Grave Situation (5 page)

A perfect location.

Beside him, the woman removed her
jacket and spread it out on the dash. Then she raised the tank top
over her head. She wore no bra. Her breasts were full with big
round areolas. A gold ring hung from one nipple.

Watching, his mouth felt dry.
Something stirred in his pants. Instinctively, he drew down the
zipper of his fly.

The hooker leaned back against the
door and pulled her mini-skirt up around her hips. Underneath, she
wore a black thong. That she did not remove it herself suggested a
silent offering. He imagined her waiting for him. Desire now
coursed through his brain. He reached out for the elastic band of
the thong and worked it slowly off one leg and then the
other.

The hooker opened her knees for
him. Her genitalia were shaved bare. Another gold ring pierced the
folds of her labia.

He stared, transfixed. Sweat
trickled down his sides.

“Like what you see?” the hooker
asked with a smile.

Herb didn’t seem to hear. He
caressed her there and she let out a sigh through her white even
teeth. One, then two seeking fingers found her warm wetness. The
hooker closed her eyes. Her hips convulsed upwards in powerful
thrusts.

He wondered if she was enjoying the
foreplay. To him, her movements seemed to lack passion, unlike the
women he had been with in the past, a rehearsed act used only to
encourage him, to make him feel at ease. He cupped her breasts and
could feel her nipples rise under his palms. She wrapped her arms
around him, pulling him close, kissing him on the forehead, on the
cheek, on the side of his mouth.

“Are you
ready?
” she whispered,
her breath hot on his ear.

Tentative, he swallowed.
“Yes.”

The hooker reached for her purse.
From inside it, she produced a foil packet. She handed it to him.
He fumbled as he tore open the packet and touched the oily condom
inside. Staring at her, he hesitated. His thoughts became a chaotic
mixture of lust and restraint. One last remnant of self-control
reminded him of the job he had to do.

“I don’t know if I can go through
with this,” he said.

“Why not?” The hooker glanced down
at the bulbous head of his penis jutting out of his pants. “Looks
to me like you’re willing and able.”

He lowered his eyes. “I feel
guilty.”

“A man who
feels
guilt?
” The
woman snorted. “Jesus, now that’s original.”

“You don’t understand.”

When she rested a hand on his, he
privately cringed.

“I think I do,” she said in a
soothing tone.

His eyes rose to her face. The
hooker’s expression was sympathetic, guileless, but he couldn’t
tell whether or not it was genuine. Perhaps she was only an actress
playing a role for her money. Life had taught him one hard
lesson—trust no one.

You could never
understand,
he thought sadly,
what you just stumbled into.

The cab of the pickup had grown
warm. His skin tingled from the sweat.

“I never made love to a woman I
never knew first,” he lied.

For a moment, the hooker was still,
thoughtful. She smiled.

“Honey, relax,” she said. “We’ll
make love when we get to know each other. Right now, let’s
fuck.”

He saw the rest move forward in
pieces—the hooker taking the condom from him, skillfully sliding it
over the stiff thickness of his penis, her fingers turning up the
radio, her moist lips on his, her arms pulling him down on top of
her, her hands guiding him into her, working her muscles with each
push he made, the warmth of her body beneath his, the hard tips of
her nipples pressing into his chest, and the reeking cigarettes on
her breath.

Ever so slowly, he reached under
the passenger seat and grabbed hold of the tire iron he had put
there earlier.

Honey, looks like you’re already
fucked.

Abruptly, he rose off the woman,
holding her down with his free hand. Beneath him, he felt her
tense, saw her eyes balloon as she caught a glimpse of the object
in his other hand, but by then, it was too late. There was a
sickening crack of metal against bone and he could feel the
vibration work through his forearm. A small whimper came from the
hooker’s lips.

Trembling, he watched her slump
against the door, head tilted at an irregular angle, eyes closed. A
red gash near her temple began to bleed.

The tire iron clunked on the floor
as he dropped it. He stepped outside and cautiously checked the
street, the boardwalk nearby. Nothing moved. The streets and
sidewalks were bare with only the blinking traffic lights,
throbbing like a heartbeat. Holding his breath, he listened for
sounds—nothing but the soft murmur of the harbor water and the
creak of the tugs as they scraped against the sides of their
slips.

He retrieved his duffel bag from
the storage box and then walked around the pickup with a brisk
pace. As he opened the passenger door, the hooker’s head fell out
toward him, face up. Her neck hung over the seat, hair
dangling.

Inhaling a deep breath, he paused a
moment to stare at her. He set the duffel bag on the pavement. He
lifted out the hooker and awkwardly threw her dead weight over one
shoulder. Her body was lighter than he had imagined. Under the
stockings, her legs were cool.

He picked up the bag. As he carried
it and the hooker toward the tugboat wharf, his gaze combed the
area for other people. There were none.

He reached the end of the wharf and
set the bag down first and then the hooker. The air was crisp and
smelled of salt. The water around him was as black as ink. He could
hear it lapping at the pile supports beneath the wharf. To his
right shone the bright beacon from the lighthouse on George’s
Island. Straight across the harbor was the city of Dartmouth. Its
lights refracted along the edge of the water.

He knelt beside her and pulled out
the Mason jar from the bag. After unscrewing the lid, he removed
the teaspoon then he got to work.

With his fingers, he held the
hooker’s eyelids open and carefully slid the scoop of the teaspoon
under and behind the right eye. He could feel, rather than hear,
the slight tearing of muscle and ligament as he worked the eyeball
free. A plop was followed by the eyeball rolling to the woman’s
ear, suspended by the optic nerve. Blood welled up inside the empty
socket.

