Part 3: Life Among the Ruins

It came to pass that I went mad. Not insane, but mad. I knew what I was going to do and it filled me with joy, tremendous joy, for the first time since Richard took Alice. I would kill him. This thing would never end. It wouldn't die unless he did. He was a vampire, sucking my life away. He'd done it. He'd destroyed me. Now he was going to die. I had daydreams of killing them both in various ways, while they were doing any number of things, mainly in the middle of fucking. In my madness a plan came to me.

I had, first, to get away from his surveillance. Richard was always a step ahead of me. How did he know where I was, where I went? How did his men always intercept me? How indeed? Maybe he was having me tailed. That's what Mickey said. But maybe he had a fix in with Mickey. Or maybe he had me wired. I had to slip everyone.

I was mad, but not demented. I knew I had to be methodical. I hired another investigator to do a discreet check for electronic eavesdropping devices. My house, car, phone. Eureka! There was a bug attached to my car and another to my landline. Nothing else. No nanny cams or hidden mikes or anything else, though he warned me about cell phones in general. The two things were probably enough. They weren't even very expensive.

While I talked to the investigator, I had a vision of Alice smearing come all over her body.

There were two days before Richard and Alice would return to Las Vegas. I had to work fast. I walked out my back door and went three blocks over, where I bought a used car for a thousand dollars cash. I drove it to City Hall, to the trash department, gave Richard's name, and complained that my trash bin had been vandalized. Then I went to a pawn shop where I bought a pistol and bullets and an old City Works Department badge. It was more official looking than today's badges. One step follows the other. Stay with the plan. I put on a baseball cap and drove the new clunker past Richard's estate a couple of times, not closely together in time, looking for ways in.

I went to a firing range and practiced with my pistol on human silhouette targets for an hour. Whenever I hit it I imagined Richard. So far, so good. Richard, you're dead. I'm going to make sure you know it's me before I do you.

I thought, it's too bad they don't have bitch silhouettes.

I drove the used car down to Palm Springs, to a contract parking lot near a resort hotel, where I parked it. Within an hour I had bought another cheap car. I drove it back to Las Vegas and parked it in a contract parking lot a half mile from my house. I was chuckling and rubbing my hands together all the way back.

Now time for the misdirection. I called the resort hotel in Palm Springs to make a reservation. Then I called Mickey. Sorry, Mickey. I'd like you to report on Richard and Alice, but I can't take any more of this. I have to get away for a bit. He was sympathetic.

I drove my bugged car to Palm Springs. In the mirages of water on the highway, I kept seeing Alice's body stretched out, glistening, dripping.

At the hotel I went to my room and turned on the TV. Then I walked all the way down the stairs to a back entrance, retrieved the used car, and left. It was a long ride back to Vegas, slowed by a wreck. At one point I thought I might be late, but everything was fine. One step follows the other. Stay with the plan and fucking Richard's a dead man.

Richard thought he was so careful, and that he had good security. I guess he did. Still, people aren't defense minded all the time. It's why airport security always fails its tests. There was a back entrance to Richard's estate, with dumpsters and a gate the staff kept open so they could get out and back easily. So could I. I wouldn't have to shoot my way in. I didn't care one way or the other, except that this upped my odds of success. There were probably security cameras, so I was taking a chance. But while the cat's away and all that, plus if I were caught I'd flash my badge and pretend to be an inspector for the city trash department. I laugh about it now. Crazy man Henry, did you really think you wouldn't be recognized? I parked as close to the estate as I could, walked down toward the dumpster like I knew what I was doing, and slipped along the house. There was a thicket of bushes, pretty far from the sidewalk, where I simply sat down to wait for dark.

I could tell when the two of them arrived, because of the ruckus. It went on for maybe an hour, after which most of the staff began leaving. While they were going out the back way, I went in through a side door. I stepped into a closet and waited. It got quiet. Okay, do it. One foot follows the other. I walked down the hall toward Richard's favorite room. Oh, you fucker, I know this house better than any burglar would, and I know where the staff stays when you don't need them. You're mine. When I entered the den with my pistol ready, I wasn't surprised that no one was there. Not exactly no one. Richard was there, alone.

