Chuck Hustmyre - A Killer Like Me

He ignored her.

“You could drive me up there and be back in a few hours,” she said.

“You know I can’t leave the city during a hurricane. Two hundred policemen got fired for doing that when Katrina hit.”

“Theresa would drive me to Baton Rouge.”

There it was, Theresa the saint. If only she lived here everything would be just fucking peachy.

“If Theresa lived here she could drive you because she would be evacuating with you,” Murphy said. “She wouldn’t have to stay.”

“Listen here, Mr. Big Shot, don’t try to act like you’re the only one with an important job. Your sister is a nurse and she takes care of sick infants. Of course she would stay here with her patients if a storm came, but she would at least drive her mother to Baton Rouge and make sure she was safe before worrying about her job. Some things are more important than work.”

This from a woman who hadn’t worked since her part-time job at a snowball stand in high school.

Murphy felt the tiny balcony closing in on him. “Well, you know what, Mother, it doesn’t really matter what Theresa would do, because she doesn’t live here. She lives in northern California, about as far away from New Orleans as she can be and still be in the United States.”

His mother stared at the ice in her empty glass.

“And you know what else, she lives there by choice. She moved away and I stayed. She’s not here to take care of you. I am. So if I were you…” Murphy’s guilt was already kicking in. Lay off your sister, he told himself. She’s got enough of her own problems.

His mother stared up at him with her venom- and vodka-filled eyes. “If you were me, you’d do what? Say it!”

Murphy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked down at the blue-haired nag who was his mother. “If I were you I’d shut the fuck up and appreciate the fact that at least one of your kids is still around to take care of you.”

Her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. For a moment she was speechless. Finally, she found her voice. “How dare you talk to your mother like that, especially about your sister. If your father were here, God rest his-”

“Give it a break, Mother. Your bitching is what put Dad in his grave.” Murphy yanked open the sliding glass door. “If you don’t like the arrangements I’ve made for you, make your own. You’re not helpless.”

He stepped into the icy blast from the apartment, then turned around, his hands braced across the open doorway. “Better yet, call Theresa. Ask her to send you a plane ticket to San Francisco. You can stay with her and Michael until the end of hurricane season.”

He threw the door closed, turned around, and stormed out of her apartment.

Thursday, August 2, 11:15 PM

The club is crowded.

The sound system shakes the air with high-energy techno music while a 1970s-era disco ball twirls beneath the ceiling, sending a rainbow of refracted light racing across the walls and dance floor.

The killer pushes through the throng of jumping, sweating bodies as he walks along the edge of the dance floor. Most of the hundred or so patrons are men. The few women in the bar look more masculine than the men, short-haired dykes flashing body piercings and tattoos.

The Red Door Lounge is a sodomite club that takes up the top floor of an old three-story brick building on the periphery of the French Quarter, at the corner of Chartres and Iberville.

A stream of sweat runs down the killer’s back as he walks toward the bar. He believes the club is kept warm on purpose, to add to the sexual tension that pulses through the crowd. He carries a canvas messenger bag slung over his shoulder. Inside are the simple tools he will need to complete his work.

The killer elbows his way to the bar and orders a Corona with lime. The bartender, a handsome young man with dark eyes and thick coal black hair, says something as he sets the beer down, but the killer can’t hear him over the din. He asks the bartender to repeat himself.

The dark-haired man holds up five fingers and blows him a kiss. The killer tosses a five-dollar bill onto the black lacquered bar. The bartender glances down at the bill, then shakes his head as he picks up the money.

Even if I gave you a tip, you wouldn’t get to spend it.

The killer turns around and leans against the bar. On the other side of the dance floor are a pair of side-by-side unisex bathrooms.

Only moments before, when he stepped into the bathroom on the right, he found two men in the same stall, pants around their ankles, one behind the other, grunting like pigs. He backed out quickly and peeked into the bathroom on the left. There was a line for the toilets but nothing vulgar going on. He urinated behind a locked stall door and got out as fast as he could.

Just to the right of the bathrooms is a short, narrow hallway, barely more than shoulder width, painted entirely black. At the end of the hallway is a single door, the only entrance to the Red Door Lounge. The inside surface of the door has been painted black to match the hallway, but the door’s outer surface is painted bright red. He assumes it is from that door that the club took its name.

The door opens onto a small wooden landing that stands at the top of a long, narrow flight of wooden stairs. The stairs are pressed between two walls, a wood-framed drywall on one side, and a brick firewall on the other side that separates this building from the building next door. Midway down the stairs is another wooden landing and a door that leads into the second floor. Past that landing, the stairs descend to a metal security door that opens onto Iberville Street.

The killer takes a sip of beer. The lime isn’t far enough down the neck of the bottle and his lips come away spackled with pulp.

To the left of the bathrooms is a steel door with a horizontal crash bar in the center and a lighted red sign above it that reads FIRE EXIT.

The killer has surveyed the fire escape from the outside. The steel door opens onto a small metal platform attached to the back of the building. A metal stairway leads down to an identical platform on the second floor. From there, a utility ladder embedded into the brick wall drops to the alley that runs behind the building.

As the killer stares out over the dance floor, he takes a long pull from his beer. In the heat of the club, the cool liquid feels refreshing as it slides down his throat. His tongue pushes the lime pulp around inside his mouth.

Beside the dance floor is a lounge area. Three sofas sit at right angles to each other, forming three-quarters of a square. In front of each sofa is a low-slung coffee table spread with glamour and fashion magazines. Next to the sofas are four short black wooden tables, each surrounded by a trio of matching chairs.

Every seat is taken. At the end of one sofa, two men, both dressed in tight-fitting black shirts and pants, are tonguing each other, one riding the other’s lap. The killer stares at the couple.

He finds their erotic public display… disgusting.

The killer’s right hand rests on the bar, his fingers wrapped around his beer bottle. He feels someone touch his hand. He looks over. A man, fifty-something at least, stands beside him, his left hand resting on the killer’s right.

“I’m Paul,” the man shouts over the music. A thin white line encircles the third finger of his left hand. A married man out for a homosexual fling. A walk on the wild side.

The killer pulls his hand away.

The man reaches over with his right hand. Between his fingers he holds an open matchbook. Scribbled on the inside cover is the name Paul and a telephone number.

The killer lets go of his beer and takes the matchbook. He flips the lid closed. The cover is black with red letters. It reads, RED DOOR LOUNGE* 604 IBERVILLE ST.* NEW ORLEANS.