Guilty Page 5

  "Here," he hissed, "give Cuddles a kissy-poo."

  The man wrinkled his face with disgust and brought all his weight down against the pitchfork . . . and a dozen fifth-grade girls squealed with gleeful terror and cowered in their sleeping bags, the glow from the TV set the only light in the Hendersons' dark living room.

  "Their parents are going to kill me," Nina Henderson groaned in the kitchen, plucking the ten candles from her daughter Becky's birthday cake. "How could you let Becky talk you into renting Bloodbath Daycamp for Girls?"

  Jake Henderson grinned at her from across the table, where he was dropping the paper plates and party favors into a Glad trash bag. "So what? It's her birthday—let her have a little fun."

  "Bloodbath Daycamp for Girls," she repeated to herself as she put the cake in the refrigerator. Her husband set down his bag and tiptoed to the doorway and peeked into the living room.

  The girls were all huddled around the set, their eyes wide, the light from the TV flickering like a campfire. His daughter Becky watched the movie while braiding Cory Macklin's long blond hair.

  Nina Henderson flicked off the kitchen lights and pressed herself against her husband's back, wrapping her arms around his waist and patting his stomach.

  "C'mon, Jake," she whispered into his ear, "let's leave them alone and go upstairs."

  The phone in the kitchen rang shrilly, startling them both.

  "Ignore it," she mumbled.

  Jake shrugged apologetically, untangled himself from Nina, and went to the phone. "Hello?"

  "Jake, this is Brett Macklin."

  "Hey, how'ya doing?" Jake said. "I haven't heard from you in ages."

  Who is it? Nina mouthed.

  Brett Macklin, he mouthed in return.

  Nina shot a confused look at Jake and then peered into the living room at Cory, who was frozen with the rest of the girls, their attention captured by something suspenseful on the screen.

  "Want me to get Cory for you?" Jake said.

  "No," Macklin said quickly, "that's all right. I just wanted to check in and see if everything is okay."

  Jake scratched his forehead. "Ah, yeah, everything's fine, Brett. Why?"

  "Just wondering," Macklin said. "Do me a favor, keep your eye on Cory, okay?"

  Jake glanced at Nina, who was spying on the girls. "We've got our eye on her right now."

  "Make sure she gets home all right," Macklin said, "and don't leave her alone."

  "Sure," Jake said.

  "Thanks." Macklin hung up.

  Jake stared at the receiver. "He's nutso."

  # # # # # #

  Brooke talked incessantly. It was the wine. It was the quiet of the apartment. It was the insistence of Isadora Van Rijn's eyes looking into her own.

  "Your work is scary but it draws you in anyway," Brooke said, uncomfortably aware of the warmth of Isadora's arm around her. "That one with the faceless, naked woman sitting on top of the man, pinning his neck between her knees. It's as if she's strangling him with her femininity. It's unsettling as hell."

  Isadora smiled and remained quiet, leaving Brooke to flounder in the pressuring silence.

  "There's poetry to your violence, though." Brooke was trying to fill the room with words and force out the tension. She knew she was saying things thoughtlessly and wondered, for a second, if she sounded foolish. But the silence was more threatening. Her body was buzzing in a scary, thrilling way, and she wasn't sure if she liked it or not. "Your images are fraught with sexuality, death, and emotion. Where do you get them from?"

  Isadora's other hand dropped gently onto Brooke's thigh. It choked the words rising in Brooke's throat, and she felt a hot flush ride over her. She met Isadora's gaze directly and gave in to what she knew she had been feeling all night. Isadora let her hand gently stroke the soft skin of Brooke's thigh and leaned slowly towards her.

  Brooke knew she wouldn't stop her. She had been resisting these feelings for hours. Go ahead, Brooke thought, staring into Isadora's dark eyes. I don't know what's going to happen, but I want to find out.

  She couldn't say these things to Isadora—she simply challenged her with her gaze. Isadora pressed her face close to Brooke's throat and let her hand slide up Brooke's flank.

  Brooke felt Isadora's breath on her skin, warming it, making it tingle. She enjoyed a deliciously precarious feeling of hanging over a precipice, awaiting the inevitable fall into something wonderful.

  Isadora sat up straight and took Brooke's wrists roughly in her hands. "Do you want the kiss?"

  Brooke heard herself breathe out, "Yes."

