The Monster Within (15 page)

‘
Chad
’. I swallow hard. This isn’t good. ‘
The cops stopped by with your picture. They say that you robbed a bunch of places. How could you? How could you lie to me about everything? I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t even want to see your face. I want you out of here. If you know what’s right, you’ll turn yourself in. Do the right thing for once in your life. Don’t bother looking for us. I’m taking the boys and we’re going someplace safe. Becca’.

I can feel the tears burning down my cheeks as I hold the letter with trembling hands. My tears splatter against the paper, smearing the words, staining them into unrecognizable blurs as my quivering fingers contort, twist, and constrict against the paper, wrinkling and crinkling it. How could she do this to me?

How could I do this to me?

That’s the question. I turn and look back at the garage. I should go after her. I should give chase. If I don’t give chase, then I should definitely run. I should run away, as far as I can. I should take the money I have and start over. The police will give up eventually and I have more than enough to start over somewhere remote and far away. No. I can’t leave my family. I’ve failed them. I’ve failed all of them. I turn back to the garage, taking heavy steps as I go, my heart sinking into oblivion with each step that I take. In the olden days, a samurai who betrayed his family would fall on his sword.

I hit the garage door button and the light comes back on as the door opens. I should have done this a long time ago. I should have done this when I first slept with Nora. I should have given up on everything. There was no future for me, no hope. There never was. There never will be. I’m the space between the lines where life is written out for everyone. College, paying my dues, getting married, and having kids. I’d done all the right things. I had walked the path that so many other people had over the years and yet, here I was. I’m standing in a garage, in a house that’s emptied and abandoned, waiting for the cops to come and get me. How much of my life is gone now? How will I ever get it back? How will I ever make amends for this? I have disgraced, dishonored, and ruined everything that I have ever hoped to accomplish over the years. I am a worthless, terrible human being.

What have I been doing for the past four days? I’ve been casing gas stations, small restaurants, and grocery stores. I’ve been stealing from those who were doing the same thing as I was. What made me better than them? Did I even have a soul anymore for the things that I’ve done? Were they going to rape and beat me in jail? I’m too soft for jail. I’ve never been a fighter or strong. I’ve always been manipulative and weak. They’re going to destroy me. But what will be waiting for me when I get out? My parents will disown me, my wife will never speak to me again, and the judge will take my children away and hand them over to Becca. She’ll take them wherever she wants to. I’ll never see any of them again. I’ll be left alone in the world, abandoned and hopeless.

I look over at my father’s carpenter’s tools. When he quit his business, he’d asked if he could store them at my place, since I have a three car garage. I had said yes, not expecting so much. This is the legacy of my father’s labor. He had been a worker, a man who toiled with his hands to build something that mattered. Why couldn’t I have done the same? He had done well by my mother, my sister, and my younger brothers. They were all successful, and I was successful. He set me on the right path, but I’m just a colossal fuck up. I had done everything right up until this past year. Why had I made the decisions that I’d made? Was my last good deed not killing a boy? Is that what I’m capable of? Not something great and heroic, but just something decent? The tears burn my cheeks as they race down to drip off of my chin. I am a worthless, terrible person. Becca and the boys will be better off without me.

Walking toward the mass of junk, workboxes, and other contraptions. I look at all the instruments that were needed to make anything from a rocking chair to a house. My father had everything for his trade. He had been a miracle man at all of this. I look at his circular saw and all of his knives he had used to carve and sever. I wish I could pick up all these tools. I wish I could pick up this hammer and I could start rebuilding my life. But I think I’m past that. I think that ship has sailed and I’m left here in an empty house, full of regrets, wondering what might have been. What’s worth continuing on for? My children will never respect their criminal father. I don’t even have a legacy anymore. God. Why does God never answer? Why are we all so alone in the end?

To be completely honest, The Office is the kind of high class club that’s located specifically as a bridge between worlds, which usually means that it’s there for cheap drug traffic. Vice doesn’t hide anything from me when I give them a call asking if they know anything about it. Meth, ecstasy, and pretty much anything prescription or medicinal. Of course, there’s pot growing everywhere north of there, so it’s always available. Since there’s no actual territory that the club exists in, it’s sort of a freelancers’ paradise. In terms of homicide, it means that there’s no one to directly point the finger at if someone dies on the premises. That’s fine. I’m not looking for anything gang related. I’m looking for a stalker, a hunter.

