The Killings (24 page)
The apartment was on Lee Street above a soul food restaurant. Carmen parked the car, wondering if it would still be there when she returned. The police had confiscated her .38 Special for evidence, so Carmen had purchased a .380 Sig Sauer semi-automatic to replace it. She had her hand inside her purse clutching the .380 tight as she stepped from her car.
“‘Sup, shorty?” asked a guy sitting in an alleyway. He leered at her openly, grinning salaciously and licking his teeth as he adjusted his crotch. There was a group of guys across the street watching the exchange, waiting to see how she handled it. How she handled it might very well decide whether she left the neighborhood unmolested.
“‘Sup, bruh? Does Lamont live here?”
The guy nodded, still tugging at the crotch of his low-hanging jeans.
“He up dere. Second flo’.”
“Thanks. Hey, will you keep an eye on my car for me? I’ll hook you up when I come back.”
The guy nodded.
“You hook me up with some of that sweet ass and I’ll watch whateva you want.”
“Yeah, I bet you would,” Carmen replied with a wink. “But how ‘bout I just give you five bucks instead?”
“Yeah, bet. That’s cool.”
Carmen winked again and smiled and then turned and stepped up to the doorway leading to Lamont’s apartment. There was a buzzer outside. She pressed it and waited.
“You gonna be waitin’ a long time. That shit don’t work. The lock’s broken too. Just go on up.”
Carmen nodded again and then opened the door. Inside was a long, dark staircase that led to a short hallway. Carmen walked slowly up the stairs, still clutching the Sig Sauer as if she was afraid that something would come out of the walls to attack her. She wondered if she’d made a mistake by coming here.
At the top of the stairs there were two doorways, one on the left and one on the right. The two apartments were marked with the unnecessary designations 1 and 2, as if there was any confusion. Carmen knocked at apartment two and waited. There were noises coming from inside. It sounded like someone fighting. She heard someone crying. She knocked on the door again, harder this time. Her thoughts filled with fears of confronting the Fury again, this time in the body of a large, strong man rather than the pudgy weakling whose ass she’d kicked in the parking lot. There was a sound like an animal squealing and then a man’s harsh, muffled voice followed by footsteps as someone walked toward the door. Carmen clicked the safety off her gun.
“Who is it?”
The voice sounded so intimidating, full of anger and the threat of violence. Carmen swallowed hard.
“Uh ... it-it’s me, Carmen. F-from the newspaper? I just came by to thank you for saving my life.”
Several locks disengaged and then the door flew open. Lamont was standing there in a pair of low-hanging blue jeans, no shirt on, dripping in sweat. The tattoo on his neck wasn’t his only tattoo. A large wooden crucifix complete with a Black Jesus with dreadlocks had been inked on the center of his chest. On his shoulders, arms, and stomach were biblical verses interspersed with hip-hop lyrics. Directly beneath the Jesus tattoo was a quote from the book of Mathew:
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
I did not come to bring peace but a sword. Beside that was a quote from Biggie Smalls:
When I die, fuck it I wanna go to hell, ‘cause I’m a piece of shit it ain’t hard to fuckin’ tell
... followed by
Move over, Lucifer. I’m more ruthless leave you toothless!
The calm, patient tone he’d had with her after the shooting was gone. His eyes no longer looked soft and comforting. He looked angry and impatient.
Carmen felt the spit dry up in her mouth. This was her hero. A thug. And she’d probably just interrupted him having sex or something.
“Yeah?”
She looked at his furious expression and wondered,
Is this what the Fury looks like?
But no, this was just another angry, young Black man, pissed off at the world.
“I-I just wanted to say thank you.”
He smiled and all the warmth bled back into his features.
Carmen relaxed.
“Oh, yeah. I remember you. You came all the way down here just to say thanks? You didn’t have to do that. I was just doin’ my job. I should have gotten there earlier.”
Carmen smiled back. “No. You came just in time and I wanted you to know how much I appreciated it.”
There was a loud thump, like something heavy falling onto the floor. Lamont glanced behind him and then turned back to Carmen and smiled sheepishly. “Look, I’d invite you in, but you kind of caught me in the middle of something. Thanks for coming by though. You really didn’t have to.”
“Okay, well I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Goodbye and thanks again.” Carmen held out her hand, and Lamont reached for it with a hand coated in blood. The skin on the knuckles was torn and frayed.
“You been in a fight, Lamont?”
A door behind him opened and a naked young girl, no older than sixteen, staggered out into the hall. She’d been badly beaten. “Help meeee!”
That furious expression returned to Lamont’s features as he turned toward the young girl. “Bitch, I tole you to stay yo’ ass in that room!” He turned back toward Carmen. “Sorry about this. We just havin’ a little disagreement. This ain’t got nothin’ to do with nothin’.”
Carmen pulled out the Sig Sauer, raised it, and pulled the trigger, shooting Jesus right through his crown of thorns. Lamont staggered backward, and Carmen pulled the trigger again. A voice in the back of her mind was telling her to stop, that she didn’t really know what was going on here, didn’t know if this was his girlfriend or just some crack whore he’d picked up off the street or somebody’s innocent child.
Another louder, more insistent, more persuasive voice shouted back that it didn’t matter who she was.
This is wrong! This man has to be punished for what he’s done to that young girl. He has to die!
Lamont fell to the floor. The young girl was screaming. Carmen held up a finger and told her to shush.
“It’s okay. He won’t hurt you any more. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”
Carmen stepped over Lamont’s body and walked over to the young girl. She gathered her into her arms and hugged her. The young girl sobbed against her chest.
“Shhhhh. It’s okay. You’re safe now. It’ll be all right.”
She let the girl go and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“You okay?”
The girl nodded. Carmen wiped the girl’s hair out of her eyes along with her tears. The girl was very beautiful. She was light-skinned like many of the victims of the Fury. And Carmen had overestimated her age. This girl was barely in her teens. Lamont had probably been turning her out, trying to make her into a prostitute if he hadn’t already.
“Go get dressed. I’m taking you out of here.”
The girl hurried back into the bedroom. Carmen stood and walked into the kitchen. She heard coughing and gagging sounds and looked back over at the front door. Lamont was still alive and was trying to sit up. Carmen grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter and walked back over to Lamont. She kicked him in the chest, knocking him back down onto the floor and eliciting a fresh round of coughing that sprayed blood onto her brand new Kenneth Coles.
Carmen knelt down and straddled Lamont’s chest.
“You like hurting little girls, Lamont?”
“I-I’m dying! Help me! I’m dying!”
“Yes. Yes you are,” Carmen replied as she drew the serrated carving knife across his throat, sawing through his esophagus, down into his cervical vertebrae while he thrashed and convulsed. She slid off him and watched his death throes wind down. Then she began unbuttoning his pants. She pulled out his now limp cock and began sawing at the base of it. In her mind, the Fury continued to scream, urging her on as she collected her trophies.
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