Richard looked just like he always did, except that he was in shirtsleeves. By the time he saw me it was too late to do anything but sit in his chair and focus on the gun. But he never looked panicked, merely focused.

"I enjoyed the photos, Richard. But now we play this game my way, not yours. You bring Alice out and no one gets hurt. She and I can have a conversation."

He kept looking at the gun.

"You don't want that, Henry. I promise you. Just leave and I won't report this."

"You have to ten." I felt phony, like someone in an action thriller, but I made up my mind to shoot him right away if he did anything I didn't like. It was my only leverage, and what was there to lose, really?

"One."

"Henry..."

"Two."

"Okay. Okay."

"Three."

"Armand! Henry, Armand will get her. It'll only take a minute."

"That's all you have,"

A lovely dark boy came into the room. When he saw me he stopped dead and his eyes went big.

"Armand. Go fetch Ms. Alice. Mr. Henry wants to speak with her."

Lovely Armand backed out of the room and skittered down a hall.

Silence in the room. Finally Richard said, "Care to sit?"

"Shut up."

"We can still talk this out."

I fired a shot past his leg, exploding a large vase. From down the hall, a voice with a Spanish accent screamed.

"Señor Richard!"

"It's okay, Armand! Everything's fine. However, please be quick with Ms. Alice." Richard looked at the gun again.

"Are you wondering how many more shots I have? It's a 9mm, you know."

"Yes. I know." His voice was dead calm. "I figure at least nine more."

I didn't answer. I might have, I don't know, but things sped up too much. There were sounds in the hall, noises of hurrying, of Armand's voice saying something in fractured, desperate English, of Alice's voice asking something. I turned my head toward the doorway and Richard cocked his head like a sparrow, and at that moment Alice and Armand stum-bumbled into the room, Armand pulling her by an arm, the two of them looking something like a beautiful Larry and Curly running to Moe's call. It would have been amusing, as Richard might have called it, if I hadn't been considering killing him or maybe Alice and him both, or first killing them and then blowing my head off. What was I thinking? The gun felt heavy. I let it drift from Richard to Alice and then back toward him. Alice turned her head back and forth between Richard and me.

"Henry?"

It was clear Armand had been too flustered or ignorant to tell her about me, and while I chewed on that fact I was knocked to the floor by the two large, polite young men who took the pistol from me and pinned me down.

It took two or three seconds to realize the change the men on me had wrought, two or three seconds with the two

behemoths twisting my arms behind my back, with Alice already gravitating toward Richard even as she stared at me, drifting over until she was close enough to put the fingers of one hand on his arm. By the time she looked up into his face it was as clear to me as anything, the answer I'd come for, clear enough to make me curse being so stupid as to let myself lose the gun. It would be several more minutes, though, before I found what anything meant.

Richard took charge, of course.

"Don't hurt him, but do keep the gun away from him. He's not to be trusted just now."

I had the chance finally to really see Alice. We stared at each other as I was pulled upright. She couldn't hold the stare, though. She kept looking at me, then turning her eyes away. Then back. She was wearing a simple little shift with thin straps like a full slip. It might have been silk. I could see her shoulders and her arms and her legs just above her knees, the tops of her breasts, and it seemed Richard had half-lied to me. She was thin, thinner even than in the photos. I'd expected that. What didn't I expect? Almost anything else. My image of her had been as a survivor of Auschwitz. She was nothing like that. She was leaner and more nicely muscled than showed in the jpeg picture, as though she worked out a lot. There were no obvious bruises on her body, none at all. She was perfect.

"Alice, Henry. Henry, Alice. You two have met." Richard was beaming. Had he ever been worried about the madman with the gun? "Henry here has become impatient. He wants to hear from you directly, love, in detail, that it is true you have left him to be with me. I'm afraid he's insistent, so this can't be put off any more. You'll just have to tell him."

Then, yes, there was something. I thought I saw reddish discolorations on Alice's wrists. Thin lines. Like ligature marks. He hadn't exactly half lied. He'd at least partly told the truth.

