Abomination (16 page)

But still, that isn’t the worst of it.  Once the initial joy of the pure killing ends, the two themes of the night, sex and violence, join together. The killing and the rending continue, but only during copulation, as those few left alive began to fornicate again amongst the blood and the gore.  And as climax nears, the violent urges return, and the members of the orgy once again fall prey to the blood lust, going for each other’s eyes and throats and nipples and the other soft, vulnerable regions.

Glenn is on the bottom during this final act, his nails thick with blood, his mouth filled with the tang of copper, a woman writhing in ecstasy on top of him.  And as the end begins to come, as he feels it build inside of him, his thumbs go for the woman’s eyes, his dirty nails pressing the soft, fleshy orbs back into her skull.  But being on his back, he has little leverage, and the woman above him, the woman riding him, manages to get his left forearm in her mouth and she tears away a large chunk of skin and muscle, eliciting a howl from his aching throat.  She spits the chunk out, then goes for his throat, sliding her teeth into the soft muscle there, tearing and yanking and chewing no matter how hard he pulls her hair.  And when her teeth finally disengage, his flesh in her mouth, he hears her laughing, a throaty, seductive—

Glenn shot up in bed, his torso and neck thick with sweat despite the air conditioner running full tilt.  His heart pounded violently in his chest, set off by the memories of a primal terror.  He sniffed in, smelled the scent of smoke, sniffed in again, and smelled… nothing.  His hand went to his throat, his fingers frantically dancing over the skin, searching for any evidence that what he had just dreamed, what he had just experienced, was real.  But he found nothing.  Nothing.

He looked at the clock.  It was eight in the morning.  He had slept the whole night through, though he certainly did not feel like he had just enjoyed almost nine hours of shut eye.  He felt as if he had just woken up from an hour nap. 

Muscles stiff and joints achy, he stood up and went to the bathroom, unloading a stream of piss into the toilet that elicited a moan of relief and pleasure from his dry throat.  After relieving himself, he turned to the mirror and turned on the faucet.  He slapped a couple handfuls of cold water in his face, hoping the shock would wake him up and unclog his musty mind.  It did the trick to a degree, forcing him to peel his eyes open all the way.  He looked at his reflection in the mirror but he didn’t notice the bags under his eyes or his general haggard appearance. 

All he could see was that damn necklace dangling around his neck, the stone twinkling in the darkness despite the lack of light.

As if it was laughing at him.

Chapter 7

Michael woke up at seven thirty in the morning with a splitting headache, which didn’t surprise him in the least.  He didn’t drink very often and was very prone to hangovers when he indulged too much of the wrong stuff.  And last night… he had shared a whole bottle of champagne with the lovely Jenna before… before…

He had done it.  He had really done it.  His memories were hazy and foggy and disjointed, but there was no doubt that he had enjoyed—yes, had immensely enjoyed—a night of sexual adventures with a woman other than his Vanessa, something he hadn’t done in well over twenty years.  He was sure that he had called Jenna by his wife’s name at least once or twice, but if it had bothered her, she hadn’t showed it.  And why should she?  For the money he was paying her, he could have called her all sorts of names, including those of the more masochistic and derogatory nature, without her uttering a word of complaint.

He couldn’t help but smile as he rolled from bed.  And he hated himself for it.  Hated
himself for how whole he felt.  How satisfied.  He thought he would be awash with regret when he woke, a sign that his moral compass was still pointed in the right direction.  Yes, he did feel a little guilty, but not as guilty as he felt he should have.

It wasn’t just the memories that caused him to smile.  It was the smell, her
smell, that lingered in the air even six hours later: The intoxicating aroma of fresh strawberries and cream (her perfume) and the scent of lavender (her shampoo) mixed with the unmistaken musk of sex.  The pheromone soup made him yearn for more.  He felt himself stiffen beneath the boxers he had thrown on after Jenna had left at two, seven hundred dollars richer.

