Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy (19 page)

Cooter was lying on his back, shaking his
head slowly from side to side, blinking his eyes and moaning
softly. His glasses had been knocked loose from his face and he was
peering to see who had attacked him.

Clay was clear headed, but had his legs
entwined with the other man. Getting free of his victim, he got
onto his knees and leaned over the other man on his outstretched
right arm. The brass knuckle was still in his left hand and he
swung it three times, each hit slamming into Cooter’s forehead.

Cooter grunted with each impact and after the
third hammer like blow, stopped trying to lift his head, raised his
hands to his face and began a low whining sound. Blood had started
to run off each side of his forehead as well as down into his eyes
as he looked up at his assailant and recognized him from the
shopping mall. Their faces were only two feet away from each other
and Cooter saw the look of disgust and loathing in his assailant’s
eyes. He was confused, trying to connect the incident in the mall
with what was now happening. The police aren’t allowed to attack
people; what the hell is happening. Cooter continued to stare and
whine, his body trembling, waiting for what he feared was to
come.

Rising to his feet Clay put the blood covered
brass knuckle back in his left pocket while removing the pistol
from inside his jacket.

Cooter saw the pistol and began to moan
louder. He raised both hands to cover his face, raised his knees to
a fetal position while shaking uncontrollably, curled up, and began
to rock back and forth, while chanting “No, no, no, no.”

Clay pointed the gun and fired two bullets
into his victim’s chest. The man gasp and his body quivered. Then
the body relaxed and his chest deflated with a slow final exhale of
breath. Both arms dropped to his sides and both legs relaxed, feet
on the ground, with knees rolled to the right. The man’s mouth
remained open and his eyes stared blank and unfocused at the
overcast sky above the woods. Clay placed the silencer twelve
inches from the man’s head and fired two more bullets into the top
of Cooter’s forehead, two inches apart and one inch below the
hairline. Removing Cooter’s billfold from the back pocket, he
withdrew the cash and threw the billfold under the boughs of a
large pine tree on the downhill side of the sloping bank. A cheap
wrist watch was removed from the dead mans left arm and placed in
Clay’s trouser pocket. The body was rolled and dragged down the
slight slope while the pine branches were raised, and the body was
maneuvered under the cover of the tree limbs. Crawling under the
branches in the dry needles he wrapped the limp body around the
trunk of the tree as best he could, where it would be out of sight.
Backing out from under the tree he found Cooter’s glasses and threw
it under the tree with the owner.

He realized how ratty he looked when he
surveyed his own appearance. His clothing was dirty and there were
pine and cedar needles stuck to him. As he was brushing off as much
of the debris from his clothing as was possible, he became aware
the drizzle had increased to a steady light rain. Kicking leaves
around, he obliterated the trail of blood leading toward the tree
where the body lay. Walking along the embankment to another opening
between the bushes, he edged up to the trail and peered out to look
both ways. Not seeing anyone, he began a fast jog back to his car.
Everyone else had left, or was leaving the park. The dead man’s car
was the only one in sight besides his own. Reaching his car and
grabbing the drivers door handle to open it, Clay exclaimed “Shit.
The god damn thing’s locked”. In his haste and nervousness, he must
have accidentally locked the doors. Fighting panic, he stood in the
rain, which was had become a down pour, trying to decide what to do
next. He had to get in the damn car. Moving around to the rear
passenger door he reached into his left pocket and found the brass
knuckle. He wanted to hit the glass hard enough to shatter it, but
not so hard that his fist carried through the glass and cut his
hand to shreds. On the third try the glass cracked. Clay looked
around the park and spotted a three inch diameter tree limb lying
on the ground twenty feet away.

