Dues of Mortality (46 page)

****

Cleveland, Ohio, August 31,
11:53 p.m. EDT

Thaddeus Maguire never cared for
the taste of alcohol, but always appreciated its effect. He rarely
turned to it as a means of forgetting his problems and when he did,
he always ended up being reminded of his low tolerance for the stuff
the hard way.

“
Fuck!”
he yelled, resisting the urge to sling his glass at the wall.
He was such a goddamn coward!
Just like dad always said. Just like mom always pitied. He slung back
a hard hit of his drink. He swished the swig of liquid around in his
mouth and then swallowed it prepensely.

“
Fuck
you, Dad,” Maguire warbled, his head rocking on his shoulders.
“Fuck you! You think I care? I don’t! What good would it
do me anyway. I was never going to do anything right. No matter how
right, it was still going to be wrong, wasn’t it? Wrong! Not
enough! Not worthy of a Maguire!” His chest sank in. “Not
worthy to be
your
son!
Not worthy
to be...alive.” He laughed out loud. “Well, you won’t
have to worry about that if he finds out. Nope. If he finds out,
he’ll kill me for sure. Because he’s a killer; a
craaaaaazy-ass killer, and I crossed him.” He laughed again.
“That probably wasn’t a good idea.”

No,
it wasn’t
, thought Maguire’s guest. He watched
the sad rendition of Little Boy Lost play out from the shadows of
Maguire’s three-million dollar home-away-from-daddy.
Not
smart at all. But then, you weren't exactly famous for doing the
smart thing.
The guest already knew Maguire to be a
traitor, in more ways than one. Chad Maguire wouldn’t be able
to contain himself at finally being rid of this “yellow”
sheep of the family.

“
Fucking
people don’t want to be saved,” Maguire prattled on.
“When the gene jokes come banging down your door, don’t
say I didn’t try to warn you. Where are you, Calvin, you psycho
fuck?”

As
he went to sit, a busted spring in his recliner jabbed Maguire in the
butt, and he bitched in slurred nothings. His fourth glass of a
poorly mixed drink spilled out over the carpet. Brand new fucking
recliner and it was already falling apart. Built-in obsolescence, it
was called. Everything was built to break down to keep people
spending. “Another reason to bomb motherfuckers!”

“
Let
me clean that up for you,” the woman's voice said. It was a
strange voice. There but not there, sound, but no sound. It was
almost as if she had spoken with telepathy or a close facsimile
thereof.

Maguire
turned and saw her emerge from the shadow as if she'd been born of
it. She was half-naked, and wearing some frilly lingerie that looked
like it had been tailored from wisps of smoke. Her fire-engine red
hair was long and flowing, longer than he'd ever seen it. Her
captivating hazel eyes were also just as he remembered: bright and
unique, similar to the collection of sea shells he'd once gathered
for her, trying to find ones that matched. She walked toward him in
runway model fashion, slow motion. The sway of her hips put Maguire
in a trance just like a hypnotist's pocket-watch. Maguire's eyes
swelled with tears.

“
Beth,”
he whimpered. “You came back.”

She
glided right up to Maguire and ran her hands through his ragged hair.
She breathed in his scent as if the smell made her ovulate. She loved
him, wanted him, and she was making him know it.
She backed
him up until he plopped into the chair. The busted spring was waiting
for him, but he didn't move a muscle. Beth—the only woman
Thaddeus had ever loved, had sacrificed his entire future, his entire
life
for—had come back to him.

“
I
missed you so much,” he said.

Beth
just straddled him in the recliner.
“
You
ever had your brains fucked out?” she “sort of”
asked.

“
You
going to fuck my brains out, baby?”

She
moaned long.

Before
Maguire knew it, he was through his zipper and inside her.

“
Mmm,
Taddy,” she said. Only Beth ever called him Taddy. During sex,
he often heard it as “Daddy”.
“
Mmm.
Fuck me, Taddy!”

“
Oh,
Beth!” Maguire relaxed further as Beth began to take over.

