9

LOOSE END

So let it be written.
So let it be done.
So speaks Rameses I.
— The Ten Commandments

GORGO’S JOURNAL

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT,” Mari says when she sees the solitary length of rope hanging from the ceiling joist through a removed section of the mildewed drop ceiling.

“A noose,” I say matter-of-factly.

That’s not even the strangest thing about Room 107 at the derelict Seabreeze Motor Lodge in Pacifica. The accommodations belong to Ari Katz, the bane of my existence. I knew the man had a hard-on to expose my crimes but he’s gone full blown Annie Wilkes on me.

The decor has been stripped off the walls and tossed in a corner. In the place of dollar store paintings and knicknacks are photos. Several photos. Of me, of Angel and even my father. And of course Mari. She has her own special section. Each snapshot is accompanied by a notecard with illegible scribbles.

His files on me are in a cardboard box on the stained mattress surrounded by piles of trash. There’s trash everywhere. Used fast food bags, crumbled up napkins (I dare not wonder what they were used to wipe up), dirty dishes, moldy pizza in an open box, and liquor bottles, most of them empty. There’s not a flat surface that isn’t littered—even the rickety bed has only a small clear area for sleep.

Two shadows pass by the curtained window and stop at the door. The smaller one is singing in what sounds like Yiddish but it’s difficult to tell because the words are slurring into off-key hums and hoes. A moment later, the doorknob turns, retracting the bolt from the frame.

The first person through is Odion, my bodyguard and one-man private army. He’s tall with a military build, a smooth head and a gray goatee, with a damaged left eye partially concealed under a drooping eyelid.

“You’re here,” he says in a Black South African accent. His voice is thin and raspy, like it’s being forced through a reed. Above his white shirt collar is an old scar, large and mottled, that traverses the front of his throat like a decrepit railroad track.

He isn’t expecting to see Mari but if he has an opinion on the matter he doesn’t betray it.

“Who’s here?” the drunk one asks from outside.

“Your guests,” Odion says before grabbing Ari Katz and dragging him into the room.

For weeks I’ve had him following the private detective, during which time Katz has demonstrated a predictable routine. By day he pokes around trying to stir up trouble for me. By night he’s at the nearby dive bar feeding whisky to his liver. Then after he’s properly soused he stumbles back here for a few hours rest before waking up to start all over like it’s Groundhog Day.

Tonight Odion waited for Katz to head out before into his room. He first swept the place for cameras and mics because Katz seems the type to bug his own place. Speaking of, there are no exterior cameras. The Seabreeze is on its last legs and when your tenants are addicts and outcasts, lack of security is a checkmark in the ‘pro’ column.

Odion spent some time going through the evidence to make sure there are no surprises. He then hung the noose and placed the chair before heading out to the bar, making sure the door was left unlocked for me. He befriended Katz and paid for every round until the P.I. was too shitfaced to make the walk home alone.

I love when a good plan comes together.

While Odion closes the door and locks it, Katz leans against the wall for support. His clothes are half hanging off him because he’s lost quite a bit of weight since I last met with him. The stress of hunting me is eating him alive. He also smells something awful, like alcohol and human waste. It doesn’t take long for the stink to permeate the room.

Mari gags and immediately covers her nose. “What’s that smell?”

“He shit himself on the way,” Odion says.

“I did?” Katz asks, first to Odion then turning forward. His eyes are swimming in their sockets a good second behind the swivel of his head but when he sees us, or more specifically me, he understandably freaks out.

“What the fuck!” he shouts while turning for the door. Odion seizes him by the shoulders and forces him backward to the chair under the noose.

“Get off me!”

Odion points his gloved finger in Katz’s face and growls a simple command.

“Sit.”

It’s enough to scare Katz silent for the moment. “What do you want?” he asks me directly but his words run together, sounding more akin to wha’d’ew’wan? His nose is a red gin blossom surrounded by a pale, swollen face.

