J. Gonzalez - Survivor

We N be fine, he thought as he checked the lock on the front door and retreated to the bedroom to resume pack ing. By eleven we'll be on a plane to Vegas and Billy will have somebody there to meet us and take us to wherever it is we're staying. Even if somebody finds something out through Danielle-which is impossible-they'll have a hard time finding us in Las Vegas. Billy is probably going to have us in some safe house or a hotel under assumed names or something. We'll be safe.

Brad finished packing and waited for Billy and Lisa to come home.

"So talk to me."

"Al's body'll never be found." Tim Murray grinned. The minute he entered Rick Shectman's office, he had settled his bulk down on the lime-green chair in front of the cluttered desk. He had only been awake for two hours. Last night had been an intense whirlwind. "Remember the movie Pulp Fiction?"

Rick Shectman looked indifferent. "Vaguely."

"A buddy of mine owns a scrap-metal yard in San Fernando," Tim continued. "I gotta key to his place. It's way the hell out in the middle of an industrial center. Me and Animal went out there around four in the morning. The best thing about it is that his shop is right next to an airport." Tim laughed. "There ain't no houses or anything anywhere near this place. And he runs so much shit through that yard, junked cars and shit. In fact, I've done some work for him… set him up with a few films. Anyway, he'd made it clear to me a while back that if I ever needed his services for disposal I could count on him. I called, and he agreed to meet us there bright and early at six-thirty when he opened up shop. Animal and I got there early and I found a vehicle on the premises that was set for destruction. Animal cut Al up… you know… dismembered him and shit before we threw the pieces in the trunk of the car." Tim tried to hide his revulsion as he re membered what else Animal had done before wrapping Al's headless torso in a dirty blanket and placing it in the trunk. He'd seen Animal cut holes in people's sides before and fuck them during torture sessions, but he'd never thought of a neck stump as a sexual orifice before last night. Animal's excuse had been Might as well fuck another hole before we crush him up like a pancake. Besides, who'll know? Strangely enough, Tim hadn't gotten sick watching Animal stick his dick down the gray tubing of esophagus that was sticking out of Al's bloody neck stump and pumped away. He had gotten sick, however, thinking about what Animal had done to that infant; those images came to him unbidden now, and they had come last night while watching Animal violate Al's headless corpse. It had taken all of his willpower to not throw up. "Anyway," Tim continued, looking at Rick, trying to fight back the images, "we just cut him up and put him in the trunk and waited for Mark" to show up. When he came in he didn't ask questions, just moved the car in for destruction with a bunch of others and we watched as he and the first-shift supervisor mashed those cars to little chunks of metal. The car we put him in wound up being mashed with four other cars into a metal cube about four by four feet!

"I surely hope no offending bodily fluids leaked out of this metal cube," Rick said.

"Nah!" Tim said. "Whatever leaked out looked like oil. And Mark, he don't give a shit. He owed me a favor, and something tells me he's done this kind of thing before."

Rick nodded. "What about Al's vehicle?"

"We left it in East LA," Tim said, chuckling. "Left the keys in the ignition. AI'd shit if he found out his precious Pbrsche is probably cut up into spare parts now by a bunch of wetbacks."

"Good.", Rick leaned back in his chair and appeared to be thinking. He stared at the ceiling. Tim tried to relax but couldn't. It was hard to relax in Rick Shectman's presence. After all, that could have been me last night, he thought. It could be me sooner than Id like if f fuck up again.

This train of thought was one of the reasons why he was getting out. After this next job, he was over the hills and far away. The incident at the cabin had been the last straw. It wasn't so much his own fuckup of not putting his foot down when Al had told him Sam changed his mind about the Miller bitch Sam had been pretty explicit when he gave Tim the job, and he realized now he shouldn't have let Al manipulate him. He should have questioned Al more thoroughly. Al should have just fucking done his job, no questions asked, but he was a greedy fuck. No, it wasn't that narrow escape. The real reason was that ever since watching what Animal had done to that baby, and Al and Rick's indifference to it all, he realized that he wasn't wired like they were. Those guys were fucking ruthless; they didn't give a shit about anything. Tim wasn't like them; sure, he didn't care if some homeless junkie fell under Animal's knife-they were going to die anyway from alcoholism or AIDS or pneumonia, right? But that last job had affected Tim in ways he never thought it would. At first he'd been okay with it; it had been simple. Find this Lisa Miller bitch, separate her from hubby, and get her to the cabin and have her all nice and pretty for Al and Animal. No problem. But then Debbie Martinez had come along and spoiled things, and then Lisa had manipulated them by dangling that homeless chick and the baby in front of them. The way Animal's eyes had lit up at the mention of the baby, the way Al had nonchalantly agreed… it had bothered Tim in a way none of the snuff jobs had bothered him before. And Rick… well, that bastard would have his own children slaughtered for money. Tim knew the douche bag forced his son into some of the child pornography he churned out. Shit, the fucker had tied the kid down and had him sodomized by a Doberman for a bestiality film. Kid was ten years old and was a fucking loony now because of all the shit he'd been through. The woman Rick had him with had been a crack head and was probably dead, and Rick's current girlfriend, who normally took care of the kid during the day, didn't give a shit about him. She spent most of her time drinking in bars and fucking anything with a dick. Tim wouldn't be surprised in a few years if Rick used the kid in a snuff film after the poor little bastard started spiraling into drugs and alcohol. It would be just like him.

That's why it was getting to him. Previously, Tim Murray hadn't given a shit about the people they'd used. The difference was that they'd been adults; well, most of them had been. Those who hadn't had been confused, scared, fucked-up runaways who were on their way down. That's why Tim always chose them-they were going to die anyway or wind up as some dirty, shit-smelling, pee-stainedclothes-wearing, rotten-teeth, motherfucking hom~!Iess sad excuse for a human being that you always saw nowadays cluttering up big cities. Who the fuck needed them? He'd never felt bad about using people like that, procuring the dregs of society for the torture and snuff films he, Al, and Rick produced.

But this last one… a fucking baby! That was just too much. The homeless chick they'd picked up… yeah, he could see that, although as time had gone by he had come to disagree with it. Tim Murray had done some thinking about what had gone down the past two weeks, and if he'd had to do it over again he would have shut that Lisa Miller bitch up with a good blow to the head, then waited till she woke up and let Animal have her. He wouldn't have let her whine and plead the way she had, wouldn't have let her manipulate them into turning Al and Animal's attentions on the homeless chick and her kid. That homeless chick wasn't like the others he'd gotten.

Homelessness was just a temporary displacement for her; he could tell the way she'd fought them in the van on the drive to the mountains, the way she'd been dressed when they'd picked her up, the way she'd pleaded for them not to hurt her baby. She wasn't a fuckup, her mind wasn't blasted by drugs. She'd been coherent, sane, and totally aware of what was going on.