Goody One Shoe (25 page)

BILLIE PRESSED A BUTTON
on
the side of her watch. The glow from its face lit hers. It was getting late.
Maybe Art Douglas wasn’t coming back.

She stared out the window of the abandoned building and
tapped her toes against the concrete floor. Damn it, he had to come back.
Tonight was the night, she was so ready. The same satisfaction that came over
her when she saved Jeffrey flooded her body. And when she took Bat Head out of
commission and probably saved countless women from being raped, maybe even
killed. Righteousness and action had filled her with power.

She pulled on the snug leather gloves she’d picked up just
for the occasion. She opened a new box of bullets, loaded a magazine, and
smacked the magazine into Bruce’s gun.

How could she have ever known that this was what she was
built for? To be a vigilante. A defender of justice. Just like her name means.
Maybe her father knew that. Named her Wilhelmina on purpose. But he probably
never foresaw this for his little Billie Angel. No, he probably thought she’d
be a cop like him. Or maybe a lawyer. But a hired gun? Shit, she wasn’t even
hired. She’d do it for free as long as it was justice.

A slice of headlights across the window flashed in Billie’s
eyes. She pulled back and peered out. She grabbed the binoculars that dangled
from a leather strap around her neck. There was someone in the car with him.
Someone short. Or drunk.

Three weeks of stalking and planning. Twenty-two years of anguish,
pain, and hate all wrapped up in survivor’s guilt and tied up with a fugue
ribbon. It all led to this moment. “Okay, Billie Sunshine, are you ready?” She
bounced on her feet and shook her arms, rolled her neck until it cracked.

She nodded. “So fucking ready.”

She crawled out the window, ran across the abandoned lot, her
body crouched low. Douglas had done what he always did — drove in through the
gate, closed and chained it, and secured it with the giant padlock.

Like that could keep her out. Maybe he’d never heard of bolt
cutters.

She pulled out the section of chain link fence that she’d cut
open the prior Sunday and laid it gently on the ground. She was as quiet as
possible in case her prey had hearing like the dog he was.

The stench that took her breath the first few times she’d
approached the docks no longer bothered her. Now it smelled of sweet vengeance.

She traversed a labyrinth of teetering rusty shipping
containers — some Seussian landscape from an R-rated horror movie. Wooden
crates were strewn about, alongside oil drums that stunk like toxic waste. So
many places to hide bodies. Or pieces of bodies. And no one around to look for
them.

The rotting flesh of the containers gave off a metallic
stench that swirled with dead fish and dead hookers in an eddy of putrefaction.
A waft of jasmine caught in Billie’s nostrils. She searched the darkness for
its source. Among the trash and filth, creeping through pavement and rooted in
rot, sparse vines dotted with white flowers were scattered about the dockyard. The
scent made her feel a bit drunk with its sweet, sensual power. She plucked a
blossom and inhaled the elixir. It mixed with the adrenaline flooding her veins
until purpose and confidence coursed through her.

Breaking glass shattered the silence. Billie dropped to the
ground and duck-walked behind a stack of crates and barrels. She peered out
between two drums.

Douglas’s silhouette was backlit by the dim light cast from
a bare bulb above the door to the Quonset hut. He pulled a bottle out of his
car and lobbed it at a pile of trash; brought another one out and uncapped it,
tipped it to his lips, and gulped down the remaining contents. That bottle died
alongside the others, splintered glass spraying the tarmac.

Douglas pulled his car mate from the passenger seat and
dragged her toward the Quonset. Her stiletto heels scraped against the
pavement.

Whoever it was, she was passed out cold. Or dead.

Billie slinked through the night until she was hidden behind
corrugated cardboard.

Douglas dragged the body to a stack of crates and tossed her
on top. She landed hard and sent the sharp crack of breaking wood through the
night. He arched his back and stretched his neck. A flash of flame lit his
face, then the red tip of a fresh cigarette glowed in the shadows. He pulled on
the cancer stick, his full attention on the corpse atop the crates. Between
puffs, he leaned in. There was an audible intake of air when he sniffed her
hair. He ran his fingers down her back, over her behind, and down one leg.