I maintain my composure through no slight amount of effort. The Other Me is clawing at the walls to come out and play. Don’t…let him…off this easy. I want him to scream…scream like a dying lamb who survived the kill hammer.

With my nails digging into my palms I say, “We have a deal for you.” A DEAL. HE DOESN’T DESERVE A FUCKING DEAL.

“Oh, this should be good,” he says with a pompous scowl.

“But first let’s talk about your wife.”

He nearly falls out of his chair trying to suddenly sit forward. I have his attention. Every hate-filled ounce of it.

“Terminal cancer,” I say with a click of my teeth. “I understand how hard it is to watch cancer eat a loved one alive.”

“Stop,” he says under his breath.

I ignore him.

“But you couldn’t stand watching her wither away. It made you bitter…”

“Please,” he whines.

“…and your bitterness made her so miserable that she couldn’t wait for death to come naturally.”

“I said stop!” he shouts and jumps out of his seat but Odion forces him back down by the shoulder.

One by one deliberate steps convey me forward. I say, “With her last bit of strength in her frail body she tied a rope to a ceiling fan.” I don’t even notice the smell anymore. I’m more interested in the grief sweating out of him. It’s vodka laced with despair.

He moans like an injured animal.

“She climbed on a chair, placed the rope around her neck…” I crack my neck while dropping down to my knees before him, then finish, “Now you’re going to do the same thing, bubalah.”

“What?” he says with tears in his eyes.

I motion up with a nod. The cold tremor in his body tells me he knows what is up there before his head tilts back to see the noose.

His attention snaps back to me and he laughs. He laughs and says, “Do you morons know anything about DNA? Defensive wounds?” His eyes move around the room to Mari and Odion, then back to me. “All of you will rot in prison.”

“Huh,” I say while tapping my chin. “I didn’t think about that. Well don’t I feel stupid.” I stand up and shrug. “He’s right. We can’t touch him. If only I had thought about this sooner.”

Mari says sharply, “We can’t let him go after all this. Look at this place. He’s obsessed with us, Yelena. He’ll never leave us alone.”

I’ve never been more proud of her.

My head turns to look at her over my shoulder. “Sorry, sweety. I don’t see any way out of this one. By lunch we’ll be in jumpsuits fighting over who gets the black cherry jello.”

Me. I always get the black cherry jello.

Unless.

“Unless,” I say with a snap of my fingers, then I turn back to look at Katz.

“Unless what,” he says with a smart-ass smirk.

“Unless there’s something you still care about in this world.”

It hits him like a ton of bricks.

“Oh no,” he says in a pathetic little voice.

Oh yes.

“68 Sunnyside Avenue,” I say through sharp teeth. “Apartment 5A. Brooklyn.”

This man who dared to tear my life apart now sits with his face in his hands and cries. He’s a cockroach that has been skittering about my life for far too long and now it’s crunch time.

The weight of my anger bears down upon him now, and my voice grows serious and pronounced. “Your daughter Mindy is in bed completely unaware of the danger watching her apartment from a parked car across the street. You can protect her, Ari. Be a good father. All you gotta do is climb on that chair, stick your head through the rope and tighten the knot.”

His eyes squint. Tears spill out of the corners and run down his cheeks. I suddenly feel a great urge to touch his face, to drag my fingers across his wet skin and bring them to my tongue. I only have to reach out…

Then comes a great noise; a crashing boom thunders inside my head like a great drum and trembles me down to my bones. I’m suddenly lightheaded and off balance. Mari shouts but her words can’t cut through an ear-splitting ringing that has come over me.

LET ME OUT, the Other Me’s terrible voice screams out of the deep dark. Again comes the thunder beating against the inside of my skull, like two hands beating against a gate until they are bloody and broken.

L E T
M E
O U T

My weight collapses to my knees and my head lurches backward, directing my eyes toward the ceiling. Yes! No more hiding. No more holding back. Let loose the Hunger. Become the Need. Let them see the wild thing I am inside. No, not I. We.

