Larry kneeled between the dead girl’s thighs. His gown hung open and he fumbled with a condom. I couldn’t help but stare at his short, fat erection beneath the solid swell of his gut. “Want a picture, faggot?”
“What are you doing, Larry?” He laughed. The ugly, fucked-up sound of it raised gooseflesh on my arms and back. “Larry, what the fuck?”
“Dead or not, this bitch is smoking hot. No sense in wasting an opportunity.”
“Stop it.”
“Or what?” He stroked her inner thigh. “She won’t mind.” He rolled the condom on and I wondered why he’d picked a ribbed one. For her pleasure. What kind of a fucked-up thought was that?
“Seriously, Larry. I mean it, man.”
“Fuck you. If you want my help, you’ll give me and my new girlfriend some privacy.”
But that wasn’t going to fly. Bad enough I’d killed the poor girl. No way was I going to let fat Larry have his way with her dead body. I leapt and shoulder-barged him off the bed. We hit the floor with an almighty thud. A tangle of limbs. Me on top. I straddled his chest and tried to take the advantage. It felt so wrong to be struggling on the floor with a pink-skinned, almost naked, fat man wearing a ribbed condom. But life throws shit like that at you sometimes.
He grappled with my arms as I tried to land a punch. I couldn’t get a clean hit. Then he was holding each of my wrists in an iron grip. We stared at each other. Stalemate. He smiled, as if he was embarrassed by the situation. Then the fat fuck caught me with a headbutt. He let go of my wrists and I fell back.
I cupped my nose with my hands. Blood ran down my face and filled my throat. I coughed and spluttered gobs of crimson into the air. It rained down on my chest. Larry was on his feet. He kicked my ribs and stomped on my head. I curled up into a ball. Helpless. But he’d figured the job was done. The mattress springs creaked again as he climbed back on to the bed.
“You fucking prick.” Larry sounded amused. “I lost my erection. Talk about a fucking mood-kill.”
I heard him roll off the bed and pad across the room. He snuffled and snorted. The bastard had his piggy snout in my coke.
“That’s the business,” he said. “I’ll be back in the saddle in no time.”
I got to my hands and knees then yakked on the carpet. Watery, bitter-tasting puke splattered my hands and forearms.
“Better out than in,” Larry said. I groaned. “You should have left me alone, kid. I just wanted to clear my head. Now look at you.” My stomach lurched again. I breathed deep to wrestle back control of my innards and inhaled the pungent scent of tequila puke. Larry said something else, but I lost it in a fit of coughing.
When my coughing stopped I pushed myself on to my knees. Larry stood before me, the tequila bottle in his pudgy hands. “Here, have a drink.”
“Fuck you, Larry.”
“Ah, don’t be like that. We just had a little misunderstanding. No harm done.”
I spluttered a choked, sarcastic laugh. I held up my blood-coated palms. “Yeah, Larry. Just a little misunderstanding.”
“Come on, kid.” His tone was kind. “Don’t be a little bitch about it. Take a drink.”
I took the bottle and drank deep, clearing the blood from the back of my throat. It felt good. Harsh. Cleansing. I wiped a forearm across my mouth and stood on Bambi legs. Larry smiled and nodded at me. Then he glanced at the dead chick.
“Okay, Joey. Give me ten minutes with her, while she’s still fresh, and then we’ll get to work. Okay? We can smuggle her out, and I know some people who’ll take it from there. You listening?”
Still fresh.
I smiled back at him and he opened his arms as if to invite a hug. I hefted the almost drained tequila bottle. Grunting, I brought it down hard on top of Larry’s head. His shaved scalp split neatly.
“Uhn!” he said, all surprised and wide-eyed.
“Okay, Larry.” I smiled at him, then clunked the bottle off the side of his head. He wobbled. “Okay, Larry.” I hit the other side of his head. Blood sprayed this time. “Okay, you fat fuck.” His eyes rolled back in his skull and he toppled backwards. I looked down at the bottle in my hands. It surprised me that it was still intact. In the movies, they always shattered into a million pieces.
It looked like Larry was dead, but those same movies taught me never to wait for a fallen enemy to leap up for the final scare. I knelt by his side and pounded his face with the bottle. It was therapeutic. And when I realized that, I forced myself to stop. I didn’t want to become some sort of psycho. I picked my leather jacket up off the floor and covered the pulpy mess that used to be Larry’s face.
I stood up and looked around the room. Cocaine on the table. Dead girl cuffed to the bed. Dead fat man laid out on the floor. Blood-covered rockstar, stinking of puke and clutching the murder weapon, swaying on his feet.
It crossed my mind that jumping out my window might be my best option. But that was the coward’s way. Besides, my room was on the first floor. I’d probably break a leg at worst. Better to face the music. The music. Fucking music.
Our album sales would go through the roof when this got out. When would I ever get a chance to enjoy that? Probably never. It would go to my family though, wouldn’t it? See my parents right? I thought about calling my lawyer.
I picked up the phone and dialled down to the reception. “Hi. I’m going to need you to put me through to the police.” Fuck.
Art in the Blood
Matthew J. Elliott
1
Some may call it a tragedy, others a fantasy. My friend Sherlock Holmes will not have it that those terrible events surrounding the Tuttman Gallery are capable of anything other than a rational, albeit unorthodox explanation. While he admits that the violent death of Anwar Molinet is beyond our ability to explain at present, he is insistent that future scientific developments will one day show how such a thing might be possible. I confess, I do not share his confidence — should I call it hubris? — and to this day, he chides me for ever daring to suggest a supernatural solution to the mystery.
“Can it be, Watson,” he says, “that you, a trained man of science, have fallen in with the spiritualists, soothsayers and other such frauds and self-delusionists?”
I make no reply, and never shall. But I set down here the full, unbiased account of our most mysterious adventure, and leave it to the reader to decide.
Sherlock Holmes did not, as a rule, encourage visitors at 221b, but he frequently made an exception for Inspector Lestrade. I confess, I have never understood his fondness for the company of the rodent-faced policeman over other officers for whose intelligence he expressed a higher regard, but I have rarely seen my friend happier than when sharing a bottle of the beaune with his old adversary. It was common on such occasions for Lestrade to voice his concerns regarding any recent problematic investigations. I expected today would be no different, but this afternoon the police official appeared agitated, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece from time to time.
“Are we keeping you from your duties, Inspector?” asked Holmes, with more than a touch of mockery.
“Er, no, Mr Holmes. Not just at this moment. I was just thinking... it should be happening soon. Cawthorne’s post-mortem, I mean.”
It took very little effort on my friend’s part to persuade him to elucidate.
“Anwar Molinet was the fellow’s name,” Lestrade explained. “Murdered in broad daylight, in the middle of a busy restaurant.”
“Oh?”
He consulted his notebook. “Les Frères Heureux, it’s called. Ever heard of it?”
“Your pronunciation could stand some improvement, Lestrade,” I remarked. “But, yes, I believe we’ve dined there once or twice. An excellent cellar.”