Say Goodbye (13 page)

“What’d you do, Ginny?”

“I bargained, that’s what I did,” the girl said hotly. “I talked my sorry ass off. Promised him the best goddamn blow job of his life. But that made him laugh. ‘ ’Course you’re gonna do that, Ginny,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna make all my dreams come true. Then I’m gonna carve your skin from your scrawny white neck and feed you to my pets.’

“He brought out this knife like I’d never seen before. Long and thin and silver. A filleting knife he called it. And then, God help, I did do everything he asked of me, while he sliced up my arms and legs, all these bloody little cuts all over the place that
hurt
. Damn, they hurt. Then he pulled out a jar.

“Inside was a long-legged black spider with bright red markings. ‘Black widow,’ he told me. ‘Venom is fifteen times more powerful than rattlesnake venom. Bite itself doesn’t hurt. In fact, some people don’t feel a thing. At first. Then you get this sharp pain in your belly, I’m talking solid, double-you-right-over stomach cramps. And you start to sweat at the same time your mouth goes completely dry. Your eyes swell shut. The soles of your feet start to burn, your muscles catch on fire.’

“‘You spend days in agony. Hunched over, convulsing, vomiting, praying for death. There is an antivenin, but that’s assuming I have a change of heart and take you to the hospital, and what are the odds of that?’ He grinned at me. ‘Normally, the female black widow indulges her violent instincts by eating her mate. But I’ve discovered that the smell of blood gets her quite excited. Why don’t we find out?’

“He started unscrewing the cap and I…I begged. I’d do anything he wanted. Anything at all. And then I realized, I was dead. Because my mother had said all those same things and look at what he’d done to her.

“Just as he removed the cap, it came to me. Begging was what turned him on. More I screamed, more I sealed my fate. So I shut up. And when that black widow came creeping out the jar one leg at a time, I took her right into my palm and let her sit. I talked to her. I thought of her as a pet and you know what…It worked. She crawled up my arms and touched my lips with her legs. She was gentle, you know. Almost curious.”

Ginny touched her mouth with her own fingers as if in memory.

“Then, real coolly, I lifted her off and replaced her back in her jar. And I looked the man in the eye and I said, ‘She’s beautiful. Show me another.’

“He flipped me on my back and fucked the living daylights out of me. So goddamn hard I thought he’d break my ribs. Then, when he was done, he sat back in the driver’s seat, lit up a cigarette, and I knew I’d survive. I just had to learn to really like spiders.

“We struck a deal. I’d hook for a living. He’d take fifty percent of the money. I’d keep my mouth shut. He’d let me live.” Ginny’s mouth twisted in a sour smile. “And that’s how it’s been. Once a month, he shows up. Quick fuck, pay up, and we’re done for another month.”

“He’s your pimp?” Kimberly asked incredulously.

Ginny gave her a look. “Pimps provide protection services. Dinchara doesn’t protect. Some guy beats the shit out of me, stiffs me on the money, what does Dinchara care? He’s more like an enforcer, shaking me down once a month. So that no matter how hard I work, I’ll never get ahead. No matter what I do, I’ll never escape. He kept his first promise, right? I’m a specimen in his collection. My terrarium is a little larger than most, but it’s a cage just the same, and he and I both know I’m not getting out.”

“Anyone ever witness one of these transactions? You paying him?” Sal wanted to know.

“’Course not! He’s not an idiot.”

“Anyone see the two of you together?”

Ginny shrugged. “He comes into the clubs, that’s how he finds me. Just like any customer. People have seen him, but I doubt too many have
seen
him, if you know what I mean.”

“He have other girls?” Kimberly asked evenly.

Ginny hesitated, her gaze averted again. “I’m not sure.”

“Not sure, or won’t tell? Come on, Ginny. We’ve come this far. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“Hey, remember the terms of the deal. Living means keeping your mouth shut.”

“Too late. You already started talking. Now it’s in your own best interest to give us enough to help.”

“Girls don’t talk! They just…disappear.” Ginny suddenly looked up. “How come the police don’t know? How can you not figure out what’s going on out there? Every month, another girl vanishes. And no one says boo! It’s like we really are nothing but insects, and he can devour as many of us as he wants, and no one gives a damn. A million flies die, and a million more are born the next day. You should know these things. You should
care
about us!”

“How many girls?” Sal pressed.

“A lot!”

“Can you give me names? Dates? I need specifics.”

“Then ask around! I’m not doing your fucking job for you. I’m already risking my neck!”

“What happens to the girls?” Kimberly quizzed, voice rising from the other side, keeping Ginny off balance.

“I don’t know.”

“He picks them up in his SUV?”

“I would guess.”

“Takes them home?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to his house. All our transactions take place in his FourRunner. I already know too much as it is.”

“But the bodies, Ginny,” Kimberly kept on her. “If all these girls are being picked off by one man as you claim, what happens to their remains?”

“I don’t know!” Ginny cried again, but her gaze was sliding away. “Isn’t that your job? Why am I supposed to know everything?”

