* * *
I drove to the Reckless Lover on autopilot, not thinking about the consequences of my next course of action. But I needed answers. There were too many questions to ignore.
The bellhop told me what room he was in and I was reminded that a reputation is a wonderful thing. I knocked on the door and moved out of the range of the peephole, hoping that Sweet would fall for the old move.
“Who is it?” a feminine voice asked. It was her! My heart skipped a beat.
“Room service,” I replied.
“We didn’t order room service. And in a place like this?” she said as she unlocked the door. As soon as the door cracked open I placed my hand against it, stopping her from closing it. I didn’t think I needed to. She was surprised to see me but there was also something else there—recognition, vague recognition.
She was tall—taller than me. And she was dark—dark eyes, dark hair and olive skin. She was Latin, I guessed. Her hair cascaded past her shoulders. She saw me appraising her and she lifted her chin, her proudness rising up like spring water.
That unidentifiable scent was there again, stronger, deeper and maddening in its meaning.
Sweet came to the door but whatever he had to say died on his lips when he saw me and this woman staring at each other. I turned my head in his direction and started towards him. She was held in my orbit and had no choice but to move with me into the room.
Sweet had run from me and I couldn’t have it happen again. I grabbed his arm and shoved him into the small bathroom because I didn’t want her to see what was going to happen next. I pushed him into a corner near the shower. I put one hand against the wall and with the other I grabbed the towel rack. He was caught in between my arms and effectively stopped from moving around. I leaned in and faced Sweet. We were eye to eye until I cracked open the door and let my monster peek out. I grew several inches over him and widened until my clothes were tight. My complexion darkened with hair. My teeth lengthened. Sweet’s eyes rounded with fear. He turned pale and started to shake.
I reached out to his jaw and lifted it with my paw/hand, exposing his jugular. There was nothing he could do and I reveled in his helplessness. I heard his heart beating hard and fast. I smelled his blood, hot with fear and I knew--I just knew--that his blood would be sweet, honeyed by his terror.
Whenever I open that dark doorway I’m always filled with a dangerous desire, a bloody path I want to follow. I want to throw open the door, to knock the door off its hinges and let the darkness out, to let the monster have its way, to let blood flow down our chin.
Once, the door slipped from my hand but I managed to get control again. But by then it was too late. I had heard the stuttering heart, beating too fast to pump blood efficiently and I had ignored it. By the time I understood what was happening it was too late, he was dead. His name was Russell King.
I sniffed Big Sweet’s carotid, taking in the heady smell of fear, struggling to keep the door open but not completely wide open. I said: “Don’t run.” But my voice had changed—deepened until what I said came out as a barely recognizable snarl. My message got across, though.
I saw what I wanted to see in Sweet’s face—fear and docility, so I, reluctantly, closed the door. I shrank back to a normal size and looked at Sweet again on an even level.
“Pack up, were going to see the Boss,” I said turning away and walking out of the cramped space.
“I’ll give you a hundred thousand to let us go,” he said. His voice had a tremor of fear running through it now. He had never seen the monster, very few people had. All he had was a peek, a brief glimpse at something that defied science.
“No dice. Pack up,” I said. When I walked back through the door and into the cramped room, I was met with her fragrance, her presence and I couldn’t help myself, I stared, struck dumb by the whole package.
“Two hundred thousand,” he said. I ignored him.
“Do I know you?” she asked me.
“No,” I said after a long uncertain pause.
“What’s your name?” I asked her. I wanted to be sure.
“Carmen.”
Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. I racked my brain but I didn’t know a Carmen.
“I was going to pay him back! It’s just that someone is looking for her. We had to move around,” Sweet said.
“Uh-huh. Keep packing. You don’t have to convince me of anything. I’m just a courier picking up a package and delivering it to my boss.” Silence fell on the pair while they placed their belongings into suitcases. She eyed me from time to time. I watched her also but my thoughts ran a dual track. On one track was the question of this unrecognizable scent. The other was prurient. The second quickly crowded out the first. It involved what I would do to her, how I would do it, and how long I would do it, if she ever gave me the chance. I couldn’t help myself. She was gorgeous.
