Fallen Too Far (6 page)

He had a hobby.

A secret hobby.

He got some bird books and binoculars. He kept them in a shoulder bag. On the bottom were his toolkit he assembled by trial and error to find out which ones did the best job. Gram thought that he was an avid birdwatcher. He changed bird watching for insects after a year or so, and in high school studied the plants in the woods. Or so Gram thought.

As each animal died, he felt something akin to love. They gave their life for his good work. As he filled his little cemetery, he did it with increasing reverence. First he wrapped them in a rag, and over time he laid them in small coffins with a cross etched on the cover. He planted wildflowers over each grave.

In high school he would go out of the house at night. Gram’s bedroom was at the top of the stairs, so he used a rope from his bedroom window to climb down. He would take his bicycle across the fields to the nearest subdivision. He would stay in the woods behind the houses and peer with his binoculars into lighted bedrooms. That was good work too, especially when he was able to watch women. Being in the woods was good, he could climb a tree for a better view. He watched girls, teenagers and women undress for bed. Sometimes he watched couples have sex. When they turned their lights out he would return home and masturbate.

Over time he had a bunch of favorite homes to watch.

He developed patience and discipline in his hobby. He never rushed things. Whether it was waiting for night to fall, or for his subject to retire, it came naturally to him to become still as he perched in the tree. He never felt frustrated when his prowling was unfruitful. It was his hobby.

A week before graduation from high school, Gram took her last breath in a hospital. He was eighteen. She had made all of her arrangements, and left him everything in her will. There was a healthy bank account with several hundred thousand dollars in it, some stocks, and still fifty acres of land.

He had her cremated and scattered her ashes in the front yard of the farmhouse. She had spent her entire life there and would spend eternity at that farm in one fashion or another.

He neither grieved nor cried. She had done good work. The money gave him the freedom to pursue his own life’s work. He was ready to move to the next stage.

Through his high school years he became an aficionado of murder mysteries and true crime stories to augment his forays into the woods. He studied online as well.

He learned enough from the mistakes of others. Bundy was a fool. As was The Son of Sam. They killed people others cared about. That pig farmer in British Columbia was smart in his work, but by staying local, he managed to get caught as well.

Paul realized he had much to do to prepare for the next stage in development.

He joined a school of self defense and worked hard at becoming adept at street fighting and law enforcement subduing techniques. It took him two years before he felt he was ready. The discipline of the classes appealed to him. He realized that expertise came from practicing the fundamentals.

He began to keep a diary of his goals and progress towards them.

He purchased a pickup truck. A reliable used one with a cap on the back. Gram had taught him how to drive when he was in high school. Her own health was failing and for the last several years of her life she was either housebound or at doctors’ appointments.

He got a job delivering the daily newspaper to subscribers. The era of paperboys was drawing to a close, and there were plenty of routes to be had. He would fill his truck with several hundred papers, covering two or three routes. He built a platform out of wood in the back of his truck, and cut out a hatch into the divider between the cab and bed.

He would pick up his papers at the printing plant, toss them into his truck and cruise the neighborhoods where he knew the street walking whores would be. He was invisible to the police once they saw who he was. The magnetic sign with the logo of the newspaper he delivered, attached to the doors of the pickup helped.

His first project went smooth as silk. He knew that the corners where the girls would be, were free of surveillance cameras. Otherwise the Johns wouldn’t come by. He went for a girl that was alone. He pulled up, and rolled the passenger window down and asked the price for a blowjob. When she gave it he nodded and she jumped in.

They pulled into an alley nearby. He shut off the engine, hiked up the steering wheel, unbuttoned his pants, and pulled them down. When she bent over to go to work on him he struck her behind the ear with a lead truncheon. It was like flipping a switch.

He was afraid he’d hit her too hard. She was breathing however. His hours of practice with the instrument and a bathroom scale had paid off. He hit her exactly right with exactly the proper force.

He wrapped her arms and legs with layers of reinforced shipping tape—the kind with nylon cords running through it. He secured a thick leather hood over her head and scooped her under the seat and into the bay in the rear of the truck. He had the foresight to line the floor with satin so her body would slide easily.

He took her home and secured her to the place he prepared in the cellar. He returned to work and completed his routes.

It took him three days to finish with her. It was wonderful work, his best ever.

The night she died he buried her with full reverence in the provincial park. There was no chance that she’d be uncovered by some developers in the future.

He did four projects a year. He wanted to do more, but knew that it was discipline that would ensure his freedom.

After three years, he knew he needed to move on to a new location.

He moved to British Columbia for two years, then Edmonton. It was simple to move to the U.S. Gram was an American, so he qualified for dual citizenship. He stayed away from major cities, too much urban sprawl, and he needed countryside and isolation nearby.

As his skills and confidence grew, he did more projects. He went from one project every four months to one every two months, then one a week for the last month before moving on.

From his research and reading he guesstimated there were at least twenty five other colleagues like himself out there doing projects. He wondered if they passed each other in the night as they went about their business.

Like building a series of houses, each project had the same fundamentals. Once the basics were attended to, each job took on its own unique cachet. Their gags never came off. He didn’t want to hear their mewling pleas. He always watched their eyes as they died.

