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  GUILTY

  By Lee Goldberg

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1985, 2009 by Lewis Perdue and Lee Goldberg

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Originally entitled .357 Vigilante #4: Killstorm and written under the pen name "Ian Ludlow."

  Afterword: "Hot Sex, Gory Violence: How One Student Earns Course Credit and Pays Tuition," Copyright © 1984, 2009 by Lee Goldberg. All rights reserved

  Special thanks to Jeroen Ten Berge for the cover art and Eileen Chetti for proofreading.

  PROLOGUE

  Los Angeles

  Sunday, June 9, 2:45 p.m.

  The pigeon did a Charlie Chaplin waddle and dropped dead on the man's shiny black shoe. The man kicked it away, startling a few of the other birds around his park bench into flight.

  He reached into the pocket of his Brooks Brothers jacket for another Alka-Seltzer, tore open the wrapper, and began breaking the tablet into tiny pieces. A lazy Sunday in the park spent feeding the birds. He had forgotten how nice it could feel.

  He tossed the Alka-Seltzer bits to the birds and dipped into his pocket for another tablet. Rays of sunlight filtered through the smog and ricocheted off the man-made lake into the reflective lenses of his aviators. Sweat glistened on his blunt, wide brow, and his skin itched under his gray pin-striped suit. He examined the palms of his hands, powdered white from the antacid, and ignored the two birds rattling on the pavement. He didn't ignore the bag lady.

  The old woman was approaching from his left and pushing a rusted grocery cart that looked like it had been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. The wire cage was bulging with brown bags overstuffed with newspapers, ratty clothes, and crushed aluminum cans. The woman was hunched over the cart, her leathery face staring into the bags as if she saw something there besides trash.

  The woman parked her cart against the bench and sat down heavily beside the man. She smelled like a bucket full of old rainwater, and her face looked like a rotting apple.

  "What are you up to?" the woman asked in a ragged breath nearly drowned by mucus.

  "Killing time."

  "That's my job." Her voice was smooth and soft this time, betraying youth. The man broke up another Alka-Seltzer in his hands and threw it to the tottering birds mirrored in his sunglasses.

  "We have a job for you." He clapped his hands against each other to wipe off the powder and removed a manila envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. He handed it to her without turning to look at her.

  The woman set the envelope on her lap and opened the flap. Inside, she found six sheets of typewritten paper and six black-and-white photographs. A bird fluttered in the air, screeched, and dropped onto the bench between them.

  She regarded the dead bird with a sideways glance and saw the Alka-Seltzer wrappers around the man's feet.

  "Pigeons don't belch," the man said, watching the birds peck at the Alka-Seltzer bits. "Their stomachs just blow up."

  She carefully slid the papers back into the envelope.

  "My fee is a million dollars," she said.

  "We've already wired the funds into the designated Swiss account."

  "If you put a spring inside a piece of meat and toss it to a dog, he'll swallow it whole," she remarked casually, "and then scratch his stomach until he tears himself open."

  The man smiled appreciatively.

  She carefully sealed the clasp and slid the envelope between the slats of her shopping cart. "Why do you want me to kill a bunch of ordinary people?"

  He rose to his feet with his back to her. "Brett Macklin is no ordinary man." He kicked a convulsing bird from his path and walked away.

  # # # # # #

  Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

  Monday, June 10, 3:37 p.m.

  Mort Suderson would drink motor oil as long as they served it to him in a coconut. It was exotic touches like using coconut shells for glasses that made Puerto Vallarta so wonderful to him. He dog-paddled away from the hotel's palapa-covered poolside bar and merrily sipped away, oblivious to the chlorinated water spilling into his piña colada.

  Swimming to the tile-rimmed island in the center of the pool, he paused, setting his coconut on the grass and squinting through the palm fronds at the emerald waters of Banderas Bay. Sure beats the hell out of LA, he thought, praising himself once again for coming down here to recuperate from his tongue surgery.

  A white ferry, teeming with American tourists, chortled south towards the thatched huts and waterfalls on Yelapa, where yesterday a woman with sandbag knockers tried to sell Mort an iguana. He didn't buy the lizard, but he did eat five small tacos and had been backfiring more than his '76 Chevette ever since.