Thank God; the way things are going it’s a
wonder the cleanup crew didn’t get pick it up, he muttered to
himself. Taking the six foot long limb he used it to punch an
opening through the broken rear side window, then threw it in the
direction of the location where he found it. Reaching through the
broken window, he unlocked the front passenger door, got in the car
and slid across the seat to the driver’s side. The engine roared to
life after he twisted the ignition wires together. Before putting
the gearshift in reverse, he checked his pockets to assure himself
he had the brass knuckle and his gun. Then his wet gloves shifted
to lever to reverse, he backed up and proceeded to drive past the
green Pontiac, setting alone in the parking lot in the driving
rain.

Clay drove to the area where he had left his
own car and stopped behind a small shopping center to switch
license plates, putting the original plates back on the Oldsmobile.
He then parked the stolen car in a handicapped parking space at a
small apartment complex. He figured someone would notice it quicker
setting there and call the police to have it towed away. It should
be cleaned up and back with its owner about the time the body in
the park was found, lessening any connection between the two
events. Leaving the stolen car he began the three block walk back
to where he had parked his own car. The rain had stopped, and the
temperature was in the lower fifties with an overcast sky. He was
angry with himself because several things had gone wrong and he
vowed he would not, could not let them happen again. The job had
been a good learning experience, but could have had disastrous
results. Back at his car he took an old blanket out of the trunk to
cover the seat before getting in and drove back to his motel.

Inside his room he removed his gloves,
clothing, and shoes, placing them in a garbage bag along with the
cover used on the car seat. After taking a long hot shower he
rummaged through the drawers in the furniture until he located
paper and a pen. Lying on the bed in his shorts and drinking a
beer, he began to review his plan and the execution of it.

He had been successful due to luck, not
because of his proficiency and control. Starting at the beginning,
he wrote down each step in detail on the left side of his paper.
When the list was completed he again started at the top of the page
on the right and made notes pertinent to each of the original
items. When he had finished he reviewed each item and prioritized
the five biggest mistakes he judged he had made.

Getting entwined with his target and falling
down the hill with him was his biggest concern; a stronger, more
physically fit opponent may have gotten the upper hand to injure
him, kill him, or summon help.

Locking the door of the stolen car certainly
had to be the second biggest bone headed act he had committed. If
his escape had been urgent, he could have lost precious time and
drawn attention in his efforts to get into the stolen car. Thank
God it was raining hard enough to cause everyone else to leave the
park.

Using the brass knuckles was a mistake also.
Getting close enough to use them gave the victim the opportunity to
strike back if his attack did not cause significant damage. It
isn’t about fair play he reminded himself, it’s about fast and
efficient killing. The victim can’t be given any chance to survive,
or even to create a struggle. He thought back several years to
Jerry O’Neil. That was a good hit because the victim was caught
like a rat in a trap. He had used the victims own habits to ambush
him, much the same as the Memphis hit, but had remained at a
distance. Out of reach of the victim and in full control; able to
react if necessary to any actions on the part of his intended
target; truly an important fact to remember.

Stolen license plates would need to be
procured from other areas, not just Chicago. If he continued to
bring them on all jobs a pattern could possibly emerge in an
investigation. Tying together the fact he had stolen several sets
in and around Chicago could lead police to focus on his home base.
He determined to steal a set before he left Memphis and to stop in
St. Louis for another set.

Two of the three running suits he had brought
along were of a soft, fleecy type material. Debris from the trees
and bushes in the park had embedded itself in the one he had worn
for the hit. He had not planned to roll on the ground with his
victim, and had missed thinking about moving the body under the
overhanging tree branches. Trying to brush the needles and other
debris off had been totally ineffective; even a fledgling or
incompetent medical examiner could tie his clothing to the area
where the hit had occurred. In the future any clothing items used
on the actual hit would be of a slick finish material so it would
not snag debris so easily.

On a positive note, the overall plan had been
good. The use of brown cloth gloves had worked. They were available
everywhere, cheap, and could be disposed of without arousing
suspicion. They could even be thrown in the corner of an alley and
some less fortunate passersby would pick them up and carry them
away.

