Ed Gorman - Cold Blue Midnight

'Yes, and I am, after all, your daughter.'

'I don't appreciate being mocked, either. I'm going to put your father on the line.'

Ultimate threat. At least, when Cini was growing up: I'm going to put your father on the line.

Her father came on the line.

'Is everything all right, honey?'

Oh yes, Daddy, everything's just fine. I had oral sex with a man just so I could get into a commercial, and now I'm starting to pig out again. Everything's just fine. Oh, and I almost forgot: I saw that same man get murdered tonight.

'Everything's fine.'

'I really don't appreciate it when you upset your mother.'

Cini sighed. 'I'm having a hard time right now, Daddy, that's all.'

'Then for God's sake, Cini, when you're having a hard time, why don't you call us and tell us about it?' Pause. 'What're you eating?'

'A Good n' Plenty.'

He inflected it just as her mother had done. 'A Good n' Plenty?'

'A pink one.'

'Honey, Good n' Plentys aren't exactly what Dr Steiner had in mind when he put you on that maintenance diet after your accident.'

'I'm only eating one.'

'Scout's Honor?' God, that was so Daddy, asking Scout's Honor, the way he used to when she was eight.

'Two, then.'

'Two?'

'I've had three, Daddy. But I'm crumpling up the box and throwing the rest away. Can you hear me crumpling the box?' She put the Good n' Plenty box next to the receiver and started twisting and mashing it. 'Can you hear that?'

'I just don't want to see you start overeating again. You were so happy there for such a long time. And you looked so good.'

'I won't start again,' Cini said, feeling sorry for him. That was the weird thing, no matter how hard she tried she couldn't feel sorry for her mother. But Daddy she could feel sorry for all the time. 'I really won't, Daddy.'

'I'm taking you at your word, honey.'

'You should.'

'I want to put your mother on now and I want you to apologize to her.'

'I didn't do anything to apologize for, Daddy.'

But she could picture him. He'd be looking furtively at his wife and smiling, pretending that everything was just fine on the phone, pretending that Cini just couldn't wait to apologize and be all smiles again.

Cini smiled at this sad but endearing image of her father. 'All right, Dad. Put her on.'

She could hear her mother whispering protesting in the background. She didn't want to talk to Cini anymore than Cini wanted to talk to her. Finally, she took the phone. 'You know how it upsets your father when we argue.'

This was about as close as her mother would ever come to apologizing.

'I'm sorry, Mom. I'm just feeling down, I guess.'

'Any reason in particular? Is it Michael?'

'I think Michael and I are all through.'

'He didn't look like a very serious young man to me, Cini.'

'I know, Mom. You told me that many times.'

'And whatever's making you depressed, Good n' Plentys aren't going to help.'

'I know that, Mom.' She decided to tell a whopping big lie, one that would make them all feel better and get her mother off the phone very quickly. 'This talk has helped a lot.'

'It has?'

'Uh-huh.'

'So you're really going to throw those Good n' Plentys away?'

'Uh-huh.'

'And get back on that diet Dr Steiner put you on?'

'Uh-huh.'

'That makes me feel much better, Cini.'

'Me, too, Mom.'

'Your father and I love you very much.'

'I know you do.'

'Now you sleep tight.'

'And don't let the bedbugs bite. That's what you always used to say.'

'G'night, Cini.'

'G'night, Mom.'

Soon as she'd hung up the phone, Cini tore into the Good n' Plentys. Then she started on a pint of the Haagen Daz strawberry ice cream. She had a long way to go before she finished eating everything she'd bought earlier tonight.

The drill is the most frightening of all his surgical instruments in appearance. Difficult to imagine how the human body, so delicate and vulnerable, could possibly withstand an assault with a 3/8?? Skil model running 110 volts with a bit that looks capable of ripping through steel.

The surgeon wraps his hand around the drill handle.

The drill is his favorite of all instruments.

And so he begins.

Adam's new friend had gone to sleep in the bedroom. Adam came walking out, buttoning his shirt, ready to leave.

He looked out the window to the phone booth on the street below. He'd call Rick Corday from there. Rick had been pretty upset about finding that note from Adam's one-night stand in Miami. Rick was such a child. He could never seem to grasp that loving somebody was very different from merely sleeping with someone.

As he found his trench coat and let himself out the door, Adam also started wondering how things had gone tonight with Eric Brooks. Not exactly a good time for Rick to be upset, his mind wandering, or his need for violence to surge again.

Much as Adam felt superior to Ricksmarter, better organized, far more focused, certainly more mature and, let's face it, much better-lookinghis mate had one area of clear superiority: he loved violence far more than Adam ever would.

Adam and Rick had met in a gay bar in Chicago and then started hanging out. This was four years ago. One night several weeks into their relationship, Rick saw a young woman walking alone on a dark street and he said, 'You ever thought of killing anybody?'

'Sure. Who hasn't?'

'What if I told you that I've already killed somebody. In fact, several somebodies.'

Adam, who was driving, smiled. 'What if I told you that I'd killed a few people, too?'

'Really?'

'Really.'

'God, that's fantastic.'

Adam, ever the cynic, said, 'What if one of us is lying?'

'Huh?'

'What if I'm telling you the truth but you're lying?'

'That I didn't really kill people before?'

'Right. Then I'd be confessing to murderand you'd just be lying.'

'Sort of like Strangers on a Train.' Rick smiled. 'But I really have killed somebody.'

'So have I,' Adam said. 'But how're we going to prove it?'

'Two blocks back.'

'What?'

'That chick. Two blocks back. That's how we're going to prove it.'

'What about her?'

'Let's go back and get her.'

'You're serious?' Adam said.

'Very serious.'

'Then what?'

'Take her out to the country and kill her.'

'Just like that?'

'Just like that. We're supposed to be killers, remember?'

A few minutes later they came around the corner of the block where the woman was walking.

'Go past her,' Rick instructed. 'Drive down to the next block. There's an alley there.'

'Good idea.'

Adam drove down to the alley, turned in and then parked the car in deep shadow. He killed the lights but left the motor running.

They got out of the car. it was misting. The alley smelled sweet-and-sour of garbage. A tomcat came down it carrying a mouse in his mouth.

They walked up to the edge of the alley. Pressed themselves flat against the wall. Listened hard for footsteps.

Nothingnothingthen

Footsteps.

High heels.

Coming fast.

Coming right toward them.

Adam thought how crazy it was. He was really going to kill somebody again. The ultimate risk…

'Let her get past us a couple of feet,' Rick hissed.

Adam nodded, his heart slamming against his chest. God, if something went wrong

But it went just fine.

When she got three feet past them, Rick virtually leapt on her, clamping his hand over her mouth and dragging her back into the alley.

As soon as they were in shadow, Adam grabbed the woman's feet. They carried her quickly to the car.

Adam set her feet down and popped open the trunk.

Rick picked up a loose brick from the alley and smashed it against the side of the woman's head. She went limp.