Alice fiddled. I thought she might not say anything, but Richard was patient. He smiled at her as though she was a creation of his, about to demonstrate his creativity. Finally she couldn't not speak anymore.

"Oh, Henry!" she began.

What an awful start. That had been a joke with us. O'Henry. I was her favorite candy bar, the one she ate slowly to savor the taste. How long ago had that been? It certainly wasn't a joke now, just a sign that she didn't know what to say. Another false start. "Why did you come here? I'm not coming back. I'm sorry for hurting you, but it's over. You have to move on, Henry. It's over. It's really over."

Richard nodded at me. My time to speak.

"Why?"

"Why did I leave?"

"Why did you leave? Yes. You said you loved me. And why with him? You hated him. How could you go to him? How did he brainwash you? You! Tell me how it happened. Explain it!"

Alice looked at Richard, then at me. She started to say something. Finally, "It's too complicated. I can't tell you everything. I was suffocating. I wasn't fulfilled. Richard fulfills me."

To that there was no answer. I didn't fulfill her. What could you say? We didn't fulfill each other. I'd been unfulfilled for years. It was the way of things, except that Richard could fulfill everything. Come one, come all. All yearnings will be quenched. All desires will be sated.

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"When did it start?"

"After New Year's." He had been truthful, no? I didn't try to say anything, to argue with her. It was silent again, so Richard stepped in. He had a big grin again.

"It's like I told you, Henry. I offered what she needed and she came over. Now she's mine. She does what I want. Tell him, Alice."

Alice looked down at the floor. She hesitated again. She really didn't want to say anything else to me. "Richard is right, Henry. We're good for each other. He takes charge... and we satisfy each other."

"You fucking bitch. I wish I'd killed you." I said it but I couldn't put any force behind it. It was over. Beyond over. That last faint hope.

Richard's smirk grew into a grin.

"Actually Henry still loves you. He'll hope against hope. You need to make it final, Alice. Look him in the eye and tell him. Show him how proud you are to be my girl."

Something was stirring. Something was going to happen. Alice moved her head to look at me. She spoke more softly.

"It's true, Henry. I'm his. I'm sorry for you."

Richard spoke again when she said she was sorry, so quickly he almost cut her off. "Let me demonstrate, Henry. Alice, strip for us." She jerked around toward him. She spoke directly to him in a half whisper, cutting her eyes over toward me two or three times.

"Richard! Please. Not in front of him!"

Again it could have been almost cute. She didn't want me to know what she said. She spoke between gritted teeth. She could have been warning, ix-nay in front of the ildren- chay.

"Alice, you'll do what I say or you can leave right now."

She looked like she'd been slapped.

"Please, Richard. You know I'll do anything you say. Everything. I've shown you that." She raised her hands, palms upward, supplicating. "Just please don't make it be in front of him."

"It's a simple concept, Alice. Either you do as I say or you don't. I won't remind you again."

I knew she would strip, that I'd see her body, the one I'd known innumerable times, though not not since she'd improved on it, not in person. I wanted to see it. It would almost be like seeing a new woman's body for the first time. I hated her but I began to grow a hard-on. That's right Richard, you fucker. Why don't you humiliate her? I'd like that. My keepers didn't seem at all interested in what was happening, though. Ho-hum. Another stripping in front of the betrayed husband. Their grips never changed.

And she did it. She lowered her head and lifted her arms to begin pulling the shift. Up it came, slowly, showing her thighs. When it reached her vagina I saw she was naked under it, and that she was bare. Smooth, pale skin with brownish tips to her labia. No unsightly hair. Her legs were smooth. Her body was smooth. She lifted the shift higher and I saw a little ring at the top of her slit, right where her clitoris was. He hadn't mentioned that and it wasn't in the jpeg files. Well, it fit the scene, didn't it? There was another in her navel. When she'd lifted the silk high enough I could see rings in both nipples. They went through the nipples themselves, not through the areolas above them. He'd been busy with her. Then her hands were over her head and she dropped the shift to the floor. She stood with her arms at her sides. Nothing was hidden. Her body told me more. There were no welts. There were no bruises. What had he done to her? What hadn't he done? God, I wanted to fuck her!