  "Then what I do for you, you will do for me."

  Isadora pushed her down onto the pillows and kissed her deeply on the mouth. Brooke moved past thinking and let herself be led wherever Isadora was taking her. Isadora kissed her again, softer, with a tenderness Brooke didn't think was possible. Their lips barely touched, just enough to spark sensation. It made Brooke hungry for more. Her pelvis ground against Isadora and her breasts swelled.

  The kissing stopped. Brooke heard herself panting. Don't stop now . . . She needed more from Isadora, wanted more. Then Brooke felt Isadora's moist tongue on her soft, sensitive neck. Isadora was drawing tiny circles on Brooke's neck with her tongue, barely touching the skin. It was an incredible feeling. Every time Isadora's tongue touched her skin, Brooke felt a pleasurable pulse between her legs. Brooke's chest rose and fell with increasing urgency. Isadora sensed Brooke's rising passion. She smoothed her hand over the delicate softness of Brooke's full, swelling breast. Brooke dug her nails into the couch cushions, stunned by the intensity of the pleasure she felt from Isadora's touch.

  Isadora began to unbutton Brooke's blouse. Brooke longed for Isadora's gentle caress on her flushed, increasingly sensitive skin. She gasped when she felt Isadora's tongue brush the back of her neck. Her tongue glided over Brooke's neck, slid down the strong line of her sternum, and stopped at the rise of her quivering breasts. Brooke moaned weakly, her breasts aching for the withheld touch, and stared helplessly into Isadora's amber eyes. Please . . .

  Isadora sat up, straddling Brooke's waist, and peeled open Brooke's blouse to reveal her breasts, starkly pale against the dark tan of the rest of her skin. Brooke had never felt so vulnerable or so lustful. It was wonderfully frightening.

  Brooke could see Isadora's nipples pressing against her fuzzy white angora sweater and had to touch them. With trembling fingers, Brooke tentatively reached for Isadora's breasts, brushing the hard nipples and kneading the warm flesh. She could feel Isadora's heartbeat quickening.

  Giving Isadora pleasure, arousing this perfect creature, heightened Brooke's excitement. She felt a giddy, transcendent sense of physical euphoria. She wanted Isadora to feel the desire she felt, to crave that ultimate release as badly as she did.

  Isadora closed her eyes, flattened her hands on Brooke's belly, and leaned forward, pressing her face between Brooke's breasts. Brooke raked her fingers through Isadora's hair. Isadora gently licked Brooke's left breast and watched her soft, pink nipple grow dark and hard.

  Brooke heard herself utter a sharp cry as Isadora's lip lightly brushed her nipple, dabbing it with her tongue. The excruciating pleasure was unbearable. She had never felt so wet, so wanton. Her thighs were soaked.

  Brooke pushed Isadora's buttocks down and rubbed against the warmth between Isadora's legs. Brooke was utterly lost in her own pleasure. The rest of the world ceased to exist in the face of her overpowering lust.

  Isadora sat up and unstrapped Brooke's belt buckle. Brooke lifted her hips and Isadora slid her jeans and panties over them and down her slim legs. She tossed the clothes to the floor and dipped between Brooke's firm thighs. The feel of Isadora's breath on her skin made her shiver. Her pelvis rose to meet Isadora's tongue.

  Isadora explored Brooke slowly, finding the places where the moist skin was a raw nerve. Brooke cried out, a slave to the pleasure Isadora was giving her. Isadora teased and tormented, her tongue flicking, her lips sque
ezing, her fingers stroking. Each time Isadora's tongue touched her, exquisite jolts of pleasure shook Brooke's body until Isadora's touch didn't stop and the tension built, knotting her muscles in incredible ecstasy. Brooke writhed wildly as she peaked, her hips rising, grabbing for that orgasm.

  Brooke huffed like a locomotive as she raced towards the brink . . . and then her body arched up, quivering, her face shaking, her mouth gaping open in a silent scream of joyous release. She was suspended for a long second, tears streaking from the corners of her eyes. Her body bucked violently once, twice, three times, and then she fell slowly to the cushions.

  Brooke was laying there utterly spent, her body flushed and damp with sweat, when she heard Isadora's husky voice. "My turn."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Santa Monica

  Saturday, June 15, 10:30 a.m.