“Definitely dead,” Billie whispered. She eyed the body on
the crates. Short skirt, crop top, high heels. Another hooker. Easy prey and
nobody looking for her. Bastard had learned his lessons all right. Go for the
invisible victims and chances are, the cops won’t give two shits about them.
Won’t even look for them. Just assume they moved on to more profitable
territory.

Cops needed a wakeup call.

Douglas sucked the last of his cigarette and tossed the
glowing butt into the air. It bounced on the blacktop and rolled. He unbuckled
his belt and whipped it from his belt loops with a snap. He smacked the dead
woman’s ass with the belt, then threw it aside. The buckle clanked against the
tarmac. Douglas cut the woman’s skirt off with a knife. He tossed the blade
aside. Its metal edge sparked against the blacktop and came to rest a few yards
away. He dropped his pants and bared his ass to the audience he didn’t know was
watching.

Billie looked away.

The squeak of crates blessedly masked his groans and grunts.
Billie took a deep breath and squeezed her hands into fists.

It was now or never.

She tiptoed through the darkness and around the edge of the
dim spotlight created by the bare bulb. Art and his date went about their
business in the shadows, which allowed Billie to get within spitting distance.

Billie fingered the gun in her pocket. Her eyes caught the
glint of Art’s discarded blade. She scooped it from the ground and rolled the
handle in her gloved hand. Oh, irony, you have a wicked sense of humour.

Billie sidled up to Douglas. When she was within arm’s
reach, she held his knife to the side of his face.

He froze mid-thrust, his gulp audible. He glanced sideways
until he caught Billie’s eye. “Well, what have we here? You want a threesome?
It must be my lucky fucking day.”

His voice turned Billie’s stomach. “Dream on, pig. I’m going
to watch you die on the pavement in a pool of your own blood.” She drew the
blade across his cheek and marveled at the crimson oozing from the cut. In the
dim light, it looked black, like evil escaping his veins.

Art Douglas winced. Then he laughed at her. “Seriously? Some
scrawny bitch thinks she can do me in? How ‘bout you just do me instead.”

He pushed off the dead girl, knocked Billie sideways, and
stood in the dark with his pants around his ankles.

Billie recovered and stood in front of him, her eyes glued
to his face. “I want a fair fight. Pull up your trousers.”

He huffed and bent to pull up his pants, his eyes never
blinking, never leaving hers.

“Besides,” she said. “I can’t bear to look at your pitiful
excuse for a dick. No wonder you fuck dead people.”

His face contorted. Billie readied for him to rush her.

Douglas threw his head back and roared. “I like a little
trash talk before I slice a bitch to pieces.”

“You like that?” She jerked her head at him. “You have huge
feet. So I guess that whole ‘big feet, big dick’ thing is just an urban myth.”

He snickered. “That’s funny, bitch. But your trash talk
could use some work. It’s a little stiff.” He eyed the ground.

“Looking for this?” She sliced the air with his blade. “Yeah,
I cut you with your own knife. Thought it would make our little encounter more
personal.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Who the fuck
are
you?”

“Wilhelmina Angelina Fullalove. In nineteen ninety-three you
murdered my parents in an alley.”

He snorted. “Which parents? Which alley? Ninety-three was a
long year, sweetheart. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Billie went cold at his callous words. “Police officer and
his wife, out for a stroll after a nice birthday dinner for their eleven-year-old
daughter. That would be me.” She tapped her chest with her fingertips. “After
you murdered them for no reason, you shot my leg off.”

“So, Tony finally ratted me out, eh? He saved your life that
night, you know that, right?”

Billie nodded. “I’m aware.”

“Now I’m gonna have to go kill his sorry ass.”

“No point. He’s almost dead already. Cancer.”

“Well, ain’t that nice. I love it when God does my dirty
work.”

The hair on Billie’s neck bristled. God would never give
someone cancer. Not on purpose.

Douglas pulled a cigarette pack from his breast pocket and
tapped one out. “You mind?” He lit the smoke.

“Not at all. Consider it your final wish before you die.”

“No. My final wish is to fuck your stupid brains out. But I
think I’ll do you while you’re still breathing, then carve you up piece by
piece while you watch. I’ll toss your juicy bits to the slime that swim in the
river. They love them some whore parts. Gobble it up like it’s their last meal.
I bet they even eat the bones.”

