fucking care anymore. There’s only one thing that I want. I want to get back to NightWhere. That’s it. End of story. And you can help me. I know you can. And if you won’t? Well…I may very likely push this button because it’s been a long month and I’ve got a lot of frustration built up at the moment. I’m kinda sick of being pissed off.”
Kendrick’s eyes widened as Mark pressed him against the brick wall. “You know they’re prepared for this sort of thing,” he said. His voice cracked as he said it.
“Then let them deal with me,” Mark suggested. “All you have to do is take me to them, and your part is done.”
Mark pressed the box cutter harder against Kendrick’s throat. “I am going to count to three, and then I’m going to give you a new hole in your head,” he promised. “One, two…”
Kendrick shoved Mark hard, at the same time aiming a knee to his groin. The flash of pain didn’t slow Mark-it was more of the last straw that sent him into action. He threw himself at the man, catching Kendrick around his knees.
Kendrick tried to pull his feet free, but instead overbalanced himself and went down, hard on the asphalt. He let out an
“I was not kidding,” Mark said. He clicked the blade of the cutter out. “I don’t care anymore,” he said. “You can either help me, or bleed to death.”
Mark pressed the open blade against Kendrick’s throat, and crimson bloomed against and around the blade.
“One, two…”
“Okay, okay,” Kendrick coughed. “I have a number you can call. I don’t know what they’ll do, but it’s all I can tell you to try. I can’t take you anywhere tonight.”
Mark pulled back and let Kendrick sit up to retrieve his phone. Mark wrapped one arm around the man’s neck from behind and kept the blade of the razor in place. Kendrick couldn’t move without being cut. Then Mark reached into a pocket and pulled his own phone out. He dialed the numbers as Kendrick read them.
The phone rang three times and then a cool male voice answered. “A snake can only eat its tail once, but a woman can give head a thousand times.”
“I’m looking for NightWhere,” Mark said.
“Aren’t we all?” the man on the other end of the line said. “Didn’t Kendrick tell you, we don’t want to be found?”
“He did,” Mark admitted. “But the razor at his throat made him reconsider.”
“Hmmm,” the man on the other end of the line said. “I trust you’ll let him go unharmed.”
“Sure,” Mark agreed. “As long as you tell me how to return to NightWhere.”
“I will send someone to show you the way,” the voice promised. “But it will not be tonight, or tomorrow, or even next week. The next meeting of NightWhere is October 18th. I’d be happy to have you there for that. Meet me there at Dreams in two weeks-on October 18th at 7 p.m. I will guide you into the hell you seek at that time. In the meantime, I want you to set Kendrick free.”
“How do I know you will keep your word?” Mark asked.
“You don’t,” the man said calmly. “But I will. You have my number now. And you have no choice really. You can’t keep Kendrick there for long, or someone is going to discover you and call the police. And I can’t come to you right now. I will be there for you on the night of October 18th.”
“How will I find you?” Mark asked.
“NightWhere finds you,” the man said. “That’s the way it has always been.”
There was a click, and the line went dead.
Mark released Kendrick, who pushed himself away on the asphalt, rubbing his throat with one hand as he did so.
“You’re going to get far more than you bargained for,” Kendrick said. “I hope you’re ready.”
“I’m ready to see my wife again,” Mark said, retracting the blade of the box cutter.
The man pushed himself up and off the ground, and shook his head at Mark. “Well, thanks to you, I’m not sure that I will ever be back at NightWhere again,” he said. “Asshole.”
“Sorry, man, I had no choice.”
“Word of advice? If you value your own life at all, you should give up your wife and start over. It would be better for both of you if you did that.”
With that, Kendrick sprinted towards the entry door of the porn shop. But when he reached it, he kept going, turning the corner with his fist in the air, his middle finger extended.
It might have been useful to follow him, to find out where he lived in case the man on the phone had lied. But Mark let him go. He had talked to someone at the club, someone who claimed that their next meeting was two weeks away. He hoped the man kept his promise. He hoped the man met him here.
A chill gripped Mark’s stomach then, as he thought…but how did the man even know where
He heard Kendrick’s voice in his head, “You’re going to get more than you bargained for.”
Who were these people, Mark wondered. It was as if he’d stumbled into a secret society that met in the catacombs and traded secret passwords and handshakes. And based on Kendrick’s warnings…potentially got rid of people who crossed them.
Permanently.
Mark swallowed hard and tried to tell himself that he was being ridiculous. The club was secret because it had to be-otherwise the cops would bust it. But NightWhere weren’t the Mafia. They weren’t going to kill him just for insisting they let him see his wife again. He just hoped that, when he did see her, Rae would come back home with him. He couldn’t imagine what he would feel like if she said no. If this really was the end.
He walked slowly back out of the alley and down the busy street to his car. The next two weeks were going to take forever to pass by.
Mark got in his car and started the engine. All he could see in his mind’s eye was an image of Rae gagged and chained against a rack.
He wanted to have the key to free her. To
To bring her back home with him.
Mark whispered to himself in the silence of the cab of his car: “I’m coming, baby. I’m coming.”
Chapter Thirty-One
There are moments in everyone’s lives that they wish they could change. That insult you hurled at your father just before he had a heart attack. That moment when you were drunk and leaned over to kiss your best friend’s girl. Or that moment that you took a steak knife out of the wooden block by the kitchen sink and plunged it into your wife’s face. Actually, her right eye.
Gordon wished he could have taken all of those moments back, but mostly, he wished he could undo the last. He could live with his dad going to the grave hating him. He could live with the broken nose his friend had given him for tasting his dumb slut’s tongue when they were both drunk.
He was going to have a hard time living with Miriam’s corpse, though, which was currently bleeding all over the linoleum. He hated messiness. So this only pissed him off further. Gordon pulled the tablecloth off the dining room table and threw it over her. He had to go take care of Freddy, who was crying in the back bedroom again. Then he’d decide what to do with the naggy bitch that bore the boy.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had loved her once. Before Miriam had turned into a nag. An endlessly bitching, whining shrew. He didn’t know exactly which word had finally broken his bubble of protection. Was it