  "Look at yourself, Mack, you're walking like you have a ten-inch spike up your ass." Sergeant Ronald Shaw sat on a stool inside the Blue Yonder Airways hangar and watched Brett Macklin hobble away from the Cessna that had just taxied in. "You should have stayed in the hospital."

  "Fuck you," Macklin said, dumping his duffel bag on the table behind the black detective. Shaw detected none of Macklin's good-natured ribbing in the remark. It was unadulterated animosity.

  "Hey, buddy, before you start mouthing off, think about why you aren't rotting in a Mexican prison right now," Shaw said. "I want some cooperation from you, and I—"

  "Save it, Ronny," Macklin interrupted. "I appreciate whatever you said to the Mexican authorities, but let's be honest, okay? You did it to save your ass, too. Stocker is scared shitless someone will find out I've killed for the LAPD."

  Macklin dragged himself to his office. Without bothering to brush aside the dusty papers and files, Macklin carefully lowered himself onto the torn black vinyl sofa against the far wall. He closed his eyes and imagined the pain he felt as fluid, as a puddle, and visualized it evaporating into the air like the steam from a vaporizer.

  Shaw sat on the edge of Macklin's desk and sighed. "You wouldn't be back unless you had something on the killer."

  Macklin said nothing.

  "What have you got, Mack? Tell me."

  Shaw stared down at Macklin. Two long, silent minutes passed between them.

  "It's my responsibility now, Mack."

  "The Bitch killed Mort. The Bitch is after me."

  "Mr. Jury."

  "Yeah, Mr. Jury."

  Shaw sighed. "I'm going to call Ortega. I'll find out what you know."

  "Good. By then it will be over."

  "You are such a goddamn hypocrite. What happened to your ridiculous creed? What happened to only killing when the law fails, when the guilty go free?"

  "The law is irrelevant," Macklin said. "She'll kill you, my family, and whatever's left of my life." Macklin sat up slowly. "And then she'll slit my throat."

  "That's hypothetical bullshit."

  "I feel it."

  "So sit beside Cory's bed with a shotgun in your lap and let me do my job."

  Macklin stood up uneasily, grabbing Shaw's forearm to balance himself. "Don't push me, Ronny. I've got nothing left to lose. Get in my way, and I'll go to the press. Imagine what will happen when the city finds out the LAPD has an assassin on their payroll."

  "You can't even stand up on your own," Shaw said. "How can you fight her like this?"

  Macklin glared at his friend. "This began with me and it will end with me, one way or the other."

  Shaw slid off the desk. "You are one stupid son of a bitch, Mack." He walked out the office door. "I hope you've got a coffin picked out."

  # # # # # #

  12:30 p.m.

  Surreal. That's what a handful of codeine made Brett Macklin's world—it made it tilt, it made the sunlight a different shade of bright, and it diffused pain into wisps of smoke that fleetingly breezed through his psyche.

  The codeine gave him the illusion of health and strength he needed to find the downtown Los Angeles address "Cheshire Davis" listed as home when she came to Puerto Vallarta. That was the morsel of information Macklin brought back from Mexico with him.

  He drove downtown expecting to find nothing but a vacant lot. He was almost right. The address was a decaying tenement. The windows on the bottom floor had been broken long ago. Rotted wood planks were nailed haphazardly over the windows. Many of the planks hung loose, barely held in place by a rusted nail or two. Graffiti over graffiti over graffiti painted the building in senseless scribbles.

  People still lived in it, though.

  He saw some underwear draped over a third-floor windowsill to dry in the sun. One floor below, a man in a tank top sat on the fire escape, nursing a beer and listening to Spanish music from a transistor radio.

  Macklin got out of his '59 Cadillac and walked up to the door. It gaped open, inviting him into a hallway of soiled plaster walls and cracked tile floors. The heavy stench of urine, vomit, and booze was palpable; it was like walking through gel. As he pushed himself down the hallway, he could hear the life behind the walls. Starsky and Hutch argued with Huggy Bear. Babies cried. Laughter peaked and ebbed. Angry voices bounced off each other.

  He came to the door: 107. Staring at the number, he realized how badly the codeine had fucked him up. I forgot to go home, he realized. I forgot to get a gun.

  Too late now, shithead.

