Killing Ways

10

Donna Darisse reached out of the shower, grabbed a faded towel from the hook on the wall, and wrapped it around her slender body. She stepped onto the tiled floor of the tiny bathroom, grabbed a second towel and quickly dried her fine, wispy dark hair. She looked in the mirror. She sometimes expected to see her pre-chemo hair — this fragile, but fighting hair still had the power to startle her.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

‘Mommy, can I come in?’

‘Just give me a moment, Cam,’ said Donna. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes! I just wanted to say hi!’

Donna smiled. ‘Hi yourself,’ she said. ‘Now, you go back in to your movie, I’ll be out in a little while.’

‘I wish you weren’t going to work,’ said Cam as she walked away.

It was Donna’s first week back since her treatment. She was high on guilt, low on options. She listened for the DVD player to kick in, and she went into her bedroom. She went straight for the drawer and the wig hidden at the back. She couldn’t bear to tell Cam — she was only six years old. So Donna always wore the wig unless Cam was staying with her father. Five of Donna’s friends had their heads shaved in solidarity when she lost her hair. Cam just thought they’d all gone crazy.

Donna pulled out a red dress she had often had to diet to fit into. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror, pulling at the loose fabric. She had made remarks about skinny people in the past — they needed fat on their bones, they needed a burger, a home-cooked meal. She felt a little differently since she became one of them. She had never known the stories of the people she judged.

Donna walked into the living room with a smile on her face. ‘Mommy loves someone very much,’ she said. ‘And Mommy thinks that person is right here in this room. Do you have any idea who that could be?’

‘Me!’ said Cam. ‘Me!’ She leapt up from her cushion on the floor, ran across the room and dived into her mother’s arms.

The doorbell rang, and Donna carried Cam to the door and let the babysitter in.

‘Now,’ said Donna, letting Cam down, ‘you be good, and you enjoy your play date this afternoon. I’ll see you for supper.’

‘Yes!’ said Cam. ‘You look so beautiful, Mama. And I like your white cowboy boots!’

‘You look beautiful too... Belle. I wish I had such a pretty yellow dress. I would dance around the room all day and all night.’

‘Your dress is the prettiest dress in the whole wide world,’ said Cam. ‘You might meet a prince!’

He sat in the car watching the street hookers making their way up and down Colfax Avenue.

Fuck that Hope Coulson bitch. Fuck her and her kindergarten smile and her lines of volunteers.

He turned his attention back to the street.

People only line up for you pathetic whoring bitches when you’re alive. Only so’s you can suck their cocks.

He couldn’t see anything he liked in the parade before him.

Fuck the landfill site. Fuck Denver PD. Fuck the sheriffs. Fuck the Feds. Fuck today’s miserable luncheon buffet. No man could get full on that.

Just as he was about to drive away, he saw one, just the way he liked them.

Hold up, scrawny lady! You’re about to be crowned winner of today’s pitiful pussy pageant!

He drove alongside her.

Donna Darisse leaned down, spoke into the driver’s side.

‘How are you, handsome man?’

‘Well, that’s about the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you hear that all the time...’ said Donna.

He wondered if all the conversations taking place along that strip were the same as his, loading and unloading a whole pile of bullshit every time the trick opened her mouth, every time the john did.

‘Well, you’re a Texan, right?’ she said. ‘You like to keep your boots on? I like that.’ She smiled. ‘How do you like my boots? Do you approve?’

‘I like them very much,’ he said. I’d like to slam them over and over into your face.

‘And how do you like your women?’ she said.

‘Satisfied,’ he said. ‘Hop on in.’

‘Just so you know, I don’t do anal.’

Ha. Ha. Ha.

‘Where are you going to take me?’ said Donna.

‘Right through the gates of heaven,’ he said.

He glanced across at her. He could see a tiny flash of something in her eyes, and how she smiled quickly to try to bury it. His dick swelled. He closed his eyes, breathed in, loved this, loved the anticipation, had trained himself not to rush through to the end, but to savor every part of what was about to unfold.

‘Tell me more,’ she said.

‘Show don’t tell is my motto,’ he said.

‘Do you have a name?’ she said.

‘Yes, ma’am. You can call me Harris.’

‘Short for Harrison?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s what I long for that matters...’