“Forget it,” Kimberly declared, sitting back, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re right. You don’t know squat. Let’s send her back, Sal. She’s worthless. We’ll drive her back to the club, drop her off in front. Maybe if she’s lucky, no one will notice.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I mean, she’s not even that good a liar.”

“Hey!” Now Ginny’s eyes were red-hot. “I’m plenty good enough. I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Kimberly suddenly jerked forward into the girl’s face, forcing her to fall back. “Is that what this is, Ginny? A con? In your own words, you’re nothing but a player, looking for a way out. Why should we believe you? Missing girls? Spiders? Please, this is more Stephen King than true crime. What’s with you, anyway? You keep calling me and calling me, and yet you refuse to tell me anything useful.”

“Calling you?” Ginny shook her head again. “I already told you. I haven’t seen Dinchara since we last spoke. I haven’t had any reason to call you.”

“Come on, dialing me up, making me listen to that audio recording of your mother—”

“You heard the tape?” The girl seemed genuinely surprised, then perked up. “So you know, then! You know I’m not making this up! He really is killing people. You heard the tape, you can arrest him!”

“Who’d you give my number to, Ginny?”

“I didn’t, I swear! I’d be killed for just having a fed’s business card on me. Like hell I’m broadcasting the info.”

“Then who called me?”

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do!”

“No, I fucking don’t!”

“Yes, you fucking do!”

Kimberly sat back. Both she and Ginny were breathing hard. She slanted a frustrated glance at Sal. He took over the reins.

“Ginny,” he said, “what happened to Tommy?”

The girl folded. Her shoulders slumped, her tough veneer collapsed.

“
I
happened to Tommy,” she said wearily. “Everyone has to give a name.
He
demands it. It has to be the name of someone you love. He’d already got my mom, remember? Tommy was all I had left.”

“Did you see Dinchara shoot Tommy?”

“No. But I know he did it. Minute I saw the story on the news. What else could’ve happened?”

“Tommy into drugs?” Sal asked it evenly.

Ginny scowled at him. “Tommy? No way. He was Mr. Squeaky Clean. Hell, he even thought he loved me. Dumb stupid jerk.” Her hand was fiddling at her neck, where once upon a time, she might have worn a ring, dangling on a chain.

“Is that why you gave me the class ring?” Kimberly spoke up. “To lead me to Tommy?”

“You said you needed evidence. Well, there you have it. Tommy’s murder is unsolved. Plus you heard my mother’s tape. Now, throw Dinchara’s ass in jail.”

“Nothing would make us happier,” Sal said. “All we need is his name.”

Ginny gave him a look. “You think
I
know his name? Why the hell would he be so stupid as to tell me something like that? You’re not getting it.
He
has the control.
He
has the power. I’m just a bug he hasn’t gotten around to killin’ yet.”

Kimberly sat back, pursed her lips. She regarded Ginny for a long moment, wondering if just by staring she could catch a glimpse of what was really going on under the surface. On the one hand, Ginny had made the first contact with the police, and claimed to want justice. On the other hand, she never really told them much. By her own admission, she was brave enough to let a black widow waltz up her arm, but not courageous enough to bolt the minute Dinchara let her go. She was savvy enough to have survived a serial killer for the past two years, but she’d never managed to notice his license plate or any identifying characteristics.

She was more hostile than helpful. A bigger liar than an informant. A manipulator more than an ally.

And yet, as the saying went, she was the best they had.

“So,” Kimberly stated. “Guy killed your mother, your boyfriend, and maybe a couple of your friends. Seems like you’d want to get even. Have a little justice, set yourself free.”

“Of course I do—”

“Unless, of course, you plan on paying him half your income forever. How’s that gonna work once the baby is born, anyway? Think he’ll babysit? Volunteer to watch the kid so you can go out and hustle?”

“Hey, I am never letting him near my child!”

“And he’ll quietly accept that?”

Ginny looked like she might finally cry.

“Seems to me,” Kimberly continued, “best option is definitely to throw his sorry ass in jail.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!”

“But you know, without a name, license plate, personal information…”

She let her voice drift. Ginny didn’t rush to fill in the blanks. So Kimberly went with plan B. She shrugged. “Well, there is one last option. I mean, if you’re serious about catching this guy.”

Ginny perked up. “What? How? Just tell me what I gotta do.”

“We’ll wire you up. You arrange a meeting with Dinchara, and we’ll use his own statements to nail him to the wall.”

EIGHTEEN

I SAW MY BROTHER TODAY.

He was at the movie theater, three rows ahead of me, arm around a pretty girl with straight blond hair that hung like a silk curtain down her back. I was eating popcorn, but the minute I spotted him, I started to cough, then had to duck down quickly when he looked back in annoyance at whoever was making such a racket.

I stayed for a while on my hands and knees on the sticky theater floor. I didn’t know what to do, couldn’t figure out how to react.

So after a bit, I decided to do what I did best—nothing at all.

I returned to my seat. I put my popcorn on my lap. And I watched the slasher film, one chainsaw after another. They didn’t get any of the details right. Hollywood doesn’t know jackshit about real blood.

