Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (27 page)

She leads him
to the
elevator, while
he
contemplates
this woman
spend
ing
the rest of her life with him.

*****

Dodge
hears her say the room number and springs into action.

He needs to
call the cops in time to stop Chuck.

And get back to Jaime.

He just wants the dirty business to be done with.

So he can get on with the real dirty business.

He hits the button on the elevator repeatedly.  Even with the elevators split so that some cover only the top floors, some the middle and some the bottom ones, there are still so many floors that the elevators take forever.

He doesn’t know what else to do besides keep hitting the
button, pacing back and forth.

There is a woman’s life on the line he
re.

Jesus Christ.

He suddenly realizes how much jeopardy he just put this woman in – paying her to have sex with a man he knows has killed at least three women
in just the last several
day
s.

And with that admission, with that astounding realization, Dodge really starts to
panic.

He can’t call the police from his room.

He’s pretty much an accomplice to murder in this
.

Not some kind of hero.

He should have been focusing, instead of rushing to get back to Jaime.

If he calls
too soon, though, Chuck w
ill only get busted
having sex with her or something
. 

Dodge has no idea what
Chuck
’s ritual is.

If he
s
pends the whole night with them.

Cat and mouse.

Or devours
them as soon as he get
s them
alone.

Jackal.

A sick feeling churning in his stomach, Dodge suddenly sees the
huge flaw in the plan.

He
knows now just
how much he messed
up, how insanely stupid he is. 

Risking her life.

Like she’s disposable.

Like a set piece.

Propping up the action, the next necessary plot point.

He dashes out of the hotel, back toward the pay phone
. 

He doesn’t care if th
e police get there too soon any
more.

A
s long as they get there in time.

The cops are skeptical, of course, especially
since he won’t identify himself.

O
r tell them how he knows is a
woman is going to be murdered.

B
ut he thinks his urgent insistence gets the message across.

He makes them promise to send someone immediately.

He wo
nders if he should go himself.

But he’
s afraid of being caught on security cameras anywhere near the room, or seen by the police.

He has to trust in the cops.

Of all ironies.

He needs the police to save his ass.

To stop the chaos he caused.

Before it kills someone.

He wonders who’s looking
down on him.

If anyone could be
catching the
ripple effec
ts of his crimes
on film.

*****

Chuck
knows this
is his test.

H
e needs to
restrain
himself this time.

But he’s no more in the door of the room, pulling his jacket off his shoulders, before she shoves him backw
ards on the bed, pinning his arms
behind him
, still half stuck in the jacket sleeve
s.  She crawls
onto the edge of the bed,
and onto
his chest
,
until her knees are buried
in the valleys of his armpits, her hands sliding up his chest toward his throat.

Crushed against
the bed
-
he
lpless
, adrenaline rushing through him -
any restraint he hoped he could muster starts to vanish already
. 

What’s on him erases anything within him.

Or awakens something else in him.

Something he’s been suppressing.

For the last half
an
hour.

For the last twenty years.

When the tips of her fingers, the hard acrylic edges of her nails, slither over his esophagus,
he realizes it’s
not so great to feel
trapped, powerless.

A victim.

Which is what he is.

A victim of this stranger
.

P
icking him up for no reason, or some unknowable reason, leaning
back to unbutton her white top, looming over him.

Like some sex scene a movie.

That
he kn
ows i
s all fake.

That there’s no way this woma
n is ever going to love him. 

Or
know him.

But he’s sure of one thing.

She i
s going to spend the rest of her life with him.

*****

Dodge is a nervous wreck by the time he gets back to the room,
standing in the doorway wondering if
Jaime is even in the dark
room
– its lights mysteriously off -
comforted only by the thought that
at least
he called the police right away, confident that they’ll get there now to save the prostitute’s life.

Unless Chuck
literally
just kills her as soon as he gets her alone.

But Dodge can’t im
agine that.

That he wouldn’t at least have sex with her.

Any sane man would have sex with her before killing her.

Hell,
Dodge only spent two minutes with her and he wanted to have sex with her.

And he has Jaime.

Whom
he hears ca
ll his name in a singsong voice from across the room.

“Da- ahdge.”

He
stands in the doorway, the lights still off,

He
hears the Jacuzzi
kick on and start
running,
closes the door and steps forward,
to
where he can see her head poking up out of the foam, the bubble of her own face smilin
g
at him.

Slowly, she stands and rises from the water, facing him.

With the door closed, and this magnificent vision to focus on, the neon lights pouring through the window, his eyes take her in.

At first, she is still covered enough with soap bubbl
es that
she doesn’t even really look naked. 
He
has ne
ver
had a chance to
just
see her like this – every beautiful inch of her revealed.

E
ven though he has made love to her
. 

It was dark when they’d had their drunken
fling;
their bodies were already intertwined by the time they were peeling each other’s clothes
off
. 

S
he may not have even been nak
ed before he had sex with her
.