Sacrifice (2 page)

He had just finished clipping the dog’s toenails and giving him a bath when the doorbell rang. He finished drying the dog off before hurrying downstairs to answer the door. If it was one of his nosy, dog-hating neighbors he would give the son-of-a-bitch a piece of his mind.

The pudgy middle-aged divorcee was ready for a confrontation when he unlocked the door and opened it just wide enough to peek out. On his porch stood a little girl, her long red hair in pigtails, wearing a torn and dirty Catholic school uniform. She looked like she’d just crawled through the desert on her belly. There were scrapes and cuts on her legs and forearms. A look of profound sadness creased her features.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

The little girl stepped forward, and Bruce had an irrational urge to slam the door and bolt it. A tear dribbled from a corner of the little girl’s eye.

Bruce paused.
She’s just a little girl. She’s probably selling Girl Scout cookies or something. At night though? Maybe she needs help?

He opened the door wider, and the girl stepped closer. She reached out and touched his hand, and a jolt went through him as if he’d just been punched. For a second his mind was bombarded with horrible images: arguments, fights, rapes, murders. He staggered backward and stifled a scream.

“Tag. You’re it.”

“What did you do? Who are you? What did you do to me? Where are your parents?”

But the little girl was already walking away.

“What did you do to me?”

The girl stopped and turned back. Her eyes were sad and distant. “You’d better run. They’ll be coming soon.”

“What? Who? Who’s coming?”

“Everyone. Everything.”

Bruce watched her walk to the end of the block and turn the corner before he shut his door and locked it again.
That was fucking weird,
he thought as he smoothed a wisp of hair down over the bald spot in the middle of his head.

He heard the growls seconds before he turned around. The patch of gray that went from the left side of the dog’s muzzle and across both eyes, which had always reminded Bruce of a Lone Ranger mask, now framed two narrowed eyes that bristled with rage. The Great Dane’s muzzle wrinkled. His lips curled back, quivering above his curved fangs.

“Pete? What’s wrong, boy? Pete, no! Noooooo!”

The Great Dane rose up on his hind legs like a grizzly bear. When he opened his mouth, it was larger than Bruce’s entire head. Bruce barely had time to scream before one thousand pounds of crushing power clamped down on his face. It was more than enough to puncture his skull. He beat at the animal feebly as it tore off a large portion of his face and began to chew.

Chapter 3

Detective Malloy waved to the bouncers as he walked into The Hot Box and flashed his badge to avoid the entrance fee. It was a formality really. They all knew who he was. Malloy was a regular.

“How’s it going, Detective? You catch any big-time gangsters lately?” the big Samoan bouncer asked. At six-feet five-inches and well over three hundred pounds, stuffed into a tight-fitting tuxedo, he looked like a villain from a James Bond flick.

“All I’m interested in catching tonight is something that can easily be cured with penicillin.”

“You’re sick as hell, John. When you gonna settle down and get yourself a nice respectable woman, maybe have some kids and a white picket fence and shit?”

Detective John Malloy reached over and patted the huge leg-breaker on his rotund belly.

“When you lose about a hundred pounds, Tiny.”

“Hey! I need this weight. It helps me with my power-lifting. I’m a fucking athlete, brudda. I’m goin’ for the world bench press record next year. I’m up to seven hundred twenty-five pounds. By January I’ll be at eight hundred and then by next summer I’ll break nine. I’m gonna drive up to LA and do it right on Venice Beach.” The mesomorphic Islander was grinning like a con on parole day.

“Well, good luck with that, Tiny. Me, I’m just going to go in there and try to find me some pussy to cuddle up to for a few hours.”

“You’s a sick dude, John. You and your partner have been together for too long. You’re starting to sound black. Pretty soon you’re gonna be saggin’ and drinkin’ forties and shit. Go on in, fool.”

Malloy laughed. He walked into the dark club, casting one last look at the huge bouncer.
Nine hundred pounds?