“
Oh,
Taddy! Gonna fuck your brains out!”

“
Oh,
yes, baby. Do it! Fuck my brains out!”

Beth
increased the speed of her thrusting and the chair beneath them began
to rock and creak under their thunderous coitus. She was riding her
lover like a jockey on the lead horse.

“
Oh,
fuck, yeah! I love you, Beth!”

“
Taddy!”

Beth
then hammered herself into Maguire so hard it knocked the wind out of
him.

“
Mmm,
yes!” she screamed. Her power continued to escalate until it
became more like a beating than an explosion of pleasure.

Maguire's
chest tightened up as it absorbed the blows from her body. “Ow!
Wait! Wait! I can’t breathe!”

Beth
just kept thrusting. “
Oh,
yes!”

Maguire
tried to grab her, and hold her in place, but her body ignored him
entirely. It was as if she couldn’t be touched unless she
wanted to be.

“
Stop!
Stop!” Maguire exclaimed. “My head! My head hurts!”

“
Mmm,
I’m fucking your brains out, Taddy! Here they come!”

Maguire
threw his hands to the sides of his head. His brains were, indeed,
ripping
their way
out of his skull, expanding to her orders. The pain seared through
him like a bullet. Nothing on earth could ever hurt like this.
Maguire went into convulsions and the crack of the chair’s
wooden frame could just have easily been his own bones.
“Stooooooooop!”

Whatever
Maguire was seeing hadn’t been so bad, his guest thought as he
watched Maguire in his last throes. The science was right—H-ball
was far too easy to overdose on. Amazing how little he actually had
to buy in order to put down one man. It had mixed invisibly into
Maguire's drink and was, no doubt, tasteless. He double checked his
freshly washed hands for Halloxiphen residue.
Remind
me never to give into temptation,
he
thought.
He
looked on as Maguire slowed down; his convulsions quieting as his
muscles gave out. He clutched his chest in the end, meaning his heart
or maybe his lungs had ceased functioning. Not that the massive
cerebral hemorrhaging wasn’t sufficient. The man had to be a
mess inside.

The
guest walked over to the body and discovered there was a mess
outside
as well. Streams of crimson trickled from both Maguire's nose and
ears and his skin was dotted in wild bloody freckles from the
ruptured capillaries. He looked down. A hard-on that could have
plowed ten acres of farmland pointed straight up at him like an
accusing finger.

He
did
have a good
time, the guest thought...right up until the last few seconds,
anyway. It was probably every man’s dream to go out like that.

From
a small wooden coffee table, Maguire’s fliptop beckoned his
killer. He sauntered over, opened the fliptop and accessed the
interface. Good. The passwords were still saved, so all he had to do
was call.

The
killer was speeding down the highway when the return call beeped
through the fliptop as it sat on the dashboard's cooler. The caller
had a number of tedious, but necessary, electronic safeguards to
engage before transmitting.

“
Maguire?”
the blackened screen inquired. “What the fuck’s going on?
Why aren’t you transmitting video?”

The
killer switched on the video option. “A pleasure to finally
meet you, Mr. Ross.”

****

Cassandra’s back ached a
little because she kept forgetting to lift with the legs. She never
could understand how people lifted with the legs. It still took the
arms and back to lift something. The bags of fertilizer weren’t
that heavy, but her OB-GYN had told her that it looked like the baby
was resting a bit closer to her spine than usual and it would cause
more fatigue. However that didn't matter this evening. Cassandra was
hosting a rare burst of pregnancy energy, which Bennet's late night
at the hospital had given her opportunity to indulge. Her husband
would throw a fit if he knew she was preparing tomorrows garden
supplies instead of in bed getting her eight hours, but she had now
officially taken maternity leave from Cleveland Catholic Charities,
and the days spent around the house doing next to nothing pooped her
out more than a 10K run. Short of shackling her to the couch, Bennet
could do little to limit his wife's activity.