She laughed. ‘You on business here in Denver?’

‘Serious business.’

Donna reached over and slid her hand from his knee all the way up. ‘Me too, sweetheart.’ She smiled and he got a little softer, and all that ever brought was confusion. Confusion angered him.

He had done his research. It wasn’t difficult to find a map online of the HALO cam locations. He chose a route from East Colfax that would circumvent them all. Even though he knew, without a vehicle description, the cops wouldn’t have a clue what to look for. And he was making sure to take her to an area that had untouched corners. He liked violating what was untouched.

Donna turned toward him, reached out for him again.

And you — you’ve been touched by every motherfucker the length and breadth of Colfax, you sick-looking, dick-sucking bitch.

‘Not here,’ he said.

Donna followed his gaze to a wall lined with dumpsters.

‘I’m sure we can pick somewhere prettier than this,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a nice car here we could get comfortable in.’

‘Sweetheart, never in my life have I considered comfort in any decision I’ve ever made.’

And I sure as hell have never connected it with fucking.

‘So, we’re going to do this outside,’ he said, ‘then I’ll drive you on back to your friends.’ He smiled.

Donna relaxed a little. They got out of the car and she walked toward the wall. Harris still hadn’t gotten hard when he turned her around and pushed her up against it, when he pressed himself against her. There was a moment of stillness.

‘I’m kidding,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to do it here. My office is inside.’

He could feel her reaction — confusion, relief, the desperate optimism that made her want to believe that the person her every cell was telling her was so very wrong, was really OK, that the evil she was sensing was not real. He had an office!

He unlocked the door and pushed her inside an empty, cavernous warehouse.

‘Hey,’ said Donna, half-turning, ‘you never asked how much I charge.’

Harris laughed as he slammed the door behind them. He grabbed her by the wrist and flung her to the ground. ‘Oh, honey, you’re the one paying.’

‘Wh—’

‘With your life.’ He laughed, a short crazy laugh as if this had been such an obvious thing for her to have not considered.

Donna screamed, and it echoed around the vast, black space. ‘No!’ she said. ‘No — please.’

He was holding a knife with a long blade that was catching the scant moonlight from the row of windows at the top of the room.

‘Take off your clothes,’ he said. ‘All of them.’

‘Please don’t do this,’ said Donna.

‘Don’t say please to me.’ He walked a step closer, patient, and dead-eyed.

She did as he asked, and stood trembling, naked, trying to cover herself.

He looked her up and down, stopped with his eyes locked on hers.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fair, I’ll be fair — I’m gonna give you a chance to get away.’

She stared at him. He nodded.

‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Go ahead.’

She frowned, but within seconds, she bolted into the gloom. He gave her time, then followed her. She cried out as her feet struck glass, but she kept running, left and right, wildly panicked, thrilling him. He gained on her, with little effort, reaching out to her, grabbing her hair, but pulling the wig from her head. He recoiled, threw it to one side, but barely broke his stride. He grabbed her arm this time, yanked her toward him, flung her to the ground. He tied her wrists with cable ties behind her back.

He knelt down in front of her, pushing her limp legs open. ‘I’m doing you a favor,’ he hissed. ‘Is this the life you want for yourself? What do you think those milked-dry titties are gonna do for a man like me? Flat little saving-up-for-fake-ones kind of titties? Your stretch marks. All of that tells me you’ve got kids at home and you’re out streetwalking. You’re nothing but a rodent bitch looking for someone to prey on her bony ass. Well, you got me. You got me. And how do you like it?’

He grabbed her thigh hard, burying his fingertips into it, and with his other hand, pushed the blade inside her, over and over.

Donna screamed and screamed, but had no power against his weight. He pressed the side of her face hard against the damp, stinking concrete.

‘You asked me how I like my women,’ he said. ‘Face down in the dirt and dying!’

He laughed hysterically. Donna was disoriented, struggling to breathe, trying to get her head from under his hand, which he released only to punch her jaw hard. He heard a crack. After that, it was just moaning.

Face down in the dirt and dying.

He felt something sink inside him.

Face down in the dirt and dying. Dirt: not here, not on a cold concrete floor.

It’s not enough, is it? It’s not enough. You need to fly again. You need to fly. Nothing else matters now. You need to fly. You need to fly.