He swallowed.

From the duffel bag, he took out
the cuticle scissors and snipped the optic nerve, releasing the
eyeball. This he dropped into the Mason jar. Sweating heavily now,
he repeated the same procedure with the other eye.

When he finished, he wiped off the
spoon and scissors with a rag. He screwed the lid back on the jar
and then held it up to the moonlight. The two eyeballs bobbed on
top of the watery preservative, the unseeing pupils staring back at
him.

A groaning.

He snapped around to look at the
hooker. Her body twitched with the first sign of consciousness.
Shaken, he took a step back, then another. The hooker’s hands moved
instinctively to her eye sockets. Her head turned slowly from side
to side. Drool oozed from one corner of her mouth.

Mind reeling, he tried to weigh his
options. He knew once the hooker regained her wits, she would begin
screaming. In a panicky state, he stuffed the jar into the duffel
bag and then paused at the sight of his hunting knife. He had
brought it with plans of using it. Yet couldn’t bring himself to do
so. Instead, he put his hands under the woman’s arms and lifted her
up. His own arms shook as he held her over the edge of the
wharf.

Head lolling, the hooker continued
to groan in front of him.

For a moment, he didn’t want to let
her go. Somehow he felt peculiarly united with this woman. She,
like himself, had been a victim of life’s misfortunes.

He shut his eyes
tightly.

I’m sorry.

Then with a rush of power, he
hurled her into the water. The splash kicked up spray onto his
hands. Below him, the hooker was an indistinct mass floating face
down, head submerged, shoulder blades above the surface. Ripples
spread out from her body. Suddenly, as if jolted back to life, her
arms and legs began thrashing. Her head came out of the water,
coughing, gasping.

“Help
…”

The hooker’s anguished voice came
to him, so soft that perhaps he had imagined it. A natural instinct
urged him to leap in and save her, but he couldn’t move.

It has to be done.

Helpless, he watched the water
close over her head and she was gone.

Moments later, farther out, she
broke the surface, spitting out the brine, sucking in the air in
huge gulps. Her arms beat frantically now; she clawed and blindly
grabbed for anything to keep her afloat.

“Somebody.”
Coughing.
“Pleeaasssse
!”

She went under again.

He scanned the murky harbor,
short-lived breaths of frost exhaling from his mouth. Over the
rolling water, he could hear the rush of his blood, the thump of
his heart. Seconds passed, then a minute.

The hooker never came back
up.

All at once, he felt sick, weak. He
just made it to the side of the wharf before he started vomiting.
Propped up on his hands and knees, he retched until the dry heaves
racked his body. Shivering, he stood up and wiped his mouth. He
couldn’t bring himself to face the water again. He snatched the
duffel bag and hurried back to his pickup. The echoes of his
footsteps followed him.

The key was still in the ignition.
He put the duffel bag on the passenger seat and got inside. Locking
the doors, he rested his forehead against the steering wheel. He
was soaked. His clothes stuck to his skin. Breathing heavily, he
sorted through his emotions—fear, confusion, regret. This night
seemed surreal, a bad dream. For his own survival, he knew he had
to shove his feelings aside. Focus on the job at hand.

You had no
choice,
he tried to tell himself.
No choice.

He leaned back in the seat. Then he
looked at the red jacket on the dash, the tank top and thong on the
seat, the red purse on the floor. Back home, he would have to
destroy these items. Clean the seats and wipe down the dash and
door. No trace could exist of the hooker ever being in his vehicle.
For now, he piled the items into a heap on the floor.

Snapping on the dome light, he
picked up the hooker’s purse. Inside were a hairbrush, red
lipstick, eye shadow, mascara, nail file, a small mirror, Clorets,
condoms, a pack of cigarettes, a cell phone and a canister of
pepper spray. The pepper spray he decided to keep. The cell phone,
he shut off and removed the battery pack.

He dug out some loose change and
the one hundred twenty dollars he had given her earlier. From a
black wallet, he pulled out an additional two hundred dollars. He
crammed the money into his pants pocket.

As he rifled through a compartment
inside the wallet, he found the hooker’s birth certificate and
driver’s license. Her name had been Trixy Lynn Ambré, twenty-six
years old. She lived in Halifax. From another compartment, he
pulled out a color photograph. The woman captured within it looked
much older than her age. She was gaunt and sickly. Her curly black
hair was cut short. Her eyes appeared bruised from lack of sleep.
She had a thumb held up for the camera.

She sat on a sagging gray sofa with
worn arms. In the foreground, on a glass-top coffee table, was a
birthday cake. Several lit candles were stuck in it.

He flipped the picture over. On the
back scrawled someone’s handwriting, Cathy, February 12, 2010. Age
23.

A sudden movement caught his eye.
Turning, he saw a beam of flashlight crossing the sidewalk across
the street. Behind it, a faceless form. He could tell by the shape
that it was a man. He hoped it wasn’t a cop.

Automatically, he shut off the dome
light, put the photograph back in the wallet and then the wallet
back in the purse.

The shaft of light swept over the
truck, spilling through the windows. Nervous, he reached into the
duffel bag.

As his fingers found the handle of
the knife, a tap came at his window.

8

Halifax, May
9

5:02 a.m.

“Security,” a voice said from
outside his window.

Security. Not the
police.

For that he was grateful. Fumbling,
he wound down the glass separating them. With his other hand, he
slowly removed the knife from the bag, concealed it by his
side.

Because of the light in his face,
he couldn’t get a good look at the guard, but he sounded young.
Maybe early to mid-twenties.

“What are you doing down here at
this hour?” the guard asked.