“Yelena!” I hear Mari shouting but my reply is nothing but guttural clicks and moans because I’m choking on something, something trying to crawl out of me.

OUR HAND forces its way through Yelena’s throat until its four fingers feel a cold chill of air. Long and knotted, like spider legs, they turn and then fold over her bottom teeth and chin. Our other hand squeezes through the same passage and juts its own fingers through the opening, and then curls them over her upper mouth and nose. Her pain to us is like sweet milk to an infant, giving us the great strength to spread her jaws apart, first to their physical limit and then beyond, causing the joints to snap apart and the skin to stretch, split and tear from her lips to her ears. Her head rips apart into two pieces down to her neck and through her grotesque hole we are birthed into the world. Our wet, sick-covered head forces out of her like a spider shedding its exoskeleton and then, in one quick motion, we tear her in two from neck to pelvis. She then slips effortlessly off of our naked body like boiled flesh from bone and falls onto the floor with a sopping thump.

OUR EYES open as if we’ve crawled from the womb for the first time to see Mari standing before us with love and concern radiating off her.

“Are you okay?” she asks tenderly.

Our lips spread apart and then pull upward in a very Gorgo-like smile. She sees Yelena in physical form because her psyche cannot fathom this beautiful grotesquery hulking over her like a primordial beast reborn, but she knows we aren’t Yelena. It’s in the way her eyes struggle to maintain focus and her weight has subtly moved back onto her heels.

We touch her face gently like Yelena would. Her guard lowers as she leans into our palm, smearing blood on her skin. Our smile splits apart and we say in a disjointed melody, “We’ve never been better, baby.”

It isn’t the first time she has heard THEYlina in the plural sense but this is different. We aren’t in a wrestling ring where she can excuse it as a gimmick like everyone else does. Look at her tremble like a flower. Her fear smells sweet and probably tastes sweeter but it’s making her reconsider her decision to be with us. It’s all over her face so we grab her by the neck and pull her into our sticky embrace.

“Listen to me, lovey,” we quietly moan cheek to cheek. “Yelena has risked everything to support you, guide you, and protect you. Her freedom is in jeopardy because you needed her help and she gave it to you freely, without question, because she loves you. Truly, deeply, madly loves you.”

Our hand slides to her shoulder then down her arm, over the bend of her elbow and past her wrist to find her hand. Then carefully we bring it to our lips, never letting our eyes leave hers, and say, “But we love you even more.”

Her doll eyes reflect our terrible face and she says, “I love you, too. All of you.”

“You’re both fucking nuts,” Katz says.

“Mami has work to do,” we say. Her desperate fingers don’t want to let go but there are pressing matters to attend to. Our hand slips free as our bare feet step out of Yelena’s folded skin suit and walk toward the man in the chair.

“Mr. Katz,” our stone-ground voice says after we take a knee in front of him. He stares into our eyes as if this was the first time he’s seen them. It feels that way because it is. “Finally we get a little alone time with you. We wanted to do this sooner but Careful Yelena wanted to play it safe.”

My teeth flash through a hacksaw grin.

“We don’t like safe.”

Katz is dealing with a lot right now. He’s been kidnapped. His daughter’s life is being threatened to coerce him into committing suicide. Now here we are, using the royal we, smiling like a jackal, with a voice that makes Shohreh Aghdashloo sound like Jennifer Tilly.

He gives a chuckle and lowers his head while saying, “I won’t do it.”

Our head bends at an angle so our eyes can look up at him, even as he tries to avoid our gaze. We say, “Look at us. Right into our peepers here. And open your ears nice and wide and analyze every word we’re about to say. Ready? Good.”

Our head tilts to the left, but not smooth like a wheel. Our neck ratchets, like a rudder fighting against the current. We breathe smoke and fire and our guttural voice grinds like an out-of-tune organ.

“If you don’t follow my directions to the Tee then we will take your daughter.”

He’s sobbing now.

