Alex Barclay - Killing Ways

He pulled up her hair.

‘Open. Your. Mouth.’

She did as he asked. He shoved the toothbrush under the water, then shoved it into her mouth and started scrubbing hard.

I am gone. I am gone. I am gone.

‘I always had a filthy mouth,’ he said. ‘Always had to scrub at it, always. And if I couldn’t? If I couldn’t get to brush my teeth, if I was in school, or the toothpaste was all gone, and I had no money to buy any more, you know what? I preferred the taste of puke.’

Jesus Christ.

He scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed Ren’s teeth until her gums bled. She was choking on the toothbrush, gagging, and he kept brushing.

‘You know what I did with my few cents?’ he said. ‘When all the other kids were buying candy? I was buying toothpaste.’

Ren coughed, over and over, until eventually he stopped. He shoved her head under the cold tap, and the water poured over her mouth, and she sucked it in, and it burned like acid, and she spat it out, and he pulled her head up again. Her gums were throbbing, her scalp on fire.

He threw her down on the bench by the wall, where she sat slumped back.

And then something happened that she could never have imagined. Duke Rawlins dissolved into tears.

‘Did I stand a chance?’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘Did I? Did I? If you have a mother as fucked up as mine and a father who’s what — a whore-fucking vanishing act? What kind of blood’s going to be running through your veins? How did I stand a chance?’

‘You didn’t,’ said Ren. ‘You really didn’t.’

‘Do you know my mother allowed men into my bedroom?’ said Duke. ‘Knocked on their behalf — a weak and shameful, pussy’s knock. Knocking! As if there was an option! There was no safe place for me. Like every other kid, I’d make those homemade signs saying KEEP OUT! and DANGER DO NOT ENTER!’

‘What your mother did to you was—’ sick, unconscionable...

‘Do you know...’ he roared over her.

‘I’m sorry...’

His voice returned to normal. ‘... that my mother allowed groups of men to take me away to their cabins in the woods? They’d tell their wives or whoever the hell they had back home that they were going hunting. And they were hunting me. Through the woods. And I had to show up in school Monday like nothing had happened, like no one had handed me over to a pack of wild animals Friday night for a gram of coke.’ He stuck his neck forward, opened his eyes wide, like a threat, like a challenge. ‘’Course, it didn’t matter who caught me — they all got a piece of me in the end.’ He looked at Ren. ‘Thing is — there weren’t really any pieces. Someone like you might think I’m a broken man, but I’m not. You can’t be broken if all of you has been gone since you were about seven years old. That’s the fact of the matter. I didn’t know until I was seven years old that what was happening to me didn’t happen to most other kids.’

Oh. God. This is just so heartbreakingly, terrifyingly, chillingly fucked up. ‘Do you think I trust law enforcement after what a sheriff did to me? Came to me in his pristine uniform, came on me in his pristine uniform. Used his baton. Anything. Everything. No, sir. And he wasn’t the only man in uniform to come to my door. So you can all go fuck yourselves.

‘Bet you had birthday parties and... comfort! Comfort in your life. I had nothing. For the first four years of my life, I could feel : happiness, joy. And after that... I could feel only pain. And after that, nothing until my one friend. I had one friend... that Joe Lucchesi killed! And lied to me about — told me he was cheating with my ex-wife, lying son-of-a-bitch. I almost believed him, but it was just another load that someone expected me to swallow. And it was almost the worst part. Almost worse than him killing Donnie was him trying to shit on Donnie’s memory. Do you know what’s so terrible? If you’re like me, and you know nothing good in your life and you’re numb to all pain, but then something happens that makes you feel good? Or someone comes along that makes you feel good? Well, that’s a fucking miracle! That’s what that is. It’s the most precious thing in the world. And Joe Lucchesi took all that away. And I have made him pay, and I will make him pay some more.’

Shit on the memory of a rapist/murderer?! ‘You and Donnie Riggs killed women together!’ said Ren.

‘Which also makes me feel good!’ said Duke. ‘Don’t you fucking get that by now?’

Jesus. Christ.

‘But it’s not the same without him — it just isn’t,’ said Duke. ‘I fuck up without him, always have. I don’t get the same one hundred per cent joy I did from when he was with me. That was taken from me. The last bit of good.’

He slammed his fist into the mirror, and the phone dropped to the floor. ‘Where the fuck is Joe Lucchesi? Where is he?’

He pulled back, blood streaming down his knuckles.

‘I told you, he’s not in Denver,’ said Ren.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Duke. ‘I don’t believe you.’

She glanced down at the phone, still open on the email from Shaun, and there were just so many names.

Duke bent down, picked it up, held it right up to her face, and scrolled through it. They were numbered.

Her heart lurched.

Sixty-three names.

Duke looked down at Ren. ‘Have you ever met someone like me before?’

Ren shook her head. ‘No.’

‘And what do you make of me?’

Ren looked into his eyes.

I have no words.

‘You know, I wonder if you pity me,’ said Duke. ‘And I can’t say that that’s not what I want, because I think somewhere inside me, there’s a little boy who wants it. He has to still be there, doesn’t he? Because who else can still feel the thrill of seeing a hawk in flight or the smooth surface of a creek waiting to be dived into, or... because it’s not me...’ He looked away. ‘I get different thrills.’ He paused. ‘But maybe it’s not the calm of the creek water, it’s the need to shatter it. It’s the need to break that perfect surface. Maybe that’s what that is.’

What do I make of you? What do I make of you? You make me want to kill every person on earth who has ever harmed a child.

And after what you’ve done, which I have to keep thinking about, after what you’ve done, you make me want to kill you.

He looked at her as if he was reading her mind.

‘Never be too comfortable in your skin,’ he said. ‘Never. Never think you’re better than everyone else, never look at other people and judge. Because, you know the fucking tragedy of humanity? A lot of us give in to the things we hate, don’t we? Dainty did. She was disgusted by our mama... and I watched her become our mama. Dainty might not have been a hooker, but she was a mean, junkie bitch. Wrote a song about mama, ended up making it her own fucking anthem, ended up dancing to it, ended up dying to it. Be careful what you choose to dance to.’

All Ren could think about was Everett.

My darling dancing Everett.

‘Let me help you with this,’ said Ren, ‘with what happened to you.’

He didn’t even look up. ‘You don’t want to help me. Shut the fuck up. You can’t manipulate me. I’m not stupid. I’m here, I’ve got your boss in a cell, your friend chained to a radiator. I told you how you can help me: get Joe Lucchesi here.’

‘I can’t do that,’ said Ren. ‘If I could, I would.’

Her phone beeped again. Another email.

He opened it. He looked alarmed.

Not like the last time — this is different.

What the fuck is going on here?