Alex Barclay - Killing Ways

‘Yes,’ said Ren.

‘Then that alters the dynamic,’ said Lone.

‘Not really,’ said Ren.

‘Well, do you still respect him?’

Hmm. ‘Yes,’ said Ren, ‘totally.’

‘Do you still value his judgment?’ said Lone.

Ooh. ‘Yes.’ But, seriously, what the fuck was he thinking?

‘Do you still feel he has your back?’ said Lone.

‘ I guess I feel a little thrown to the wolves.’

‘Is it affecting how you’re interacting with him?’ said Lone.

‘Yes, actually,’ said Ren. ‘And him me... and to cap it all off, if I’m perfectly honest, part of me wishes that, if he was going to cheat, that I could have been someone he might have slept with.’

Lone nodded.

‘I know that sounds screwed up,’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Lone. ‘It does sound unwise, though. Has he always been faithful to his wife?’

‘Well, I thought so.’

‘And is that what stopped you ever pursuing anything with him?’ said Lone.

‘Well...’ He’s my boss. ‘Maybe if he were single, I would have gone there in the past.’

‘Do you feel now that “all bets are off”?’ said Lone.

‘I shouldn’t,’ said Ren. ‘But part of me does.’

‘And what about Ben?’ said Lone.

Ren let out a breath. ‘I don’t know. I’m feeling kind of... bored.’

‘Be wary of bored,’ said Lone. ‘Boredom likes to make mischief.’

‘Boredom is my kryptonite.’

He nodded. ‘Yes. You’ve just described an unhealthy environment for you, Ren. Boredom, work drama, increased workload, sleep deprivation, sexual attraction, and the perceived availability of the focus of that attraction.’

Jesus Christ, is anyone not fucking boring around here?

And are you studying me a little too closely, Batman?

Ren went home that night and put together a hot meal of cannellini beans, spinach, lemon juice, the remaining shard of parmesan, and black pepper. She ate in front of the television, with a glass of red wine, and a magazine open on the sofa beside her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a big red blast of BREAKING NEWS.

Oh. Shit.

She grabbed the remote control and turned it up.

‘ Unconfirmed reports have come in that authorities are on the hunt for a violent serial killer in Denver...’

‘Shiiiit!’ said Ren. ‘And unconfirmed my ass!’

The frowning reporter stared straight ahead, unflinching, earnest: ‘ The FBI has joined forces with Denver PD, the Douglas County and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Offices in piecing together events surrounding the murder of Gia Larosa whose body was found at Lookout Mountain in June; Stephanie Wingerter, who was found in July at Devil’s Head in Douglas County; kindergarten teacher, Hope Coulson, discovered last month at the Fyron Industries landfill site in Denver; and the latest victim — mother-of-one, Donna Darisse, who was last seen on Colfax Avenue, before her body was discovered off Highway 72 in Jefferson County. It is believed that some or all of the victims were brutally raped before they were murdered. Authorities have no leads. ’

‘Noooooo!’ shouted Ren, grabbing a cushion to throw at the television, knocking her wine glass from the coffee table onto the floor. ‘Nooooo!’

Carrie Longman sat on a high stool at Manny’s Bar on 38th and Walnut. It was Open Mic night and a tiny girl with a big guitar was filling the gloomy stage. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, a delicate thing with a cute black cowboy hat on, and her dirty blonde hair falling across one eye. There was no doubt she had once been beautiful, but was now damaged, possibly by drugs, or mental illness, Carrie guessed. This was the type of girl who rang alarm bells for Carrie Longman, the type she rescued every week. Now, she felt permanently on high alert: there was a serial killer out there. One month had gone by since the prostitute, Donna Darisse, had been found. She thought of her face, she thought of the others who had gone before her. And that girl on stage, looked, to Carrie Longman, exactly like the type this psycho was going for.

‘You’re not at work now, Carrie,’ she said to herself. ‘Your only task tonight is to get very, very drunk.’

A spotlight came on, and the singer, her rough face now clearer, leaned into the microphone.

‘I’m Dainty,’ she said in a smoky Texan drawl, through barely parted bow-shaped lips. With her skinny limbs, and her body curled in on itself, dainty she was.

She shifted the guitar on her lap. ‘This song is about my father...’ she said.

A few people in the scant crowd said ‘aw’.

‘... and how he abandoned me and my sister,’ said Dainty.

The ‘aws’ turned to ‘ooohs’.

‘Even though,’ said Dainty, ‘he was right at home with us, right before our eyes. It’s about how my mama broke his heart, and he broke ours, me and my sister.’ She cleared her throat, shifted on the stool, adjusted the guitar, looked around the room, nodded to what looked like no one in particular. ‘So this is called “Croon On, Motherfucker, Croon On”.’ Dainty smiled a closed-mouth smile, incongruous in her little heart-shaped face, with its slightly jutting, pointed chin.

Every fiber in Carrie Longman’s being wanted to storm that stage and rescue this Dainty stranger. Instead, Carrie Longman spoke to herself sternly, inside her head, as she often did: ‘Carrie, you’re drunk, your boyfriend’s just dumped you, the shelter is running out of money fast... you cannot rescue yourself and you sure as hell cannot rescue this one.’

Dainty’s mouth curled up at one side before she opened it to sing. The place went as quiet as the grave. Her voice was like that of a chain-smoking woman twice her age with the sorrows of a thousand trailer parks weighing down her soul. It was ragged and beautiful, and the crowd was enthralled.

Carrie Longman took out a pen, grabbed a napkin, and started writing.

At the end of the gig, Carrie Longman headed straight for the ladies’ room. She swayed back and forth, bumping against the walls in the hallway. Crazed flies were charging the electric fly-killer, buzzing and dying.

In the ladies’ room, the floor was littered with balled-up paper towels, the bins were overflowing, there was no soap. There was another electric fly-killer.

‘You cannot rescue the flies, Carrie,’ she said to herself. She smiled into the mirror. ‘ Drrrunkard! But not drunk enough to use these heinous facilities. Hell, no!’

She left almost as soon as she walked in. People pushed her away as she knocked against them on her way past. She thought of her ex, pushing her away. Six years together, four hours apart. ‘Croon On You Too, Motherfucker!’ said Carrie, this time, out loud. She started to cry.

She stumbled out into the parking lot. She stopped dead — she hadn’t driven here. She had left her car somewhere off 16th Street. She had walked away from the bar where her boyfriend had left her. Now here she was: drunk, carless, crying again, and three miles from home.

‘You are a big loser, Carrie. America’s Top Loser. Biggest Model. Whatever...’

She swayed back and forth, rummaging for her keys in her bag.

He was sitting in the dark in the borrowed truck, watching her.

You came into this bar crying, you walked out of it crying — who am I to turn off those tears? And you can’t find your keys, you dumb bitch, ’cos I got them right here from when you dropped them on the floor by the bar when you pulled that sweater out of your purse. Isn’t a place like this a little empty, a little off the beaten track for a girl who wears pretty sweaters with pearl buttons? But you are wasted. You don’t know how wasted you are. I bet I could knock you down with two fingers, even though you’re a big fat bitch, loose and lonely by the looks of you. You’re not my type, now, are you? That’s the problem with the news reporters, fixing their lipstick one minute, talking about someone like me the next. You can send the skinny blondes scuttling under a rock, all you like, you painted bitches, but I’m going to stomp on a big fat brunette instead.