  Macklin grasped the doorknob and debated whether to burst in or ease in. Since bursting in would hurt too much, easing in won by default. He slowly pushed open the door. The apartment was completely vacant. The floor was covered with dust. On the opposite wall directly across from him, Macklin saw a strip of computer paper hanging from the point of an exposed nail. Three words were written on it in dot-matrix, computer-generated type. Each letter was a different typestyle and size, as if she had taken each letter from a different newspaper headline. It said:

  I'm not easy.

  "Damn you." Macklin tore the paper off the wall and jammed it into his pocket. She was the puppet master, and he could feel her pulling his strings. And he hated it.

  She's having a ball, Macky boy, and you can't do anything about it.

  He could almost feel the strings being jerked on his arms and legs as he left the room and marched down the hallway. Somehow, he thought, there has to be a way to cut myself free, to take some of the control away from her.

  Macklin was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't see the five Bloodhawks until he was already outside. They stood grinning between him and his car. They carried chains and knives lazily at their sides.

  He remembered their faces from the gas station.

  The one nearest to Macklin sneered, wrinkling the scar that sliced the lunar landscape of his pockmarked left cheek and cut across his thin lips.

  "See, motherfucker, it ain't over," Moonface said.

  "Yeah," Macklin agreed wearily, yanking off one of the wood planks covering the cracked window to his left. He now had a bat . . . with four crooked, rusted nails poking out at the end. It didn't send the Bloodhawks scurrying away in fear.

  "Fuckface is gonna take us all out with his nasty stick," crooned Moonface sarcastically, pointing his knife at Macklin and grinning at the guy beside him. "I might piss my pants I'm so scared, Rambo."

  "Let's see how far we can jam it up fag boy's ass," Rambo replied, swinging his chain and shifting his weight from one to foot to the other.

  The whole scene had such a dreamlike quality, thanks to the codeine, the heat, and the Spanish music, that Macklin half thought it wasn't happening. Maybe he was slowly dying in a Puerto Vallarta hospital, lost forever in the endless matinees at the Coma Theater. What the hell, Macklin thought, if this was his last dream, he might as well enjoy it.

  "Stop talking and do something already," Macklin said. "You're boring me to death."

  Moonface lunged, thrusting his knife towards Macklin's gut. Macklin sidestepped and clubbed Moonface's outstretched arm with his stick. The nails plunged deep into Moon
face's bare arm. Moonface yelped like a wounded dog. It was a very satisfying sound.

  Macklin wrenched the stick free and slammed him in the face with the nail-legs side. Moonface flew backwards, crashing into two of the gang members.

  Rambo swung his chain at him. Macklin ducked, sidestepped, and brought the stick down on Rambo's back. The nails smacked into Rambo's flesh with a sickening, moist squish. A surprised, agonized cry escaped from Rambo's throat.

  "Don't move. Your friend won't enjoy it," Macklin said to the others.

  He held the stick embedded in Rambo's back and jerked it once. Rambo screamed, his arms and legs shaking.

  "Think of this as a very short leash," Macklin hissed into Rambo's ear. "We're going for a walk."

  He and Rambo shuffled towards the car.

  Macklin guided the whimpering gang member with the stick and eyed the others warily as he moved into the street. The four men stood fuming on the sidewalk.

  Moonface's smashed nose oozed blood down his face. Little droplets hung off his chin and dripped onto his chest. Moonface was clutching his bleeding arm and glaring furiously at Macklin, who edged towards the driver's side door of his black Cadillac.

  Macklin jerked open the door. He let go of the stick, kicked Rambo hard in the butt, and ped into the car, slamming the door shut and locking it. Rambo twitched facedown on the pavement.

  Macklin was safe inside the hot, stuffy car. The windows were shatterproof and he had reinforced the chassis to withstand gunfire, flames, and small explosives.

  The adrenaline of the fight had diminished the potency of the codeine, and pain squeezed Macklin's body. His deep, hungry breaths, from the anxiety and exertion, swelled his chest and pushed against his broken ribs. Tiny knives stabbed his sides.

  He jammed his key into the ignition, twisted it, and pumped the gas. Nothing happened.

  Moonface let out a raucous shriek and threw something at Macklin's windshield. It bounced off and rolled on his hood.

  The distributor cap.

  Moonface pressed his bloody visage against the windshield.

  "Scumfucker's not going anywhere," Moonface said. "He's gonna eat his balls right here."