  He looked away from the ferry, adjusted his Speedo briefs, and watched the waves steep and crash on the pebbled sands of Las Glorias Beach. The warm water crawled up the beach to a pile of horse droppings being sniffed by one of the mangy, wild dogs that had chased Mort off the beach that morning.

  Mort took a sip of his piña colada and let his legs float up behind him. While his eyes panned over the women basking in chaise lounges around the pool, he kicked at the surface of the water, covering up the echoes of yesterday's tacos that emanated from his body.

  His steady, traveling gaze moved unnoticed over oil-slicked backs and delicate buttocks, across sweat-dampened breasts and parched lips.

  And then he felt her eyes on his back. Mort might have shrugged off the sensation, or reached back to swat off a nonexistent insect, or just ignored it. But he didn't.

  He turned slowly, scanning the faces, and came to a jolting halt at a pair of radiant blue eyes—eyes that were staring straight into his. She was set against the bleached white of the Holiday Inn and seemed to move towards him, though she wasn't moving at all. She wore a black string bikini and sat on the pool's edge directly across from him, dangling her long, golden legs lazily in the water.

  Grinning sheepishly, Mort picked up his drink and walked through the water towards her, contracting his pelvic muscles to jerk up his penis a little bit and give her something to dream about.

  She watched him expressionlessly as he approached. She was dark, a Mediterranean, with cool eyes and sharp features, the kind of woman that used to scare him. They scared him because he wanted them but didn't think he could satisfy them.

  That was before his operation. Now his tongue could work miracles. Now that woman could be his. He smoothed the beads of water off his chest to draw her eyes to it.

  "Hey, yo hablo English?" Mort asked, doing his best Ricardo Montalban.

  She regarded him for a long moment, during which his smile never wavered.

  "Yes," she said wearily, closing her eyes and tilting her head back into the sun. Mort's gaze plummeted into her deep cleavage. He didn't need his pelvic contractions anymore.

  "So you down here on your own?" Mort asked.

  She sighed impatiently, unmoving. "Yes."

  Many men would have quit there. Not him. Mort pulled himself up onto the deck beside her. "Ever seen Kramer vs. Kramer?"

  "Yes," she said, raising her head and looking out at the bay.

  "Most men are too busy being macho to admit this," he said, "but I cried during that movie—"

  She stood up, the fluid motion interrupting him, and glided away with her back to him. Mort's open mouth narrowed into an angry grimace.

  Frigid bitch, Mort thought. She could have known absolute ecstasy.

  But he didn't turn away. He didn't slide back into the pool and paddle back to the bar.
He was still watching her when she stopped, cast an aloof glance at him over her shoulder, and said, "Aren't you coming?"

  Un-fucking-believable, absolutely un-fucking-believable.

  It was every sex fantasy Mort ever had coming true—he sees a beautiful woman, their eyes meet, a few words are spoken, and then wham, they're in the sack, fucking each other silly.

  Mort Suderson rested on his back, soaking the sheets with his sweat. She straddled him, moving herself gently up and down, her hands clutching his legs. He squeezed her breasts again to prove to himself that this was honest-to-God happening, that Mort Suderson was screwing perfection.

  He always knew his life would be this way. He had faith. He kept believing. He didn't let the premature-ejaculation stuff or the impotence business get him down. No, he kept working at it. He got the right threads. He exuded the right attitude. He got the membrane snipped under his tongue.

  He was granite, she was beautiful, and this was nearly heaven. They were burning the fucking sheets.

  And now he would reward her.

  "Lie down, baby," he moaned. "I'm gonna send you into outer space."

  She lifted herself off of him and rolled onto her back beside him. Mort kissed her and let his hand glide between her warm, wet legs.

  He stuck out his tongue at her. "See this?" he slobbered, pointing at his tongue with his index finger.

  "Prepare yourself for the end-all, baby."