The blond girl liked my brother. Every time the movie soundtrack grew ominous, she’d snuggle against him, her head tucked against his shoulder. Except soon she didn’t bother to lift her head anymore. Just kept it there, against his chest, while his hand curled tighter around her and they both giggled at something that had nothing to do with the bloodbath on the screen.

She had a nice giggle, bubbly fresh, like a summer’s day.

In my mind, I gave her that name. My older brother was dating a girl named Summer. I bet they walked under moonlit skies, went necking in the back of my parents’ borrowed car, attended the prom with her perky little breasts covered in a giant corsage.

It wasn’t fair, I thought sullenly. It wasn’t fair that I had died and he still got to live.

I ate more popcorn, drank thirty-two ounces of Coke, and brooded through the end of the film.

Lights came on. My brother and his girlfriend finally rose. He had a letterman’s jacket—of course he had a letterman’s jacket. He draped it over Summer’s shoulders and she giggled again, clutching the front with her hands, curling it around her.

My brother had inherited my father’s wiry build. Not tall, but solid. I was guessing he’d lettered in baseball, maybe the star pitcher with the clean-cut jaw, short-cropped dark hair. Then he smiled again, a dimple appearing in his left cheek, and in an instant, I remembered exactly what my mother looked like, and the pain of seeing her face after all these years drove me to my knees.

I gasped, but didn’t make a sound. I tried to breathe, but no air would reach my lungs.

So I folded over, quiet, limp, a puddle of dark trench coat on a stained floor.

I watched my brother’s feet head up the aisle. I heard his baritone ask Summer what time she needed to be home.

“I still have an hour,” she replied.

“Perfect,” my brother said. “I know where we can go.”

I followed my brother. It wasn’t so hard. He drove a truck now, a giant, extended cab four-wheel-drive vehicle that probably belonged to our father. A bumper sticker declared “Alpharetta Raiders.”

My family had moved. It made sense. I had moved at least two dozen times. Why shouldn’t they?

He turned down a dirt road. I recognized it as a lovers’ lane I’d heard other kids talk about. Not that I knew a whole lot, never being allowed to go to school and all that. No letterman’s jacket for me. No prom, no pretty blond girlfriend. Nope, I was just the crazy loner who turned up in his Army surplus gear at various rec centers, pale face, shaggy hair. The local freak show. Every town had one.

And for no good reason, I wondered about Christmas. Did my family still hang my stocking up on the mantel, the one with the patched-up toe and my name scrawled across the top in silver glitter? Did they set a place at the table, wrap a gift just in case?

If they had moved, that meant I didn’t have a room anymore. What had happened to my stuff? My books, my clothes, my toys? Boxed up, given to Goodwill? Maybe my brother had a two-room suite now. One room to sleep, another room to sprawl.

Probably had his own futon, TV, entertainment system. Had friends over, including giggly blond cheerleaders like Summer. I wondered if he was popular, if the kids at school admired him, the boy who had survived the Burgerman.

Or maybe he was the tragic hero. Lost his brother when he was young, but just look at him now.

And just when I was working up a good head of steam, ready to hate him, out necking with perky little Summer, I thought of my mother again and the pain returned like a knife thrust beneath my ribs.

I wondered if he made my parents proud. I wondered if looking at him helped my mother sleep at night.

I pulled over on the dirt road, jumped out of my little rust bucket and made it behind a tree just before my bladder burst. I pissed thirty-two ounces of Coke and then some. I pissed for goddamn near forever, and when I came back out, my brother’s truck had appeared on the dirt road.

There was no time for me to retreat. I could only hope he wouldn’t notice me.

No such luck. The truck slowed. The driver’s side window came down. My own brother glared at me.

“Hey, aren’t you the same creep from the movie theater? What the hell are you doing? Are you following us?”

I didn’t say a word.

His frown deepened, he looked on the verge of climbing out. Then I heard the girl’s voice from inside the cab. “Come on, babe. Don’t do this. He isn’t worth it. Besides, I have curfew.”

“Yeah,” my brother said reluctantly. “Yeah, guess you’re right.”

I saw his hand move on the steering column, putting the truck in gear. And suddenly I was sprinting toward the truck, my long black trench coat flapping, my steel-toed boots eating up the dirt. I had a tree limb in my hands. I don’t know how it got there.

“Hey,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “HEY!”

“What the fuck—”

“Don’t let the Burgerman get you!”

And then I was pounding on the truck door. Hit it hard enough the tree branch shattered. The girl screamed. My brother ducked, covering his head with his hands. I went to town, working on the headlights, the front grill, smashing, smashing, smashing with the short, splintered tree limb, and kicking out with my boots and yelling at the top of my lungs.

And there were tears on my cheeks and snot pouring from my nose and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Because I loved my brother so damn much that I hated him. I loved him for being alive. I hated him for not being me. I loved him for having such a pretty little girlfriend. I hated him for having my mother’s dimple. I loved him because he escaped. And I hated him because I wasn’t his brother anymore and that’s the thing in the world I most wanted to be.

So I beat up his truck. I smashed the living daylights out of glass and steel until I heard the engine gun and had only a second to leap away.

My brother tore down the dirt road, away from the crazy boy wielding a tree limb.

My brother drove away from me.