As big as the guy was, John didn’t doubt Tiny could do it. He just didn’t have the heart to tell him that someone had already shattered the old nine-hundred-pound record three times and the new record for the bench press was now more than a thousand pounds. It would only shake the man’s confidence.

It took a moment for John’s eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior. Two topless brunettes gyrated on the center stage doing pole gymnastics, while guys crowded the chairs around the stage waving ones and fives at them. The girls smiled broadly, winked, licked their lips, and blew kisses in well-practiced seductions meant to convince the lovelorn they might actually have a chance at bedding them. Somehow they still managed to look bored. When one dropped down on all fours and began making her ample ass bounce and wobble, the immediate response in John’s loins urged him further into the club. John was without a doubt an ass man.

The Barbie-perfect nightshift girls filed in behind him as he entered the club. Their hair was already styled, makeup perfect, their silicon-augmented breasts defying gravity. They held no interest at all for John. Those girls were strictly business. They were the ones who earned eight hundred dollars a night teasing and toying with idiots like him who thought they might have a chance at bringing one home. Then, after they drained one sucker’s wallet dry, they moved on to the next chump and the next and the next, eventually leaving the club solo with three or four times the daily earnings of the men foolish enough to think they could buy them.

The dancers from the swing shift were just winding down, doing their last lap dances of the evening, chatting with customers, making deals to meet the wealthier or more attractive ones someplace after work to continue the party in more discreet surroundings, planning which nightclubs they would hit after work, or drinking at the bar.

John tried to steer away of the drunk ones. They were easy, but they were trouble. They would pass out or throw up in your car, spend all night crying about some tragedy or heartbreak from their past or present, and then pass out or throw up in your house, or, in the worse cases, wake up the next day with little memory of the evening and cry rape. Too much drama to risk. John knew exactly what type he was after.

He was looking for the fresh meat, the ones who were new to Vegas or new to the profession entirely. The ones who were still enjoying themselves and looking to have fun.

“Want a lap dance?”

Her lips were packed with so much collagen they looked like two sausage links. Even in the dim light it was obvious her face was shellacked with several coats of makeup. Her breasts were two round basketball-shaped bags of saline with a bra-size somewhere between F and infinity. Cottage cheese hung from the back of her nearly non-existent ass, and stretch marks radiated up from her waistline. She probably had kids who were stripping already.

“No thanks, darlin’. I’m just lookin’.”

The old girl looked disappointed yet undeterred. “Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun.”

Malloy shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

The ancient burlesque queen squinted and inched closer to John, examining his face. “I’ve seen you coming in here for years. I’ve seen you buy plenty of lap dances. How come you never buy one from me?”

“No offense, but you just aren’t my type.”

“Because I’m not young and gullible? I know your type. You don’t want a lap dance, you want what every guy in here wants, but you’re just a little more single-minded than most and a little more smooth. You come in at shift change because you know that’s when the girls have made all their money and are winding down, getting ready to leave. You’re hoping you can get one of them to leave with you, and you think the young, inexperienced girls are more likely to go for it. Old girls like me are just after money, right? Well, what makes you think we don’t want to fuck too?”

Malloy looked the woman over with renewed interest. He wasn’t into fake breasts, and the size of her enhancements suggested she was on her third or fourth boob-job. He hated the whole bee-stung lips thing, although he had to admit it did make one think about blow jobs. He just hated the artificiality of it. Her body was well-worn and aging rapidly, and had it not been for plastic surgery she would have never been able to strip at her age, which Malloy placed at nearly forty-five, possibly even fifty. Her sagging ass was not the least bit appealing. In fact, there was almost nothing attractive about her except long athletic legs that suggested a regular workout routine and the prospect of sex with someone who was clearly quite experienced in the act.

Still, she did seem willing, and that made her the most attractive woman in the place.

“I don’t trick. I’m a cop.”

“I’m not asking you to pay for it. I’m just asking you to keep it up long enough for me to get off too,” she replied with a coy smile.

“What’s your name?”

“My stage name is Contessa. But my real name is Samantha.”