“It won’t be quick,” we tell him. “She will endure more pain and suffering than anyone we’ve ever encountered and every time she cries out please god why me we’ll tell her it’s because of what you did and how you were too selfish to save her. Now GET on that FUCKING CHAIR and put that FUCKING NOOSE around your GOD DAMN NECK.”

At once he stands, puts one bare foot on the seat, and then the other. Odion holds the back to keep it from tipping prematurely as Katz finds his longlegs. He’s breathing hard and sweating profusely. He better not have a heart attack. He better not rob us of satisfaction.

His shaking hands struggle terribly to get the rope around his neck but once it’s around his neck and the knot is tightened a peacefulness comes over him. Look at him pretending to be heroic. He thinks saving Mindy’s life offsets all the mistakes he made to get to this moment.

After a long, labored breath, he says with a tremor, “Marisol, you can stop this.” He’s looking at her like he feels sorry for her. It makes us want to rip out his eyes.

He says, “I have a friend. A cop. His name is Eckhardt. He knows everything. When they find me and all this evidence is missing, he’ll know it wasn’t suicide. Run. Call SFPD. Talk to Eckhardt and cut yourself a deal. You didn’t ask for any of this. You…”

He trails off. Our head twists around with our eyes in tow. His words were meant to terrify Mari and make her second guess her relationship with Yelena—with us—but he sees what we see. She’s calm and collected, with a steeliness in her look that makes our ladyparts moist. Her decision comes to me not in words but with a single implicit nod.

Our attention cranes back to Katz with a cold, slow move that allows our misshapen grin to reveal itself with a methodical creep. “Objection!” we shout like a coked-out attorney-at-law. “Isn’t it true, Mr. Katz, that your bro-in-blue didn’t buy your story? Isn’t it true he took one look at your evidence and thought you were out loony tunes?”

We lift our right foot and place it on the front of the chair. His eyes snap downward, expecting at any moment for the floor to rush up at him.

Not yet, precious.

“You’re right about one thing. If we destroyed all of this…” We wave our hand around the room. “…Eckhardt would be suspicious, so we’re gonna leave it as is and roll the dice. Besides, this ain’t San Fran. It’ll be the San Mateo County Brownies that show up in a few days to poke around your rotting corpse. Coincidently Yelena met Sheriff Corpus earlier this year at a fundraiser for their youth outreach program. Yelena attended on behalf of the foundation and delivered a rather substantial donation to build new playgrounds across the county. You know what you get for that? A seat of honor with the sheriff, her husband, and a few other county big wigs. Yelena was charming and engaging and it was a lovely evening. Who do you think Corpus will believe—a drunk, mentally ill stalker or an upstanding pillar of the community?”

Katz swallows hard and steadies his voice to make one final appeal to Mari. “Run,” he says in a panic. “Run and save yourself. If you don’t, you will be the next one standing on a chair with a rope around your neck. You know too much.”

We wait with bated breath to hear the door fly open and shoes beat down the concrete path. If she did run, would we let her go or would we hunt her down as Katz predicts? We’ll never know the answer because the door stays shut and now that sliver of hope he’s been clinging to is being swallowed up in grim realization.

We look back to find Mari unwavering and unmoved by his warning. She stares at us with cold determination and, without hesitation, says two simple words.

“Do it.”

Our torso wrenches forward with a snap. He stares down at our crooked grin and tries to scream before our foot kicks the front of the chair out from under him. He drops three inches and the rope cinches his neck but it isn’t fast or far enough to break it. His face immediately brightens into a deep red with veiny eyes bulging out of their sockets as he sways uncontrollably back and forth. His muscles convulse as his hands instinctively claw at the noose in some hopeless attempt to free himself.

Dying isn’t always quick like in the movies. Case in point: the rope caught his neck in such a way that the brain is still receiving blood. It takes well over a minute for his heart to give out and the darkness to swallow him into oblivion.

They say hearing is the last sense to go, so we make certain he hears our laugh. Our haughty, hoarse, strained whisper of a laugh.

GORGO’S JOURNAL