John Lutz - Urge to Kill

Rhodes resisted asking who was the source of the referral. Hawk almost imperceptibly nodded, as if to say he approved of Rhodes playing his cards close to the vest. It was unsettling.

“You are a hunter, Mr. Rhodes. On various safaris and expeditions, you’ve hunted the most dangerous animals on earth. Now you have the opportunity to hunt something even more dangerous than the tiger, the only animal that doubles back and lies in wait for its stalker. This tiger will be armed as you are-and also hunting you. Your, and his, expertise in the bush will be neutralized by the terrain, so you and your fellow hunter will start even, with identical weapons-small and untraceable twenty-five-caliber handguns. A condition of the hunt is that after you take your prey, you remove his weapon as your trophy and return it to Quest and Quarry, so there’ll be no evidence of our involvement or unconventional business arrangement.”

Rhodes sipped his scotch. “Well, that’s quite a bit to take in.”

Martin Hawk sat patiently and waited. At this point, a few clients had gotten up and walked out. Not that they knew anything they could prove. But their refusal to do business did necessitate changing hotels, being extra careful for a while. Hawk didn’t figure Thomas Rhodes for one of the walkers.

“I’ve been reading the papers,” Rhodes said, “watching the news.”

“Have you now?”

Neither man mentioned the. 25-Caliber Killer.

Rhodes took another sip of the excellent scotch and said, “So far so good. Tell me more.”

“The terrain is Manhattan. You’ll be in separate hotels that you must leave and not return to between nine a.m. and midnight. This is important: within your respective hotels, each of you is out of season and safe.

“Your prey will be a predator like yourself, a tiger who yearns for the ultimate hunting experience and is willing to pay for it. Participants pay a hundred thousand dollars each. When the survivor presents his trophy gun as proof of his opponent’s death, returning it with his own weapon to Quest and Quarry, he receives a full refund plus fifty thousand dollars.”

“The money is inconsequential,” Rhodes said.

“Of course it is. Though not to some of our clients. But it isn’t about the money.”

“No, it isn’t. Not to a certain type of man.” Rhodes gently swirled the rich amber liquid in his glass, his gaze fixed on something outside the high window. Beyond the sun-touched buildings across the street was clear blue sky but for a few streaks of white cloud, like claw marks.

“I want you to think about this carefully, Mr. Rhodes, but I would like your answer before you leave this room. For both of us, I want you to be sure.”

Rhodes finished his scotch and stood up. Being sure was what he was about.

Martin Hawk regarded him with mild curiosity.

“Whom do I kill?” Rhodes asked.

Lavern Neeson made a halfhearted attempt to duck beneath her husband’s slap. The flat of his hand stung her forehead instead of her cheek with a solid whap!

She put her mind, herself, on hold.

Just as well. There wasn’t time to think about defending herself. The second slap was almost instantaneous, to her left cheek and ear, causing a thousand needles of pain, a ringing sound, and the salt taste of blood. The force of the blow whipped her head to the right. Blood escaped her mouth and splattered the dresser mirror. Alongside the blood was her own face staring back at her, a mask of horror that terrified her.

She didn’t even have time to look away. In the mirror she saw Hobbs’s hand clutch a fistful of her blond hair. The horror mask image flashed out of sight as Lavern was slung across the room and onto the bed.

The pillow again!

Bedsprings sang. Hobbs was on top of her, straddling her, pressing one of the pillows-her own-almost flat against her body with one hand. The other hand he balled into a fist, and he began pounding the pillow. Lavern almost cried out with pain, but she knew that would only make it worse. The pillow would prevent bruising while his fists caused agonizing internal injury. Her body, so damaged inside, would appear unmarked.

Not her face, though. Hobbs usually couldn’t resist beginning one of Lavern’s beatings by starting with a slap or two-“to get her attention,” he’d once told her-before concentrating his righteous wrath on her body.

She kept her teeth clenched, her lips clamped, emitting only whimpers, as she heard him breathing harder with each blow. It would stop soon, she was sure. She often counted the blows, and usually somewhere between fifteen and twenty he’d become exhausted in limb or rage and stop pounding the pillow.

Eighteen!

Nineteen!

Finally spent, he gave her a final punch, just below her breasts, and then shifted his weight off her. He’d left her breasts themselves undamaged this time, knowing she was soon due for a mammogram. No point in doing something that might show up on an X-ray and prompt questions.

Lavern felt herself being turned onto her stomach, felt her slacks and panties being wrenched down. Hobbs removed her shoes. Then she heard stitches pop and felt her clothing other than her shirt being worked down over her calves and rigid feet, turning into a tangle and a clump, and yanked away, leaving her terribly exposed and vulnerable. There was a glimpse of something dark, like a great bird soaring across the room, which she knew was her wadded clothing being tossed into a corner.

Hobbs was on her then, lying full length on top of her. His right arm snaked around her neck, yanking her head back. If she tried to scream now he’d tighten his grip so she could only make a harsh rasping sound, like a crow cawing.

Lavern’s mind drew back further away from what was happening, into a quiet dark place of shelter and unknowing. A place of surrender and suspension that prey animals knew so well.

The woman being crushed into the bed felt something cold between her buttocks. Vaginal lubricant, or whatever kind of greasy substance Hobbs happened to come up with. Once it had been cooking oil. Her buttocks separated, and she felt his probing finger, then more fingers.

Wincing silently in pain, the woman understood why Hobbs abused her. In some twisted, debilitating way, while she loathed it, she couldn’t simply walk away from it, couldn’t escape it. The more he abused her, the more she must deserve it, and the more she deserved it, the more he’d abuse her. It was a cycle, like the rest of life. And like the rest of life, it had to be accepted because it simply was. Like the rest of life, it was a trap.

The woman knew that Hobbs was as helpless in the cycle as she was. Knowledge was supposed to be power, she thought. It didn’t work that way for her. Knowledge was only more of a conundrum. As the one who understood, it was her responsibility to stop what was happening, yet she didn’t. She couldn’t. That meant, in an oblique but very real way, that she was the one to blame. The one who deserved to be punished.

Hobbs removed his left hand, and she watched from the corner of her eye as he wiped his greasy fingers on the bed-sheet. Then he used the hand to grip himself. She felt his weight bear down harder on her, felt the pressure that was impossible to resist as he guided himself into her.

Hobbs preferred anal sex. It hurt more.

In the morning he’d assure her that he loved her, and she’d believe him because it was true. She knew it was true.

It had been a long time since a man had professed love for Rosa Pajaro, who was fat, forty, and tired. Lifting the stacks of sheets and pillowcases to the top shelves of the hotel storage closet sent a dull pain along the base of her spine.