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Chapter Forty
Joel
Imagine my surprise when my wife comes pounding on the door of the Apricot Inn. Imagine hers when I open the door, pull her by the wrist and haul her inside. It’s just Yvette and Gina and me, all standing there. The air is thick with tension. There are body parts in a bag in the closet, plus twenty-six teeth, give or take. He was missing a few already, but hammering that many teeth out of a man’s head already made for a less than stellar day. I didn’t think it could get worse, and yet here we are.
Killing him hadn't been the plan, and I was going to pay for it. He was a guy with a flair for the dramatic and a talent for murder. I don't know all the fancy details of exactly how or why the bounty was ultimately placed on his head. Sometimes it's better not to know.
What I do know is that he was a sick bastard and had a taste for torture. He was the kind of guy who enjoyed watching the world burn, and I was just a guy who liked to fight fires. I was pissed to find him in the situation I had, and I just wanted him to suffer for a little bit. I had the upper hand, but that didn't mean care was taken for casualties. The moment I entered the vicinity, the two goons that had been helping him hold the girl put their hands up and retreated back up the stairs.
One look at me, plus a couple of fresh bills folded into their hands and they were gone. It's not always that easy. This time, I needed it to be.
“Well, I’m definitely feeling trapped,” he says to me once I've breached the motel room.
“What a pity, Remy. I’m so sorry that I have to do this.”
I wasn’t really sorry, but I’d always wanted to use that line. Finally, I’d found my chance. After tying him up, I took out my carving knife and went to work. The poor girl. I should have let her go first, but I wanted her to witness a bit of justice. Not that there is any such thing, just that she wasn't going to be the only one to suffer.
I looked her up and down. She was wearing a sweater and jeans, her hair was wild and her face was swollen.
“You must be freezing.” I told her.
She nodded, and I grabbed a blanket and handed it to her.
I could tell she was in shock. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“I'm going to leave and take this asshole with me. You're going to wait five minutes,” I said, motioning toward the clock. “And then you're going to go to the office and ask the nice lady at the desk to call an ambulance.”
I knew she'd be out of that room in about thirty seconds. So I got out of there in a hurry.
“This is going to hurt,” I said as I carved into him.
I'd taken him to my favorite mausoleum at Great Oaks Cemetery.
Now that we had a bit of privacy, it was time to make him suffer, and it was time to give him a taste of his own medicine. I carved out his eyes, took out his nails and teeth, then I pushed on his mouth and snapped his jaw. I hit him on the back of the head with the flat of the blade and his body went limp. He was still alive, but hanging on by a thread. Eventually, I did what I had to and put him out of his misery. And that was that.
I cleaned up and showered using the hose at the cemetery. I changed my clothes and drove straight here to the Apricot Inn to hand off the goods to Yvette. And by goods, I mean the bag of body parts. It’s important not to leave fingerprints or teeth on account of dental records, the things that make it easy to identify a body. I expected to be delivering a fully alive person—that I’d be meeting my new boss—but my wife is here instead.
I guess it’s a good thing I killed Remy Swanson after all. I wouldn’t want that kind of filth within a thousand miles of the likes of Gina.
“I should have known better,” Gina says, her face in a sneer.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I try to assure her, but it's pointless. She's in a rage.
Yvette just stands there grinning. Like this is the best entertainment she’s had all year.
“This is Yvette,” I say, gesturing toward her. “My cousin.”
“Your cousin,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Good one.”
“My Aunt Barbra’s daughter. Tell her,” I say to Yvette.
“Nah,” Yvette says. “I ain’t his cousin.”
My stomach sinks.
“What?” Yvette says. “Why lie? Just tell her the truth. We got business together.”