It never got old. It was beautiful.

He had been working his vocation for ten years when he returned to Toronto. He rented a house and property that was further away from the city than Gram’s had been. He got another job delivering papers and waited six months to become familiar with the tenor of the area. If he had curious neighbors, or nearby exploring children, he wanted to know about it before resuming his work. He was grateful that he was as isolated as before.

He spent those six months preparing the next stage of growth in his vocation.

The number of streetwalkers had diminished drastically. Real estate values and subsequent taxes were too high for owners to tolerate what they used to. The industrial parks of six years ago were now condominium complexes. He was going to have to use escorts, and that required a new set of skills.

He had to learn how to create phony id’s so he could get credit cards for payments. He had to learn how to be hidden on-line. It wasn’t beyond his abilities. The bonus was that he could pick and choose his projects—so many of them posted photos.

He didn’t have to worry about pimps though. That had been a concern in his last stage. He read their ads carefully and was able to discern the most likely ones who worked alone. It was pretty simple, actually—all he did was ask if they could bring a friend. Those who replied that they could, he knew were part of a stable. Those who said no were solo workers.

He picked out motels that were not busy and were outside the city. He always chose a room at the end of the motel. The women would always arrive by taxi.

He would pay them immediately. That always relaxed them. He would offer them a drink. Those who accepted were unconscious in minutes. Those that declined he had sex with and sent home. Most of them accepted the glass of wine from what they thought was a sealed bottle.

The only risk was bundling them into his pickup. But that risk only lasted a couple of seconds. He always had his truck backed into the parking spot. After they passed out, he would go to the truck, open the passenger door and the interior hatch. He would scoop up their unconscious forms and carry them out in an upright position. The hooker would look like a drunk being helped into the truck if anyone noticed. It was only a matter of sliding her through the hatch and he was done.

He had only one mishap. It was his third project.

She called herself Annik and she was beautiful.

She came to his room and refused any refreshment, so he had to have sex with her.

She was the most beautiful one of his projects that he had ever seen. She could have easily been a model. He decided to break his rules as soon as he orgasmed. He was going to keep this one, and keep her for a long, long time. She would be his masterpiece.

After they finished, while she was dressing. He tried to engage her in conversation. She looked at him strangely, in spite of his best attempts at charm.

In an attempt to distract her he started to babble on about God, religion and holiness. It was the only time he deviated from the plan. It didn’t work, she went to the door. He grabbed her by the hair and tried to bounce her head against it.

But she was fit. She twisted and her shoulder took the force. His balls took her kick.

She scrambled out the door of the room and ran towards the office two hundred feet away. He went after her, but saw a taxi dropping people off and retreated back to his room. He had to get out of there. He was putting his coat on when his door was kicked open.

“Tough fucking guy, huh?” the man said. He was in his late forties, and wouldn’t be a problem. But Paul smartened up enough to realize that if he took the guy out, he’d only have more complications.

“I was only trying to save her soul mister.” he said, holding up his hands.

The guy waded into him. He was actually pretty good. He threw a punch into Paul’s abdomen, then hit him on the side of the head. Paul went supine on the floor.

“No more. Please. I’m sorry.” Paul whimpered.

“I see you around again, asshole, I’m not going to stop.” The guy left the room.

Paul jumped up and saw the guy get behind the wheel of a taxi. That Annik bitch was in the front seat. Was he her pimp? No, he couldn’t be. He was just some random Samaritan or something. Paul let it go. Lesson learned. But if he ever came across that Annik bitch again… he wouldn’t be reverent, that was for sure.

He’d be nasty.

It would take her a very, very long and painful time to die.

He dressed and left the motel, chiding himself for getting off plan.

Chapter 5

Annik sat up in bed, stretched her arms with a yawn, and shut her alarm clock off. She got in later than usual the night before, so gave herself an extra half hour of sleep. The clock showed nine thirty.

An hour later, she was in her home office. She had to recap notes on Bill from the night before and do the book keeping for the appointment. Tom had told her that a lot of success in business was making habits out of the small things, which when added up, became important. He was right—each of her clients now had files that reminded her of their likes, dislikes and any comments they had made that she thought was important. Doing the detail work while it was fresh gave her information for later appointments.

After finishing up Bill’s file, she checked her email.

There was an e-mail from him, thanking her, commenting that she had created an experience, a memory for him that he would always cherish. He then asked when he could see her again as he was returning to Toronto in a week’s time. She frowned. That wasn’t a good idea, and she had laid that out to him when they first communicated. She wrote:

Good morning Bill:

I’m so glad that you were pleased with our encounter last night. You are quite a lover and very much a gentleman-that pleased me. Of course I would love to see you again, but not for a month. I'm referring to the fact that you may start to develop feelings for me, which would ultimately become painful for both of us to have to deal with. For that reason, I never see a new client, a new Patron until a month has passed after our first encounter. I'm looking forward to hearing from you again. In a month.

Annik

He was a good guy. She was obligated to keep the emotional attachment in the proper context, dammit. She smiled to herself; yes, she would have made a good therapist. No chance that the Ann kid from last night would do anything like this—if anything, she’d be asking if it could be sooner? Or ask him to send her a ‘gift’ for her to remember him by?