For a moment, Michael considered calling the escort service again (while prostitution was legal in Nevada, it was not legal in Las Vegas, hence the need for escort services, which basically rented out mobile prostitutes).  His flight wasn’t until later that night, and he could probably squeeze another session in beforehand.  Considering the prices these services charged
, he was fairly certain they had arrangements with hotels across the strip where they could rent a room for an hour or two for clients who had already checked out, hadn’t yet checked in, or didn’t want to take the girls home to where their wives slept. Where was the harm?  He could ask for a brunette this time.  Or maybe a brunette
and
a blonde. 

But this thought, along with making him even harder to the point of discomfort, brought a sudden wave of guilt washing over him as the enormity of what he had done finally settled in.  He quickly reminded himself that this was a one-time thing only.  Something to get him through the next couple of months until…

Until what?

Until the hunger blossomed anew and he quite possibly did the same thing, again.
  It was a stark admission of the reality of the situation.

He would return home tomorrow happier than when he had left, a desperate, starving man finally fed what he needed to keep going.  And the memories would keep him content for a while.  But sex was like a drug, one that most people were hardwired to need, and he knew that he would look for it again.  Never an actual affair, though. 
Nothing regular.  Never the same person twice.  Never someone within five hundred miles of where he lived.  Only when he was away.  Despite the problems at home, he cherished his marriage and would never do anything to risk it.  Until death do you part, the reverend had said, and he would be at her side until then.

But that was what a lot of men probably thought when they started their extracurricular activities.  Just a bit here, a bit there, for those times when the wife just wasn’t interested.  But then you fished a little too close to home a little too often because you couldn’t wait for the business trip in two weeks and someone who knew someone found out and everything fell apart.

He promised himself at that moment that he wouldn’t be that kind of guy.

Once a cheater, always a cheater
, a sibilant voice whispered in his head. 
Don’t kid yourself.  Don’t tell yourself you’re being noble.  Once you start letting your dick lead you away from your marriage, there is no going back.  It always ends in heartache.

Michael pushed the voice away as he walked to the bathroom.  He needed to be on the convention floor at the Bellagio in an hour.  But he needed to shower first; if he went to work smelling like this, everyone would know what he had done last night.  The odor was that overpowering, and his skin was steeped in it.  He stepped under the scalding water and bathed, relieving himself of his pounding erection halfway through and feeling all the more relaxed for doing so.  He got out, brushed his hair, and dressed in a pair of black slacks, a gray shirt and a Mickey Mouse tie (he was allowed a little whimsy on this job).  He grabbed his briefcase and started toward the door, but something caught his eye as he passed the dresser where the TV sat.  It was a small business card he knew he hadn’t left there.  And that meant one thing.  Jenna had left it.

He picked the card up.  It read “Gary’s Pawn Shop” in big black letters, and under that it said “We buy, sell and pawn: electronics, jewelry, precious metals, electronics, sports memorabilia, and almost anything else you have lying around your house!”   Michael turned the card over in his hand and found a single sentence scrawled across the back in a tight, feminine hand. 
They have the best selection of jewelry at reasonable prices. 
He turned the card back over and gently slapped it against his left palm.

I’ve done this before,
she had told him.  Slept with married men.  And when they woke up in the morning a couple hundred bucks lighter, feeling angry or guilt-ridden or terrified or some other powerful emotion after what they had done, that little business card offered them some sage advice on how to assuage any guilt they may be feeling.    

Michael looked at the address.  He pulled out his smart phone and mapped directions from the Bellagio to the pawn shop.  A piece of jewelry wasn’t a bad idea, not only because it would alleviate some of the guilt, but because Vanessa did deserve it.  It had been a while since he had bought her something beautiful, something to let her know how much he loved her.  Now seemed like a good time to do just that.

The possibility that Gary’s Pawn Shop may not be a good deal, that Jenna and some of the other escorts had a deal in place to get a certain percentage of the profit from whatever johns they sent over, did cross Michael’s mind but he pushed it aside.  Jenna’s intentions seemed genuine.  And she seemed honest.