  Mort pulled her by the hips to the end of the bed and stood on the floor, staring down at her. God, she was beautiful. She was smiling, but in a funny kind of way, like someone was whispering a joke to her that he couldn't hear. It didn't matter. He knew what her body was saying. Her eyes were closed, her stomach flat, her breasts firm and damp. He dropped to his knees, grinned, and spread her legs apart. He leaned forward and began probing and teasing her with his tongue.

  Her body stiffened at his touch and she moaned, her legs closing around him. He took it as encouragement, flicking his tongue in rapid, light strokes. She rose into a sitting position, rested her hands on his head, and swayed pleasurably from side to side.

  Her legs squeezed tighter, pinning his head in place. He sucked with increased ardor. Her fingers dug into his scalp. Mort put his hands on her thighs and gently tried to push them apart. He couldn't get air. She closed her legs even tighter, her breathing becoming ragged, a smile etching a crooked path across her face.

  Mort squirmed, trying to stand, pounding his fists into her legs. She shuddered with ecstasy, gritted her teeth against the unbearable, joyous sensations, and jerked her pelvis sharply to one side. The snap of Mort's neck coincided with the thunderbolt of pleasure that left her trembling.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Los Angeles

  Tuesday, June 11, 1:38 a.m.

  The day had been the shits for Brett Macklin. His checks were bouncing at the bank and bills were clogging his mailbox. All the hours he had spent going through the books at his Blue Yonder Airways, his charter airline, didn't make things any better. In fact, they were getting steadily worse.

  He was already a half hour late to pick up Jessica Mordente at the Los Angeles Times when his '59 Cadillac ran out of gas. Now, with $20 in his wallet, his savings account tapped, his girlfriend probably pissed, and night giving way to morning, he was stuck in the middle of downtown LA pumping his own goddamn gas.

  The Chevron station was sandwiched between the dark, iron skeleton of an emerging high-rise and the Harbor Freeway off-ramp. The asphalt around the station was cracked and rippled, as if buckled by the tight squeeze. The streetlamp buzzed and flickered, the light being smothered by the surrounding darkness.

  The porcine gas station attendant who was supposed to be washing Macklin's windshield was, instead, smearing the glass with the greasy shirt stretched over his stomach and ashes from his cigar. Macklin saw the name "Earl" embroidered on the man's bulging shirt pocket, smudged by oily fingerprints.

  Macklin jerked his thumb at the big "NO SMOKING" sign over the gas pumps behind him. "Hey, Earl, can't you read your own sign? It's dangerous to smoke here."

  Earl shrugged. "I like to live on the edge."

  A white VW rabbit sputtered up on the other side of the pump island. A bespectacled teenager in corduroy shorts and a rugby shirt burst out of the car and dashed past them to the men's room.

  Earl yelled, "The crapper's for customers only." But, it was wasted breath; the kid had already disappeared inside, leaving his VW shivering and choking.

  "Shit, every whore and bum in town thinks that's their private crapper." Earl ambled over to Macklin and let his hand glide over the car, up over the teardrop-shaped cab and down along the sharp, arching fins. "Piss 'n' run, piss 'n' run. I gotta sell rubbers and dildos in there just so I can afford to clean up the place, you know?"

  Earl leaned against the gas pump to Macklin's left, flicked his cigar, and stuck it between his plump lips. "Nice night, huh?"

  "Oh yeah," Macklin groaned. "Nice night." He looked past Earl. The night trembled, like a movie when the film fails to catch on the projector's sprockets. The picture wasn't quite right. Macklin narrowed his eyes. A warm breeze blew scraps of paper across the deserted street like tumbleweeds. Then he saw the three blacks, illuminated in the lightning flash of the faulty streetlamp. One carried a bat, the others swung chains.

  "A real nice night," Macklin muttered wearily.

  He slowly turned to his right. Four more men peeled off from the darkness carrying crowbars and chains, led by a Michael Jackson clone. The gang leader wore reflective sunglasses, a white sequined glove, and a broad-shouldered red jacket Macklin guessed had been stolen off the doorman at the Westwood Marquis.

  Earl followed Macklin's gaze and his eyes bulged with fear. "Th-The Bloodhawks," he stammered. The seven Bloodhawks formed a loose circle around the property.