Cassandra
set out the bags of fertilizer, a garden trowel, and two packs of
magnolia seeds in a small antique Radio Flyer wagon.
Tomorrow
would be good for more magnolias
, she thought. She'd be up
bright and early and could get right to work. She just had to make
sure...Ah, that's what was missing: her canvas gloves.

Kimbrough
sat in the driver's seat of his car no more than ten minutes before
getting out and circling the house. Luckily, there were plenty of
trees and shrubbery to conceal his movements from the street. Not to
mention, the properties were so huge a neighbor would need a
telescope to see anyone wandering about next door. He grinned
wickedly. The home nearest the doctor's looked empty and had a FOR
SALE sign in the yard—no potential witnesses there. He buttoned
his blazer to conceal the silenced CZ75 9mm. pistol strapped to his
belt. With his back pressed against the wall, Kimbrough slithered
around the corner, prone to the house, until he was a toe’s
length from the garage. It had no windows, except for one, dead
center of its rear door. Kimbrough peered inside and his eyes lit
like torches. The target had her back to him, her head buried in a
six-foot metal cabinet in a corner of the garage. He then tested the
door's knob and was overjoyed that it spun.

“
Shit,”
Cassandra said after failing to find her gloves and she reflexively
blushed. There was no one else to hear her, but she was embarrassed
all the same. It was the kind of absurdity that could only be
produced by pregnancy, she figured. She then dealt a slap to her
frontal lobe.
Oh,
for heaven’s sake, Cassandra. The kitchen.
She was using the gloves
yesterday to polish the silver. She went inside to retrieve the
gloves,
wondering
what
other short-term scraps had been obliterated by Hurricane Hormone.

The
brief wait was regrettable, but Kimbrough made use of it by planting
himself inside the garage, behind the life-sized metal cabinet. Now,
there would be less distance to close, and less of a chance that
she’d spot him before he reached her. Kimbrough would break her
neck quickly and easily, although for authenticity, he’d have
to drag the tubby bitch inside and roll her down the stairs. He
didn’t look forward to that. By tomorrow, Dr. Bennet Hawkins
will be the seemingly normal husband who “snapped”,
killed his wife and unborn child and then offed himself in his grief.
So common, yet so tragic.

Once
off the plane, Xavier moved up behind Glenda as fast as he could. She
was getting too far ahead of him and he had to maintain a direct line
of sight. He changed his gait to a swifter more heel-to-toe balance
as his thighs rubbed together, threatening to start a fire.

“
Oy
vay, what a way to impress the ladies
,”
he'd said as he and Glenda deplaned.

“
Don't
worry,” Glenda had said. “I'll protect you.”

“
Fu-nny,”
Xavier groaned. He recalled how the guy with the knife had said “I
like that in a man” as Xavier was busy trying to stay alive.
The line had gone right over Xavier's head. Only after ransacking the
2017 Chevy Lumina secluded on the edge of the Kelmer property line,
did it make sense.
Inside
the car were two brand new, Italian suits, a lockbox containing some
cheap-looking jewelry and several cases of ammunition for a Zamorana
semi-automatic pistol...
and
a carefully packed red babydoll
nighty, which Xavier could picture on Glenda if she were six-feet
tall and a hundred-ninety pounds.
Jeez
,
he'd thought.
Just
when you think you've seen everything
.
In an uncomfortable flash of brilliance, the unexpected find had also
given Xavier an idea. If he didn’t overplay it, he could fake
being...
effeminate,
realizing there
was more than one way to disguise oneself. After all, he had to do
something. If Jerome Wallace now knew who he was looking for, then
Xavier couldn't very well just waltz off the plane, with a woman on
his arm and for all the world to see. Even if
she
was adequately disguised,
he
would
still be picture-perfect to any
hitman worth a nickel. Xavier had changed into the suit just before
the plane landed: a charcoal gray pinstriped jacket and pants,
complete with a lime green silk tie and matching dress shirt. Xavier
had also ran a concoction of water and baby oil through his hair to
give it some curl and then topped things off with a glittering
left-side bang. The costume, bejeweled rings and bracelet were
excellent appurtenance.