An honest whore
, a dark part of his mind, the same voice from earlier, whispered. 
What, were you born yesterday?  Remember when she moaned Oh, Brian, you’re the biggest I’ve ever had?  I guarantee you you’re not the biggest she’s ever had.  It’s a show.  They’re actors.  They play whatever role their clients want them to play.  They live to fill whatever needs their clients have.  They create fantasies where nothing is real. And they don’t give a crap about your marriage or your happiness after they’re gone

Michael sighed.  He did that a lot recently.  Maybe she did have a cushy little deal with Gary.  But the fact was he wasn’t going to go home empty handed.  But he didn’t have time to
comparison shop and he didn’t have much money to spend.  And his cash was sure to go farther at a pawn shop than an actual jewelry shop.  May as well go to Gary’s. 

What did he have to lose?

Chapter 8

If Glenn ever had even the slightest inkling of keeping the necklace, either for a new woman who may enter his life or to give to one of the daughters he may have one day, that night’s experience squashed it.  He would not keep the damned thing in his possession one minute more than necessary.  And if Gary offered him far less than it was worth, though he doubted his friend would intentionally try to cheat him, he would probably accept the offer.

Part of him kept saying that he was being ridiculous, that it wasn’t the beautiful bauble that was causing his problem. 
That there was a rational reason for his overeating last night.  A rational reason for the dreams.  A rational reason he smelled smoke everywhere he went.

The greedy center of his brain, along with the sensible part, joined together in a joint effort to convince the primal, fearful half of his mind that currently sat in the driver’s seat that the diamond was nothing more than a beautiful hunk of compressed carbon in a gold setting hanging from a simple gold chain.  That there was nothing exceptional, nothing cursed, about it.  He shouldn’t settle for anything less than what he thought it was worth.

But if there was nothing supernatural about it, why had he twice—not once, but twice—found the damned thing hanging around his neck when he clearly hadn’t put it there himself, the primal half asked.  Well, the rational part of his mind said, you must have put it on without thinking because you know how expensive it is, how much cash it could bring you, and you didn’t trust it in your pocket at the casino or even in the safe at the hotel.  That he didn’t actually remember pulling it from his pocket at the restaurant or opening the safe in the middle of the night was of no consequence.  All that mattered was cold, hard logic, and logic said it was more likely that his subconscious concern over the safety of the necklace drove him to action, not the necklace itself.

But in the end, the primitive, superstitious half of his brain, still disturbed by the horrid nightmare, won out, and when Glenn found himself at Gary’s shop at ten in the morning, he wanted nothing more than to just be rid of the diamond. 

Like many pawn shops in Vegas, the place operated twenty-four hours a day, fifty-two weeks a year, but during most of the overnight hours, the store itself wasn’t open, just a bullet-proof window with a slot underneath it where one of Gary’s guys could work in relative safety.  All of the business that the store did during the off-hours was easy-to-do pawning and buying: simple gold jewelry, watches, coins, some electronics.  Things that even the simplest of minds could be trained to recognize and appraise.  Glenn guessed that Gary did brisk enough business every night.  In Vegas, there were always hundreds, if not thousands, of people looking for a little extra coin to push their luck or try to buy some new luck, even in the dead of night.

The overnight window was set next to the front door.  A black curtain was pulled across the area where the attendant worked behind the glass, and the little slot was closed and bolted from the inside.  All business from now until eight would be done inside the store.

Glenn pulled open the door.  A very large black man with no neck, a deep frown and a considerable belly sat on a stool to the left directly inside the door.  He gave Glenn the up and down.

“How they hanging, Frankie?”
Glenn asked.

“Can’t complain, Glenn, though the humidity does make them stick once inna while.”
  He took a bite from a candy bar he held in the sausage-like fingers of his right hand.  He may have looked like a man beyond his prime, too heavy to effectively protect a pawn shop from a would-be thief, but he was still a force.  He carried a Smith and Wesson in a shoulder holster, a weapon he could remove easily and with surprising grace if someone pulled a weapon of their own.  But if a situation called for non-lethal violence, like an agitated patron becoming loud or threatening while trying to pawn or sell something (no woman was ever happy to hear that her engagement ring was fake and would only bring a hundred bucks), Frank could spring into action and have the shopper out the door in less than thirty seconds.  Hell, Glenn had once seen him apply a sleeper hold on a man twice his size and have him snoozing on the floor in a minute flat.  Frankie wasn’t pretty, but he was effective.  Rumor was he was ex-military, Navy Seal or Marine, who wanted nothing more than a simple job where he got to indulge his nasty side once in a while.

