Four: Four Killer Stories Read online

  “My name is Theo,” I said. Not a lie. Theo Akerman. But my employers knew me simply as Taker. A bastardization of T. Aker. It was a good name because that’s what I did for a living. I took things. Objects. People. Payments. In this case, I was taking revenge. On behalf of a Grosse Pointe doctor whose daughter, now deceased, had been lured into drugs and prostitution by a slick pimp from Lansing named Ronnie Jay. Nila’s boss.

  “I said, who the fuck are you?” she repeated.

  “They call me the Taker,” I said. I put the muzzle of the silenced .22 Magnum to her forehead and pulled the trigger. I was hoping a little blood would splash onto the mouth of the wooden African mask directly over the bed to lend just a touch of realism to the scene. But it didn’t.

  When I left my place in northern Michigan on Drummond Island and met my client in Grosse Pointe, I knew I would have to find the perfect place to trap Ronnie Jay. I had left Detroit and came to Lansing, then spent several days scouting the neighborhoods I figured would have what I needed.

  Ultimately, I chose the Cozy Koi bed and breakfast for three reasons: it was in Ronnie Jay’s neighborhood, it was two separate buildings, and the whole place looked empty. After meeting the owner, and learning that a wedding party was going to be in the main house, she told me the second, smaller building would be completely empty. She said she could rent it to me, knowing that things would stay quiet.

  I didn’t disagree with her.

  Instead, I rented every room (each with its own theme! the owner gushed to me) in the second, smaller building.

  Now, I looked down at the dead Nila sprawled across the bed’s tiger stripe comforter. I pushed her off the bed with my foot, so her body wouldn’t be visible from any of the windows.

  I left the door to the Africa Room open, and moved to a rickety stairway leading to the second floor. I walked quickly up the stairs. There was an exterior door positioned just outside The Garden Room. I went there now, sliding my .22 inside my shoulder holster, and picking up the Mossberg Defender 500 shotgun.

  I knew Nila’s driver would approach from the fire escape, not the front door. And I estimated the time it would have taken for Nila’s plea for help via her cell phone to reach Ronnie Jay and his boys.

  I figured it would only take a few minutes for them to arrive. They would come to me, not the other way around, to do the killings at a place with which they had no connection.

  It actually took less than three minutes. It was a reminder that Lansing is, after all, a small town.

  Like any bodyguard, I knew he’d be big. And a quick look at the fire escape, old wood with a thin coat of white paint slapped on it, told me it would definitely make some noise underneath the footsteps of a three hundred pound man.

  I’d unlocked the door for him to make it easy. When he crept in and quietly closed the door, I had already stepped into the hall. Thick carpeting helped me avoid making any noise. He turned to face me.

  He started to drop his gun.

  I didn’t hesitate and fired directly into his face. The double-aught spread took off most of his head. Chunks of brain landed in the Garden Room, beneath beautifully framed antique prints of Alaskan wildflowers. The narrow hallway reeked of cordite. The Koi was not feeling all that cozy at the moment.

  I walked up to the big bodyguard, and fished through his pockets. I found a thick wad of hundred dollar bills which I relocated to my front pocket. A quick glance at his watch told me I didn’t have much time, and that I didn’t want to take that from him, either. Too big. Even though it was crusted in diamonds, it looked like a toy.

  I hurried back downstairs and this time I ducked into the Asian Room. A Geisha looked down at me from the wall, and I relaxed with the help of a little Buddha on the small, lacquer painted dresser. There was even a faint scent of incense. I breathed deeply, trying not to think about the noise of the shotgun and how soon someone would make the call to the cops. But I knew Ronnie Jay was outside and that he probably wasn’t alone. One bodyguard wasn’t enough to qualify as a ‘posse.’

  Having slipped into my imitation of an eternally patient Japanese mind, I wasn’t sure how long it was before a shadow passed over the wooden blinds, changing the light’s reflection off the gold fan hung on the wall. Ronnie Jay and most likely his cousin, Big D, had arrived.

  I got up from the jade-colored bed and walked to the front door. The door was solid wood with a small prism of art glass instead of a peephole. From five feet away I saw through the glass the shape of a black Adam’s Apple. It was like I was a sniper, and the little peephole was my spotter buddy.

  In one smooth motion I raised and fired the .22 dead center through the little diamond of beveled glass. I heard the soft thud of someone falling, and a clatter of metal. I opened the door, saw Ronnie Jay, his throat shredded and blood on his face, sprawled beneath the big COZY KOI yard sign.

  Rest and relax.

  I watched pink bubbles pop from what was left of his throat. His eyes were already glazing over.

  “You turned out the wrong girl, Ronnie,” I said. “Are you really not smart enough to know that all your guns and homeboys are no match for a Grosse Pointe doctor with an unlimited bank account?”

  More bubbles from his frayed throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a face in the window of the Koi’s main house.

  I raised the gun and put another bullet directly into Ronnie’s forehead.

  I went back inside, snatched the shotgun from the dining room table, and raced up to the Tropical Room. I caught the scent of coconut, then gently slid open the glass doors to the little tiki porch above the back door.

  Big D was trying to look through the kitchen window next to the back door. I’m sure he was hoping to see Ronnie Jay standing over my body, emptying his clip into my chest.

  I could read the confusion in his body. He heard shots, but he couldn’t see anything. And Ronnie had told him to cover the back, so he wasn’t about to go against order and race to the front.

