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In the moon’s light, I can see rust and dirt on the top of the outdated white washer, which doesn’t match the pea green dryer. Cracked linoleum covers a bowed floor, and I step lightly to keep from creaking it.
The kitchen beyond is fairly kempt, but dark and dated. A piece of mail set out on the kitchen counter tells me the owner’s name is Chuck Beatty. Beside it, a bottle of whiskey brings to mind the smell of his breath that night, as he spoke about the girl.
To the left stands another door, perhaps a pantry, but when I open it, a set of concrete stairs disappear into the darkness below. Aside from in the million dollar homes, basements are rare in California, so I’m left wondering what this leads to.
Pausing to listen for any sounds, I cant my head to the side, looking for movement past the kitchen, then pad down the stairs into the obscurity.
The air is cooler by a few degrees, casting a chill over my skin. Only the sound of my breaths can be heard, as I round the staircase, blindly holding my hand out in front of me to keep from running into any surprises. There’s nothing past the next step when I scoot my foot in search of an edge, and I realize I’ve reached the bottom, so I flick on the flashlight of my phone. An arc cuts through the blackness, and the garage door ahead tells me it’s not really a basement, but a door leading to the attached garage below the house, though there’s no vehicle parked inside. A water heater and furnace stand to the right, a refrigerator to the left, adjacent to another door encased in brick.
In three quick strides, I come to a stop at the door, listen for any movement, and crack it open. It appears to be some kind of workroom, with a bench and tools hanging from the wall. Only the tools aren’t typical. I study them for a moment, certain the long slender pole with prongs at the end is an electrical prod of some sort. Muzzles, collars, harnesses, and leashes all hang beside it.
Whimpers draw my flashlight toward a cage beyond the workbench, and my next breath hitches in my throat.
Inside is a young girl, hunched over in the too-small confines.
My blood turns as cold as the rage seizing up my muscles, but I approach cautiously, while she ducks away from the light.
“Camila?”
Her whimpers intensify, and I crouch down before I reach her.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise, I’m here to help.”
“I want … my … mama.” A muzzle covering her face muffles the words, and yet, they’re as clear as my resolve to get her the hell out of this place.
“And I’m going to make sure you see her, okay? But please, you have to be quiet. Do you know who put you in there?”
Brows tipped in fear, she points beyond me, and I turn in time to dodge a swing at my head.
I barrel forward and knock him backward, and the shovel in his hand tumbles to the ground on a hard clang. In the melee, my phone smacks against the floor, illuminating the room enough to see his fallen form. Scrambling over top of him, I draw my fist back and hammer a punch to his face, kicking his head to the side. Another sends a spray of blood from his nose. As his head rolls back and forth with disorientation, I study his face before the swelling sets in. He must be pushing sixty, with a gray beard and sun-weathered skin.
“Y’come to offer me absolution, after all, Father?” His voice is unmistakable, and at the sound of it, something inside of me snaps, as if it’s somehow tethered to a piece of my former self.
Imagining my own daughter in that cage, I nab the small bit of rope lying on the work bench, and without hesitation, I wrap it around his neck, batting his arm out of the way as he tries to stop me. Its not fear that makes me twist that rope in my hands, nor is it rage, really, because I’ve learned to temper that, for the most part. An innate reflex has me throttling him with the emotion of a robot. I can’t stop myself, even if I want to.
Body seizing beneath me, he tears at my fingers in a poor effort to pry them away, but it’s futile, the way the rope is cleverly wrapped, giving me all the leverage I need without much effort. He doesn’t beg for his life, perhaps because he can see it in my eyes that I’ve no intentions of granting him mercy.
“By the sweat of your brow, you will eat bread.”A tremble in my whisper matches the tight clamping of my chest.“Till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Even if the sight of his eyes bulging and his skin turning purple makes me sick to my stomach, the image of that child and those tools on the wall have been seared into my mind, overriding every other righteous thought. In those split seconds, I’m the Bagman again, collecting on a long-owed debt. One that belongs to a little girl I’m now certain is buried up on Angels Point somewhere.
“Thought … God … mercif—” He tries to speak past my grip of his throat, but I cut his words by pressing harder.
“God promises mercy, but he does not promise tomorrow.”
Camila’s sobs fail to divert my attention. I am a machine with one sole purpose: to end this man. It takes a good minute before that purple color fades into a bluish tone and his body stills. I push off him until standing. The adrenaline rattles my nerves as I pace back and forth. “Fuck.” I grip either side of my skull and crouch low to stop the spinning inside my head.
Ten years ago, I’d have been looking for a place to discard the body by now. If I leave him here, someone will undoubtedly be looking for him at some point, with his business. There’ll be ligature marks, trace evidence, a smorgasbord of variables to link me to the crime.
But I can’t think about that right now. Not yet.
Swiping up my phone, I turn around to the muzzled girl still trapped in the cage, and with my hands out where she can see them, I kneel down beside her, slow and easy. “I’m going to get you out of there and take that off your face, okay?”
She nods, the tears in her eyes carrying a world of sadness and other things I can’t even begin to fathom for a girl her age. I unlock the cage, and she startles, kicking herself back as if she doesn’t trust me, and why should she?
I just murdered a man without mercy in front of her.
The cage door swings open, and I offer her my hand.