  Macklin kept pumping his gas.

  Michael Jackson, bobbing to the beat of a private song, grinned and dismissed the station with his gloved hand. "Trash it," he said.

  The three gang members behind Michael Jackson strolled up to the building, appraised it for a moment, and then smashed the windows out with their crowbars. The Bloodhawks spilled into the office. They bashed the shelves off the wall, whacked apart the candy machine, and tossed the desk into the street.

  A black GI Joe wearing a beret and army fatigues strutted to the Sparkletts water cooler and swung his crowbar at the glass bottle. It exploded aqua blue, splashing the walls with water and glass.

  At that moment, the teenager in shorts emerged from the bathroom. Before Macklin could react, GI Joe whirled, swinging at the teenager's head like it was another Sparkletts bottle. His skull broke like pottery and his body slapped against the wet wall, splattering it red.

  "You're next, motherfucker." The Michael Jackson clone pointed a sequined finger at Macklin. "I've seen your fucking hearse before. You're the dogshit that's been coming onto our turf and kicking ass."

  Macklin shrugged.

  Michael Jackson whipped a switchblade from his back pocket and waved it in front of Macklin's impassive face. "Motherfucker, you're dead."

  Macklin yanked the gas nozzle from his car and swung it in front Michael Jackson, spraying him with fuel. The man recoiled, spat, and charged blindly towards Macklin, who grabbed the cigar from Earl's mouth and tossed it at him.

  Michael Jackson burst into flame. Shrieking with agony, he did a skittish moonwalk and tripped over his burning feet. He hit the ground rolling, screaming as he tried to smother the fire that consumed his body.

  The gang members let out angry cries and ran at Macklin with their weapons raised. Macklin casually pulled the .357 Magnum from under his jacket and cocked it. Killing was becoming a reflex.

  "Would anyone here like some .357 dental work?" he asked.

  The men closing in on either side of him froze. The acrid stench of burned flesh filled the air. The only sound was the gang leader, crackling and bubbling.

  "You can't k
ill us all," a gang member said defiantly.

  Macklin shrugged. "Maybe it's my lucky day."

  There was a long moment of indecision. Macklin could hear Earl's labored, anxious breaths.

  "This isn't over, asshole," GI Joe hissed, holding his bloody crowbar out like a sword.

  "It is for you." Macklin shot him. The bullet punched GI Joe in the chest and tossed him back onto the flaming corpse. GI Joe's crowbar clattered on the pavement.

  Macklin sighed. "Who's next?"

  The gang members looked at one another. They reached an unspoken agreement and suddenly scattered, leaving their two friends smoldering on the pavement.

  Macklin holstered his gun, stuffed a crumpled $20 bill in Earl's breast pocket, and got into his car.

  He started the engine and smiled through the open window at Earl's pale face.

  "I like to live on the edge."

  # # # # # #

  2:00 a.m.

  "Being a vigilante is costing me a fortune," Brett Macklin said, his voice echoing off the bathroom walls. He sat on his toilet eating his double bacon chili cheeseburger and watching Jessica Mordente's naked body through the shower's frosted glass door.

  "While I'm out on the streets, my airline business is going to hell. Things are even worse now that Mort, my only pilot, is down in Mexico." He slurped on his chocolate shake and set it on the toilet tank behind him. "Christ, do you know how much bullets cost?"

  "So quit." Jessica scrubbed her shoulders with her Buf-Puf. "Go back to being a normal human being again." Steam spilled out of the shower stall and fogged the bathroom mirrors.

  It's too late, Macky boy. It's a part of you now.

  Macklin held the burger tightly in his hands and took a big bite. A glob of chili spurted out between the buns and dribbled down his shirt.

  You can never go back, never . . .

  Mordente pressed herself against the door and peered over the top at Macklin. "I didn't hear your clever retort."

  He shrugged. His mouth was full.

  She groaned melodramatically and turned away, letting the hot water beat against her chest. She luxuriated in the warm water, and Macklin, staring blankly at the floor, ate his Fatburger. The only sounds were the rushing water and the whirring fan.