“Get to beat anyone up, recently?” Glenn asked as he shook his hand.

“Naw.  Why, you volunteering?  I could use a little practice.”

“You know I’m more than you can handle.”

Frankie made a sound that was half between a snort and laugh, then let go of Glenn’s hand.

“Gary around today?”

That half snort/laugh again.  “When is the boss not around?  I think he’d miss his own mother’s funeral to be here.  The man’s gotta problem.”

“That he does.  But we love him anyway.”

“Hey, if you’re ever feeling the need to test out those things you call arms, give me a call.”

Glenn couldn’t help but smile as he made his way to the back of the store.  As he did every time he was here, he allowed his eyes to wander. 
So much junk.  So much glorious junk.  It wasn’t cluttered, not in the way a hoarder’s house or garage was cluttered, but free space was limited.  Everywhere he looked there was something waiting for a shot at a second life before it was consigned to a landfill somewhere: guitars and drum sets and other musical instruments, televisions and DVD players, tennis racquets, baseball bats and mitts, hockey sticks, and coins and sports memorabilia and other collectibles inside glass cases.  It was trippy to see such a collection of… stuff, and then to think that there were dozens of other places just like this scattered across Las Vegas.

Glenn only had to wait a minute or two for Gary to appear through the door to the left, from the room Glenn had learned years ago was the small man’s modest office.  He spent those several minutes ogling baseball cards and championship rings that littered the glass case in front of him.  A Joe DiMaggio baseball card, a 2004 New England Super Bowl ring from the year the Patriots beat the Eagles, a baseball signed by the 1996 Yankees… it went on and on.  He never got tired of looking at Gary’s ever-changing collection of artifacts that celebrated American sports history.

“Hey, Glenn,” Gary said as he walked over, drawing the younger man’s gaze up.  His lips split into a toothy smile.

“Hey, Gary,” Glenn returned, shaking the pawn broker’s hand.

“So what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?  You usually bring me some good stuff, though it has been a while.”

“
Haven’t had the same amount of free time, or money, to enjoy my hobby lately.  The cost of travel, the cost of the units, recent failures, work being slow.  It’s made me a little less impetuous than I used to be.”

“I know, I know.  It’s tough for everyone.  But since you’re here, I’m assuming that you have something interesting for me.”

“Indeed I do.  I think you’re going to like this.”  He dipped his hand in his pocket and retrieved the little velvet bag.  With hands that shook ever so slightly, he removed his treasure and laid it out on the glass countertop.

“May I?” Gary asked, his eyes widening slightly.

“Please.”

Gary lifted the chain so that the diamond rocked and rotated slightly, carefully lowering the gem into his hand.  For a moment, he just stared at it, watching as the light pierced its surface and was reflected back out, shimmering like a sliver of a star in his hand.  “It’s beautiful,” he said, his
voice close to a whisper, as if he were talking to himself and not to Glenn.

“It is,” Glenn said, leaving it at that. 

“You know, Glenn, assuming it’s real, which I think it is, you can probably make more selling it yourself rather than using me as a middleman.  I can never give you as much as if you sold it privately.”

Glenn nodded.  “I know, I know.  But I don’t have the time.  I’d rather just let you sell it.” 
And
, he added to himself,
I don’t want the thing in my possession one minute longer than it needs to be.

“Pear-shaped,” Gary said.  “Like a teardrop.  About a…”  He measured the diamond with a little ruler he withdrew from a pocket and looked at it from several angles.  “Probably a carat and a half, close to two carats. 
Excellent color.  Not perfect, very few are, but as close as you can get in consumer diamonds.  Definitely an H or I…”  He lifted a small lens that dangled from around his neck, a jeweler’s loupe with 10x magnification that would allow him to study the surface and internal structure of the diamond in more detail, and put it to his eye.  He began to study the gem, his lips curling into, if not a frown, then a look of confusion.  “Well that’s something you don’t see every day…”

These words concerned Glenn, who watched closely as his friend examined the diamond.  He knew that Gary was looking for inclusions and blemishes, internal and external defects which could affect the worth of a diamond.  They ranged from chips and cracks to feathers and clouds, from small mineral inclusions and large clusters to laser lines and cavities.  He had examined the crystal himself upon first finding it but hadn’t seen anything unusual, but he knew that many defects which were visible under
10x magnification could not be seen with the naked eye. 