“Well, I’ve only got one name, John Malloy.”

“Pleased to meet you, John. Wait here while I get my coat.”

They left together fewer than fifteen minutes after John entered the club.

Tiny smiled and shook his head as he watched the detective leave.

Chapter 4

“Do you have to go to work today? You know I’m not feeling well. Can’t you stay home and take care of me? It’s not like those bastards appreciate you at that job anyway.”

Mohammed rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and let out a long sigh. He continued to brush his teeth, concentrating on the feel of the bristles against the contours of his gums and the chalky, minty taste of the toothpaste. He brushed long after the toothpaste dissipated, until he was merely scrubbing his own saliva across his teeth. Anything to delay the argument his wife was trying to instigate. He was sick of this shit. It was the same almost every day. Emily hated being left alone, but how could he help it? He had to work to support them, and he loved his job.

And isn’t a housewife supposed to stay home all day cooking, cleaning, and all of that? Isn’t that the whole fucking point? That’s why they’re called fucking
house
wives, isn’t it?

Emily wasn’t much of a cook though, so he usually made his own meals. Her cleaning schedule was erratic at best. Most of her days were spent calling him at work every hour on the hour between soap operas and talk shows to complain about being lonely and beg him to come home. He knew this would eventually be the death of their relationship. Mohammed had watched enough talk shows to know that when women began feeling lonely and neglected, it was only a matter of time before they started sleeping around or filed for divorce or worse yet - counseling. But what could he do? He had to work.

“I’ve got a job to do, Emily. I can’t just take off work whenever I want. I’ll get written up.”

He wondered if things would be any better if she had a job to go to. Maybe if she had something she loved to do, something to keep her occupied, she’d spend less time worrying about him. The problem was there was nothing Emily seemed to have an aptitude for or an interest in except him. Usually that made Mohammed feel good, needed, like the fucking MAN, except when he had to sneak out of his house every morning, trying not to wake her so he wouldn’t have to hear her whine about being lonely.

“But you
never
take a day off! You’ve got sick days, don’t you? Tell them you’re sick or tell them I’m sick and you need to be here to take care of me.”

The idea of spending the day with his wife was not entirely unappealing. Emily had put on weight since they were first married, but it had all gone to the right places, thickening her hips, thighs, breasts, and ass. Mohammed found her more irresistible every day. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her, and he sometimes felt she took advantage of that.

“I can’t tell them that, Emily. My wife having a migraine is not an excuse to miss work.”

“Well, I’ll be damned if you’re leaving this house! You leave me here alone and in pain, you’d better never come back!”

Detective Mohammed Rafik paused as he shrugged into his shoulder holster and for an instant he contemplated taking out his Glock .40 and blowing a hole in his wife’s skull. The thought made him smile, but that smile fell hard from his face, collapsing into a deep frown as he acknowledged he could never harm her. Seven years of marriage and he’d never so much as shouted a harsh word in her direction and never would. He wasn’t put together that way. He loved his wife, annoying as she was at times.

Mohammed let his holster slide off his shoulder and clatter to the floor. “I’ll call the captain and tell him I have food poisoning or something. I need to call Malloy too. He’s gonna be pissed.”

“Fuck him. That guy creeps me out anyway. He’s probably gay or something. How come a guy that old has never even been married? I’ve never even seen him in a serious relationship.”

“He just likes his freedom. He’s a good guy,” Mohammed responded.

Emily frowned. “Say that when he’s promoted above you even though you’ve got twice his qualifications. And don’t say it won’t happen because you know damn well it could. Your dad is right about one thing: white folks can be devious.”

Mohammed shook his head and sighed again. Somehow during the course of their marriage Emily had slowly grown prejudiced against her own race. She had never been exposed to racism before she’d started dating Mohammed and had been shocked and enraged when it was suddenly forced upon her. He remembered the hurt on her face the first time they were followed around a department store by security, or when they stood on the corner in LA watching as one taxi after another passed them by, or when a white woman clutched her purse tighter and crossed the street when he walked by.