It looks like an office building that’s three stories high, put between another dive bar and a title loan building on the other side. It has a slanted title of the club on the side, and everything about it has a faux professional feeling to it. There’s nothing here that looks like it’s overly creative. At the entrance, there’s some fake plants in pots and some dull carpet, but soon it becomes a hard, linoleum floor where the waitresses walk around in slutty office attire. It’s almost schoolgirl, which bothers me, but not too bad that it’s distracting. Everything about the place looks like any other generic, run of the mill club across the city. I’m not impressed.

One of the girls approaches me. She’s an older blonde, probably in her thirties with wavy hair that falls over her shoulders. She’s wearing a tight white shirt with the buttons opened to show her ample cleavage and a tiny, rolled up and tied back blazer that’s more tacky than attractive. She’s supposed to look and act easy for guys to be suckered in, to give her tips. She has a pretty enough smile, but it makes me wonder what’s hiding behind it. I can imagine her at home with three kids, exhausted and tired of men treating her like a piece of meat. Isn’t that what always happens to the women who work in places like this? Since it’s so far away from the colleges or university, they have to pull from other women, fish for them at other businesses. “Hey, you look beautiful. Want to make excellent tips and have a fun time at it? I’ve got a new club opening up and I think you’d be perfect.” Then they’re suckered in for a while, just long enough to lure dumbass men into the club so they can hit on them, drunk or sober.

The bouncers are all gathered around a table, talking about sports and happenings at the club. They look over at me as the blonde approaches me. Her high heels click on the floor as she nears with her practiced smile on her face. “I’m sorry, sugar, but we’re not open right now,” she says to me with the kind of voice that makes me wonder why she’s not running public relations somewhere. She has the tone down perfectly.

“I’m not looking for a drink,” I say, showing her my identification. “I need to talk to your manager or whoever is in charge right now, specifically the owner if you can wrangle them up.”

“Oh my.” She looks at me and holds her hand to the base of her throat as if she’s just seen a dead rat. “Is everything alright?”

“That’s what I need to discuss with your employer,” I state flatly, trying to encourage her to run along. She gets the hint and disappears. A muscular man at the bouncer table stands up, a Mexican, Indian, or Samoan who has enough tattoos to tell me immediately that he’s done prison time. No doubt he had a similar conversation with someone that the blonde did. Only he was promised good pay to go beat the shit out of people. He approaches me with his head held high and I’m not sure what to make of him. He kind of looks like he wants to beat the shit out of me.

“Is there a problem?” he asks me.

“There is,” I answer. “I need to talk to whoever is in charge of security around here.”

“That’s me,” he answers flatly.

“What a coincidence,” I smile, and show him my ID. “Mind if we have a chat somewhere? I also need to talk to your employer. Is he around?”

“Did you just send Brandie to go find him?” Mr. Security glares at me. I’m guessing that he gets a lot of crap for being a felon and also because there’s drugs flowing through his club.

“I guess I did,” I smile politely, not willing to take much more of his shit. “How long have you been out?”

“Nine months,” he answers.

“Staying out of trouble?” I ask him pleasantly.

“Absolutely, amigo,” he growls back at me.

“Oh, we’re not amigos yet, hombre.” I wonder if I should have brought back=up.

Before this roided out Mexican can rip me apart, a man in a pair of pressed, grey, pinstripe slacks comes walking out in glossy black shoes that probably cost more than my car. He’s wearing a lavender shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a million dollar smile on his clean shaven face. He’s the kind of man I picture snorting coke in the back room when Miss Brandie went to go find him. He smiles at me and holds out his arms like we’re old friends. “Officer, what can I do to help?” he says in a voice that could rival Brandie’s in annoying.

“Detective,” I correct him, holding up my ID. “Two nights ago a man and a woman met in this establishment. Both of them are now dead. I need to know if anyone followed them from this location since this is where they first made introductions. Is there any way I could get your cooperation?”