  Inspired by the Tropical Room, I whistled a little calypso tune. When Big D looked up, I fired the shotgun and turned him from Big D into lower case d.

  I went back down the stairs, collected my guns, and wiped down any places I may have left a print.

  Back in the dining room, I opened the guest book and signed it.

  Had a great time at the Koi. Very restful.

  -Ronnie Jay.

  Just A Taste

  Delta Airlines flight attendant Tate Forsythe left Detroit Metro airport just past midnight. The flight from Dallas had been uneventful, boring, and a slight smell of shit had permeated the aircraft. Tate suspected the old guy in 14B had crapped his pants.

  Tate took I-94 to Southfield Road, then shot over on 696 to his little two-bedroom flat a block from downtown Ferndale. Once inside, he stood his rollerbag up against the side of the kitchen table and flipped on the lights.

  A noise behind him startled Tate. He felt something stab him through the cheap polyester fabric of his Delta Airlines shirt. His body jerked uncontrollably as pain radiated through every muscle in his body.

  He collapsed on the kitchen floor.

  A figure loomed over him. A face enclosed in a black ski mask.

  A cloth was pressed over his mouth and a burning chemical stench filled his nostrils.

  •

  When he swam out of unconsciousness, Tate Forsythe was tied to a metal desk chair and his mouth was clamped open. Already, his tongue felt horribly large and dry. His jaws ached.

  The figure in the ski mask appeared before him again.

  “Hello, Tate,” it said. The voice was female. Any hope of a practical joke put on his by his buddies at the gym was gone. The knowledge that a woman had Tasered him, strapped him to a chair and clamped his mouth open set off a raging panic inside his brain.

  The woman held a picture in front of his face.

  “Remember her?” she said.

  Tate closed his eyes.

  The panic began to convert to p
ure, pitch-black dread.

  He remembered the girl in the picture, and he didn’t.

  •

  There had been a time before his divorce when Tate Forsythe was out of his mind. His marriage was falling apart. He was drinking. Snorting cocaine. Watching pornography. Fucking hookers and strippers, anything he could get his hands on.

  Including unaccompanied minors.

  As a senior flight attendant, he was able to assign himself the job of caring for underage children traveling by themselves. So he developed a system. He was a walking pharmacy, after all. He would give the girl he’d targeted a complimentary drink, laced with a little bit of Rohypnol, a little bit of sedative. He would watch her start to slump over halfway into the flight.

  Then, he would help her to the bathroom, go inside with her, and explore.

  After, he would help her back to her seat. Before landing, he would give her another drink, this one laced with an upper, speed, maybe even a little coke.

  It was just a phase he had gone through. There hadn’t been that many. And he couldn’t really remember them all, what they looked like.

  But when he looked at that picture, he knew.

  •

  “I want to explain something to you,” the woman said. “I’m wearing this mask because I don’t intend to kill you. As long as you’re honest with me. Nod if you understand.”

  He nodded quickly and with great gusto.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now, did you rape this girl?”

  Tate shook his head wildly from side to side.

  “Did you take this girl into the bathroom, pull down her sweatpants, and violate her with your mouth?” the woman said.

  It was a secret, Tate thought. Buried deep within himself. Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t will himself to respond in either the negative or the positive.

  “I want an answer, or the mask comes off and you die,” the woman said. “This is the last time I will ask you. Did you drug this girl and perform oral sex on her against her will?”

  It came then, like the root of a long-dead tree finally yanked from its burrow.

  Tate nodded.

  He heard the woman sigh.

  “And did you avoid fucking her because you figured she was a virgin and would bleed and know she had been assaulted?”

  Tate hesitated, then nodded.

  He heard the woman sigh.

  She took off her mask.

  •

  “She died six months ago,” the woman said. “My sister left a long journal that detailed her fall into drugs, alcohol and depression. I could never figure out what happened to Bonnie. Until I read her journal. Seems she thought she was assaulted by a male flight attendant. That’s when she started using drugs. It was the beginning of the end.”

  The woman stepped back, pushed a cart carrying bottles and containers up next to him. She lifted a yellow plastic can he recognized as antifreeze.

  “So tonight I thought I would arrange a sort of Taste Test for you. Seeing as how you are such a connoisseur of flavor. Tell me, how do you find the bouquet on this one?”

  His mouth was suddenly full and he tried to spit out the antifreeze, but some of it slid down his throat.

  “Let’s use this to cleanse your palate.” Tate’s mouth filled again. The burning liquid bit into his tongue and the walls of his mouth began to shred. He felt chunks of flesh slide down his throat.

  “Don’t care for the drain cleaner?” the woman said. “I thought it had overtones of licorice, raw sugar cane and elderberries.”

  Tate’s head spun and he vomited. The acid went through his nose, unleashing the scorching agony in a whole new area.

  “I saved the best for last, Mr. Forsythe,” the woman said. “This is a very rare vintage from Vineyard Amoco. It’s called Octane 87.”

  Tate smelled the gasoline, felt it flood his mouth. It splashed over his face. He tried to scream, but the gasoline poured in. He held his breath until his lungs gave out. He sucked gasoline deep into his body.

  “This is best served as a flambé.”

  Tate heard the explosion, felt the pain envelop his entire being and then he couldn’t feel anything anymore. He also realized something else.

  He couldn’t taste anything.

  THE END

  Full-Length Novels By Dani Amore

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  About the Author

  Dani Amore is a crime novelist living in Los Angeles, California. You can learn more about her at: http://www.daniamore.com

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