When they were ready I followed them downstairs and into my car. The enclosed space concentrated her scent. By the time we reached the highway I was sweating and biting my lower lip. I felt like a crackhead fiending for a hit. I opened the window and breathed through my mouth. I wanted to let my tongue hang out but I restrained myself. By the time we reached the Boss’ house I felt better. My head had cleared and I could think. What was she doing to me?
I stopped and let the gates open. Security stepped to the car, recognized me and waved me on. I drove down the driveway, around the water fountain and stopped at the front door. We stepped inside.
As we walked through the door, Carmen and Big Sweet walking in front of me, I smelled something different–harsh chemicals in a mixture. I recognized it as hair dye but I was unprepared for what I saw. I saw the Boss with his hair now jet-black again like it was fifteen years ago. I took a step backwards as everything—all emotions, all memories—cascaded and flowed together as the dam finally broke.
And then…and then I remembered and understood most of everything. Most of the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place. Knowing Carmen’s identity was even a possibility. It was his hair. His hair was a trigger for buried memories.
My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know everything. I had to play some things by ear which made things unpredictable and very dangerous.
The Boss’ office was furnished with the most awful paintings and furniture that I had ever come across. The two chairs in front of his desk were the gaudy Louis the XIV kind, with high backs and red velour fabric. They were both smaller than the Boss’ chair. His chair was taller, wider and more ornate the two in front of his desk. There was a painting behind his desk of the Boss dressed as a king wearing one of those powdered wigs. The desk he sat behind, though, was a work of handcrafted art, but it was too big. It would take the Boss three or four steps, from where he sat, just to get to the end of the desk. The only thing bigger, in that room, was his ego.
I stood in front of his desk when Sweet came from behind me and moved to my left. He was carrying one of those suitcases that looked like a duffel bag on wheels.
“Honest to God, I was coming to see you. I got your money!”
“Let me see,” the Boss said.
Sweet laid the suitcase on the floor and began to unzip it. The Boss pointed at me and I pushed Sweet out of the way. He fell to the floor and made a kind of “ooof” sound. I thought that I had pushed him too hard. Then I heard him start to cry. Maybe I hadn’t pushed him hard enough.
The suitcase was packed with loud clothes that made my eyes hurt, hygiene products that offended my sense of smell and money—stacks of money. He also had a small revolver tucked into a side compartment. I took the gun and showed it to the Boss and then pocketed it. The reason he didn’t pull the gun in the hotel room was that he wanted to shoot me and the Boss at the same time. Even if he would’ve shot me and killed the Boss he would’ve never got past the guards.
Then I started to go through the money. After five hundred thousand I stopped counting and estimated that there was over one million i
n the bag. I let out a low whistle.
“He’s got enough to pay you and then some,” I said. I swiveled on the balls of my feet where I squatted to look at Big Sweet. Was this the same idiot with the big pasted on shit-eating grin most of the time? Where did this guy get all of this money?
I stared at Big Sweet but he was looking at the Boss.
“I won! I was gonna pay you!”
“What did you win?” the Boss asked.
“Gator Man in the fifth. Twelve-to-one odds,” he said.
“You bet the whole hundred thousand on a horse race?” the boss asked.
Sweet didn’t answer. He let the money speak for him. He had that damned smile plastered across his mug. Ugh.
The Boss sat down heavily his chair, disbelief in his face and body language. He folded his hands on his large belly. He said nothing. The just dyed dark hair at odds with his deep-lined wrinkled face. Every time he exhaled I smelled his weakness. It turned my stomach.
The silence stretched out.
“Take them both out back and put two in his head and two more in her,” the Boss said to me. A wail of despair filled the room. It was Sweet. Carmen was calm as a summer day.
What the Boss wanted me to perform was street justice. Sweet had borrowed money and then ran. No one would say anything if he turned up missing.
I stood, walked over to the chair in front of his desk and sat down instead. His eyebrows rose in incredulity. “Didn’t you hear me?