She tossed the knife into her left hand and pulled Bruce’s
gun from her pocket. She aimed it at Douglas’s dick.

An almost imperceptible twitch in his eyelids gave him away.
Fear was creeping in.

Billie squinted and lowered her chin. Her lips quivered and
her jaw clenched. She couldn’t take her eyes from his face. Refused to fall
victim to him again.

“You got a silencer on that thing?” He swallowed hard. “You
shoot, gonna be cops swarming all over this place.”

“No there won’t.” Billie closed her fist on the knife and
kneaded the handle like a stress ball. She memorized his every movement, every
jerk of muscle in his arms, shuffle of feet and shift of his eyes. “There’s
nothing for miles. Police don’t give a crap about this place. Isn’t that why
you’re out here?” She jerked her head at the body on the crates. “For the
privacy?”

He snorted. “You been following me. I knew it. Could feel
it.” He eyed her from bottom to top. “You got skills. Maybe I could use that.”
He sucked on his cigarette, reached behind and butted it on the hooker’s cold
thigh. “We should team up, you and me.”

Bile rose in Billie’s throat and her balance wavered. No,
she would not fuck this up.

She launched the knife at Douglas. It penetrated his right
shoulder and crunched into bone. The handle protruded from his flesh at a right
angle, erect, aroused.

He reared sideways and grabbed his arm. His jaw clenched and
he straightened. He glared at her, and yanked the blade free. In one swift
movement, the knife sailed through the air.

Billie dove over a pile of garbage. The blade pinged off an
oil drum and skittered along the pavement, coming to rest against an apple core.
Through her heartbeat banging in her ears, she heard footsteps and grunts of
pain.

She rolled onto her back and raised the pistol, focused on
the front sight and aimed for the centre of his looming blurry figure. He
lunged for her. She shot once, twice. Three times.

His body jerked with the impact of each bullet. He looked
her in the eyes, his face a mask of shock and pain, before he crumpled and fell
on top of her.

His hot breath, sweet with whiskey and laden with tar and
nicotine, expelled from his lungs and onto her face. Her stomach clenched and
roiled.

A roar built up inside Billie and exploded from her mouth.
She thrust her arms out and pushed him off, propelling his limp form and the
gun a good metre. She scrambled to her feet, wiped his grimy touch from her.
She shook out her arms and stood over him.

He gasped and drew in a gurgling breath. Bubbles of blood
trickled down his chin. He grinned and lifted one hand, made a lame attempt to
grab her leg before his arm flopped to the asphalt. “Well shit.” He coughed up
blood. “You got me.”

Bastard was hard to kill.

A scream bellowed from deep inside her. She kicked him in
the groin, the side, the arms. His knife lay on the ground. She stormed at it,
snatched it up, and turned to him. She dropped to her knees and stabbed him in
the stomach and the throat, pummeled his head and his neck with her other hand.

She switched the knife to her left and stabbed him until her
body ached. Without the energy for another thrust, her arms went limp. The
knife hit the pavement and sent a spark into the air. Her head rolled back. She
let out a long wail, wrapped her arms around herself and crumpled to the
asphalt. Her body undulated with relief and rage, guilt and grief.

Sirens keened in the distance. Billie’s heartbeat
accelerated as they neared. She backed into the shadows and scurried behind a
stack of oil drums. He was right. Cops would be all over the place.

She held her breath until the screaming cars sped away,
probably blocks from the dock, and dissipated in the darkness. She let the air
out of her lungs and snorted a small laugh from her nose. Like the cops gave a
damn about this place. About Art Douglas.

Billie wiped the tears from her cheeks, leaving smears of
greasy blood in their wake. She lifted her hands into the moonlight and stared
at the evidence all over them. All over her.

“Come on, Billie. Time to move.”

 She got to her feet and approached the dead woman on the
crates. Billie studied her face, the dark brows in contrast to the hair dyed
platinum, cropped short, and spiked with gel. The woman smelled of sex and
smoke and hopelessness. And this would be her final resting place.

Billie pocketed the knife and retrieved the gun. By the
light of the moon, she scrounged for bullet casings, counting each as she
snatched them up. How many times had she pulled the trigger? She closed her
eyes and rewound the night.