Going to another town to steal a car had
worked well and he would make a mental note to use it again in the
future. Using out of state license plates also seemed to be a good
idea and he would continue doing it too. Also, there might be times
when he would want to put stolen plates on his own car to disguise
and hide its identity.

Clay had skipped one item on his list and
came back to review it. His involvement in stopping his target from
leaving the shopping mall with the youngster was troubling him
greatly. He couldn’t accept letting a young boy be attacked by the
old pedophile, but was concerned such action in the future could
blow his cover. Drawing attention to himself was something he
needed to avoid at all cost. While he was mentally picturing the
boy in the mall, a thought of Tommy being in the hands of a pervert
like Cooter entered his thoughts. There was no way in hell he would
ever let that happen to Tommy or any other innocent child. Also, if
Cooter had committed another crime in his home area the police
would have turned to him as a prime suspect, and may have arrested
him immediately for interrogation. Then the man would have been out
of Clay’s reach. Once again he would have had the opportunity to
escape punishment, or at worst be confined for some period. Clay’s
contract called for death, not confinement.

While walking from the bed to the bathroom,
he tore the paper into small pieces and then flushed them all down
the toilet. Lying back down on the bed he opened a beer, turned on
the television and continued to think about events of the last
week. When he had returned to the motel room he had counted the
money he removed from Cooter Holland’s billfold. Twenty seven
dollars. The man didn’t have a job and lived on what he could
sponge off of his mother. Her house, her car, her food, her meager
amount of money. I bet she sure was proud of the slimy bastard,
Clay mused to himself. And then he had a sobering thought: about as
proud as my mom would be if she knew what I just did.

Downing the last swallow of beer from the
bottle, he reached into a Styrofoam cooler beside the bed for
another one. The comedy show playing on the television was about a
bumbling detective who made error after error but always ended up
being the hero. He thought about the similarity to his own
situation, and vowed the type of errors he had committed would
never happen again. He made a pledge to review his actions and
grade himself after every job. Only then could he assure himself of
improving his work skills; and of not being caught.

Later, in the early evening hours, he dressed
to go out to dinner. On the way to his car he took the plastic bag
with the clothing, shoes and cover to a trash dumpster located at
the rear of the motel parking lot. The early evening news made no
mention of finding a body at the park; he surmised the body would
be found in a week or so. Cooter’s mother would file a missing
persons report and her car would be found at the park. A search of
the trail might find the body then, or if the police didn’t expend
too much effort looking for the corpse of a child molester it might
lay there until spring.

The next morning Clay checked out of the
motel at a few minutes before eleven o’clock. During the five hour
drive to St. Louis, Missouri he was calm and relaxed. In his mind
he began to examine the financial aspects of his new career. In the
nine days he had devoted to his Memphis job he had earned fifteen
thousand dollars. Hell it was almost what he earned working as a
laborer the entire year. He had slept well the previous night. No
bouts of anxiety, no nightmares, nothing. Occasionally there were
sudden feelings of incredibility about actually doing this “thing”
society abhorred. It would strike him like the blow from his own
brass knuckle; suddenly coming over him; interrupting his thoughts;
stopping him in his tracks. The feeling started in his head as a
purely mental awareness and quickly moved to the pit of his
stomach. He had trouble describing the feelings even to himself in
his own thoughts. There was a vague uneasiness to it all; but not
to such an extent he would change his actions to avoid it. Overall,
he found what he had just done exciting and he actually reveled in
the danger inherent to the act he had committed. He experienced a
great sense of pride in his ability to plan and execute intricately
detailed and complicated elements of a plan. He realized the target
would not always behave as expected and could react unpredictably.
Also his plans would of necessity need to be flexible, to allow for
deviation due to actions initiated by forces outside of his
control. The police could make an appearance merely due to routine
patrols; an uninvolved pedestrian could innocently stumble into his
plan; the target could sense his presence and attack first or
disappear out of his reach.