“Do you have a warrant?” the Mexican asks me.

“Do I need one?” I lift an eyebrow.

“Of course not,” Mr. Million Dollar Smile laughs pleasantly. “Don’t mind Cheto, he’s had some trouble with the law since I hired him. Troublemakers keep trying to sell drugs on the property and the police don’t necessarily believe him when he says he’s clean. I can vouch for him. Cheto was one of the finest investments I’ve ever made.”

“Good for you,” I grumble.

“We have one of the finest security systems that money can buy.” Mr. Million Dollar Smile takes the lead and heads for the back offices where he’d appeared from like a ghost. We walk up a flight of stairs that overlooks the dance floor and the tables. “Have you ever visited our establishment during open hours?” he asks me.

“No,” I answer. Why the hell would I ever come here?

Mr. Million Dollar Smile has an office that looks like he cares a little too much about design, fashion, and beauty rather than practicality. I feel like the majority of the people I’m dealing with on this case are like that. Who the hell told people to decorate like this? It looks like an insane person had a seizure and threw paint and random objects they found on the internet across the room. I’ll never understand it, but once again, I’m in another office with another asshole.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks me.

“No thank you.” I reach into my breast pocket and pull out the pictures of Ted and Jenny, placing them on the desk that Mr. Million Dollar Smile drops down into. “Do you recognize either of these people?”

“No,” he answers. He looks up behind me where Cheto is standing. I’m fairly certain that Cheto will try to kill me if he is given the sign. I don’t like feeling like a trapped rat. “Cheto, will you take this down to Chris and see if he recognizes either of them.”

Cheto noiselessly takes the pictures and disappears out of the office doorway. As I look around the room, I notice that the overstuffed, leather couch in the corner and its ottoman are large enough that Mr. Million Dollar Smile no doubt brings girls up here from the club. This is his own private sex shack. I notice the ring on his left hand and assure myself that his wife is probably very proud of him. He looks at me with glazed over, stupid eyes with a dumb, frozen smile on his face. I look at him and feel like punching him in the face.

“So these two were murdered?” he asks me, cutting through the silence.

“Indeed they were.” I lean back in the leather chair facing his desk.

“Very odd,” he answers.

“They were,” I tell him. “They were killed and made to look like very convincing suicides.”

The man looks at me with a pale expression on his face. “That’s peculiar.” He looks like his veneer is cracking. I start to wonder if there’s something more here to Mr. Million Dollar Smile than I’m noticing. I look at his hands on top of the table and wonder if those hands recently stuck a bunch of pens inside of a twenty something year old.

The door behind me opens and I hear two pairs of footsteps enter heavily, making their way toward me. I look up and see an award-winning handsome guy who looks like there isn’t a whole lot going on behind his smoky eyes. I stare at him as he holds out the pictures to me. He’s wearing a tight black shirt and an apron, suggesting that he’s the bartender that Mr. Million Dollar Smile alluded to. He hands me the pictures and I take them.

“I remember the girl,” he says with a concerned look on his face. “She’s been coming in every night for the past week. She’s a hot piece of ass, but I noticed she wasn’t here last night.”

“What about the man?” I ask him, standing up from my chair so I can look the bartender eye to eye.

“Yeah, he comes in here a lot too,” the bartender nods. “His name’s Ted. He comes in looking for tail almost every night. I hear he actually lives in a trailer park. I hate guys like him. They show up and turn the place into a sausage fest.”

“I was told that the woman was seen with another man while she was here.” I take the pictures and place them back inside my blazer pocket. I look at the bartender who looks to Mr. Million Dollar Smile. They know I’m watching and Mr. Million Dollar Smile is on his best behavior. “I’m murder police,” I remind them. “I don’t give a shit about drugs or anything like that.”

“The guy’s name is Mikey,” Mr. Million Dollar Smile says to me with a grim look on his face. “He’s a piece of shit that comes into the club and tries to peddle pills to the guests. He’s trying to make a quick buck and if he’s not hurting or bothering anyone, we let him stick around. Why?” Mr. Million Dollar Smile looks at me and then his face melts from that jackass grin to a worried, scared look. “You don’t think he did it, do you?”