. I don’t want a child. Can you see us as parents? I can’t imagine how our progeny would turn out. From our genes, it couldn’t be good.