What the hell could Gary, an expert in jewelry, see in his diamond that he rarely saw?

“Take a look,” Gary said, as if reading Glenn’s mind.  He handed the loupe and the diamond back to Glenn, who warily accepted it.

“I’m not a gem guy,” he said.

Gary nodded.  “Still, you’ll see what I’m seeing.  I promise.”

Glenn closed his left eyes, lifted the loupe to his right eye, and stared at the diamond.  And he immediately saw what Gary had seen, though he didn’t understand the ramifications.  Within the diamond were dozens of tiny red pinpoint inclusions, dark crimson beads the color of blood.  They were too small to see with the naked eye, and almost too small to see under
10x magnification, but they were there.  He moved the diamond around under the loupe and found a different type of inclusion among the red spots: a four or five gray clouds, which, quite impossibly, appeared to be tiny swirls of smoke captured within the crystal lattice.  Of course they weren’t actually moving—it was a trick of the light—but it was bizarre nonetheless.

He finally handed the necklace and magnifying device back to Gary.  “What do you think they are?” he asked.

Gary had a somber look on his face.  “The red inclusions, I’m guessing, are small garnets.  It’s somewhat common to find them inside the body of a diamond, though usually not in that number.  There are sometimes one, two at most, and they’re usually larger.  And the color… it’s slightly off, sort of like—”

“Drops of blood,” Glenn said.

Gary nodded.  “Blood.  But who knows.  At that size, that may be a natural color.”

“What about the swirls?”

“Again, could be malformation of the diamond, feathering, small internal cracks, small mineralizations.”

“They look like little plumes of smoke.”

“Yeah, you can get those when there is a fracture line with feathering along the edges.  But…”

“But you’ve never quite seen anything like this before.”

Gary shook his head.  “It’s really quite strange.  Normally, these types of inclusions would seriously decrease the value of a diamond because it would affect its clarity.  Inclusions like this normally affect the way light passes through the diamond, which affects how it shines.  This diamond should be dull.  But its clarity, despite the inclusions, is almost perfect.”

Glenn licked his lips.  “So what is it worth?” he asked, though he knew that he would sell it regardless of the number tossed at him.  He knew little about gems, but he knew that there was something unnatural about this one.

Gary sighed.  “I honestly don’t know.  It’s a nice size, has beautiful color, is cut perfectly, but those inclusions…. I know they can’t be seen with the naked eye, and somehow they aren’t affecting the shine, but…”  He took a moment and looked down at the necklace that was spread between them, the diamond a giant tear on the glass.  “Look, I’ll give you twenty-five hundred for it.  But…”  he added this last word very quickly, and Glenn suddenly got the feeling that Gary wanted the necklace.  Wanted it badly.  Maybe the diamond was speaking to him.  “But if I get it looked at and sell it for anything higher than six thousand, I’ll give you an extra fifteen percent.

“That’s not necessary—”

Gary held up his hand.  “Look, you come to me, you work with me in good faith.  You’re a good customer.  And I don’t want to cheat you.”

“I’d never know.”

“But I would.”

“Twenty-five hundred it is, then,” Glenn said with no hesitation, sticking out his hand.

Gary took it and smiled.

Gary carried the necklace into his office once Glenn left.  His intention was to put the necklace in the safe until he could get Leo Mazaroski from Leo’s Diamonds on the other end of the strip to come down and appraise the thing, which could take a couple of days.  Leo was a busy man, as were many jewelers in Vegas (the spontaneous and casual wedding capital of the world), but Gary had learned early on that when he was stumped on a piece of jewelry, the surly man from Miami was the only man to call.