Frank Zafiro - Some Degree of Murder

“What’d this guy look like?”

“Big, strong motherfucker,” Brian said, panting and grimacing as he held onto his arm.

“Thick in the chest and neck?”

Brian nodded, wincing. “Yeah. Not fat, though.”

“No,” I muttered, leaning back on my haunches. “Not fat.”

Virgil Kelley. Son of a bitch.

“Motherfucker hits like a mule kick.”

“What happened to your arm?”

“He broke it, okay? He broke it and then he told me he’d break my other arm and both legs and then my neck if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to know.”

“Did you tell him?”

Brian looked away and didn’t answer.

“Did you tell him?”

Brian stared at the floor and refused to answer.

“Brian — “

“He said he’d come back and kill me if I told anyone,” he said, his eyes snapping back to mine. “Doctors, cops, anyone. He’ll do it, too. He’s crazy. Threw me down the stairs before he left.”

“Brian,” I said in a low voice. “I need to know what you told him.”

He shook his head, mucus flowing from his nose and tears from his eyes. Blood was beginning to dry and darken on his forehead.

“I need to know what you told him,” I repeated.

Brian started to shake his head, but my hand shot out and grabbed him by the hair. He yelped and jumped. The jump caused him to yelp again and grab onto his forearm.

I leaned in close. “The real problem you have right now is that the other guy is gone and I’m right here. And I will fuck you up if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”

“Oh, God,” Brian whimpered. “You’re as bad as him.”

“What’s it to be?”

Brian cried silently. I waited for a few seconds, then shifted in my stance. The sound of my shoes on the floor made Brian jump.

“Fuck it,” he whined. “Just fuck it. I’ll tell you. But I want protective custody from that crazy son of-.”

“Done,” I lied. “Now what did he ask you?”

“He asked a lot about a girl. He showed me a picture and said it was his daughter. That’s when I got scared.”

“Why?”

“’Cause she was a whore. Rowdy brought her by once and I banged her.”

“Did Rowdy?”

Brian shook his head. “No. He’d rather play.”

“Play?”

“Give them the Rowdy treatment. He’s into pain and stuff.”

“What else?”

“He wanted to know where Rowdy was.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Not right away. I told him I didn’t know. That’s when this shit got serious.”

“So you told him?”

“After he broke my arm, yeah I told him.” He met my eyes, shaking his head. “Rowdy’s okay and all, getting us weed and whores once in a while, but I wasn’t going to die for him.”

I held Brian’s gaze and leaned in close, my voice dark. “I only have one more question, Brian. And you better fucking answer it. Where is Rowdy now?”

VIRGIL

It took me less than forty-minutes to find Wales and Magnolia and the deserted building Brian described. I parked Rowdy’s motorcycle about a block away and walked up to the building. A white Chevy van was parked in the alley behind and just west of the building.

At the front door, I tried the door knob. It turned slightly but wouldn’t open. I pressed my ear against the door and heard music coming from inside. A man’s voice yelled out in excitement several times over the loud noise. From the inside pocket of my jacket, I pulled out a pair of black lambskin gloves and slipped them on.

I pressed my shoulder against the door and leaned in hard. It took several minutes but the lock eventually popped. The door must have been kicked in more than a few times from the way the door jamb looked.

The loud music continued, as did the excited male voice. “How do you like that, bitch?”

I closed the door behind me and pulled my Glock out of my jacket pocket. My second Glock was still at the hotel room, just in case I needed to make a hasty retreat. The heavy weight of Hiero’s larger Glock in the small of my back was re-assuring. With careful and quiet steps, I made my way through the dirty office building. Old desks and broken furniture littered the rooms. I passed several rooms that smelled like someone had shit in them.

I took a long hallway to the back of the building, where I found a large office with a smaller room connected to it. The screeching heavy metal music was coming from the smaller room. I stepped carefully around the corner into the room and leveled my gun at the back of Rowdy’s head.

Tied to a bed was a naked young girl with slicked back red hair. Both her arms and her ankles were tied to the headboard, folding her over at the waist. Her hips were forced in to the air. A cloth rag was stuffed into her mouth and a piece of duct taped wrapped around her head. As the music squealed and pounded from a boom box on the floor, Rowdy danced and angrily slammed a large green dildo into her.

“You like that, don’t ya, slut?”

On a short, metal stool by the bed was a blackened glass pipe and little baggie. Rowdy jumped up and down and shook his shoulders.

“I wanna fuck you like animal!” Rowdy screamed in chorus with the music.

The girl’s eyes caught mine and they widened in surprise. I stepped behind Rowdy and grabbed my gun by the barrel.

Rowdy hammered his fist into the girl’s face before spinning around to face me.

“Hiya, sport,” I said and brought the butt of my gun down on Rowdy’s face.

He looked surprised for a moment and then crumpled to the ground.

I looked at the girl and realized I’d seen her before on Sprague. She was one of the young hookers who was just earning her bones. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was slack and blood flowed from her nose.

“I wanna fuck you like an animal!” The words screamed at me from the boom box. With a kick, I sent the boom box into the wall, shattering it and knocking over the stool with Rowdy’s dope.

I grabbed Rowdy by his hair and dragged him into the other room.

When he came to I shoved the Glock in his eye socket and told him to get up on his knees. Rowdy wobbled upright and tried to focus on me. A thick trail of blood ran down his face from the gash above his left eye.

I pulled out Fawn’s picture and showed it to him. “Remember her?”

Rowdy continued to stare at me. I lifted the picture up in front of his eyes.

“Remember her?” I yelled at him.

“Nope.”

“You killed her.”

“Oh, her,” Rowdy muttered.

I shoved the picture back in my pocket before jamming the gun back into Rowdy’s eye. He wobbled before falling backward.

I stepped over him and leveled my Glock at him. “That was my daughter.”

“Drop the gun,” a deep voice yelled behind me.

TOWER

I recognized the place as soon as I turned onto Wales. Years ago, it had been cheap office space that housed shady loan companies and then telephone solicitors. Eventually even those dregs left and the offices have stood empty ever since. Patrol routinely rousted transients out of there in the winter time.

Cruising slowly up the street toward the building, I saw a motorcycle parked almost a block away in the dirt at the edge of the street. I could feel adrenaline coursing through my body, so I took a slow deep breath and pulled over.

I turned off the engine and trudged carefully toward the office. As I sidled up to the corner of the building, I saw a white van parked in the alley behind the office.

I could hear the strains of manic electric guitar coming from inside the building. Over the top the music came the sound of a male voice yelling. It wasn’t the sounds of fighting. Instead, it sounded triumphant and excited.