Knew where to look for the down and outs, for those on an OD path, those who would not be missed if they disappeared.
He went looking for them, found one the third night he tried, under a bridge, which was classic. The man was all by himself – sprawled out wearing a stench-laden coat with pee on his pants, grass in his dank fair hair. Wolfgang hauled him into the trunk and drove off, having checked to be sure there was no CCTV or anyone observing him.
He drove off with a man in his trunk – still breathing but so shallowly he was as good as dead.
When he closed the garage door – having waited for the slam and for the outside to be gone, until it was just him and this trunk with a victim in it – when he opened it, the man was goddamned dead.
“Well. Took care of that part. Now I don’t feel so guilty.” He shrugged then grabbed hold of the canvas he’d lined the trunk with. There was always a plus to everything, they said. “Wait…” he shook his finger at the guy. “Wheelbarrow.”
Dumping an entire clothed body in his pool seemed almost sacrilegious, as if this was some rite of sacrifice.
Though undressing the fucker was gross. He did it, however, there in the lit-up garage, with the fluorescent lighting adding a certain crime-scene noir to the dark deed. He undressed the guy, bundled up the clothes, decided those could go in a garbage can somewhere miles away. Then he wheelbarrowed him down the outside of the house, hosed him off, ’cause grossness…
Then he dressed in his patented siren-protective gear. Headphones with sound-deadening qualities. Bike helmet. Nose plugs – because who knew what they did to a man, really? Besides the guy still smelled.
Then he went up the little used side steps to the pool, unlocked the gate there, and dumped the body on the grass strip, and ran. Wolfgang was pretty certain she’d been singing to him – she’d been sat up half-out of the pool with her mouth wide open.
His gut had also done a weird flutter as if, somehow, she had affected him.
“Mission accomplished. Surely?” Though he would have some cleaning up to do after.
His pool filter would die in the face of trying to filter out flesh and intestines and god knew what else.
So he switched it off until she did the deed and ate him. He wandered to the pool wall.
Raffaela was swimming at the bottom of the pool eyeing him as if he were a steak sandwich and a bucket of nuggets all in one.
“Fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. After all that? This would work, wouldn’t it?
No. it did not.
A few hours later, he dressed in the protective gear again and hastily hooked the guy with a rake. He pulled the smelly corpse through the side gate, then buried the guy on the property in one of the garden plots Merrick had dug.
Hand on heart, he said a few lame words over the grave. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, you fucker, now I have to do this again.
Like that.
She had not lunged at Wolfgang, and from the mythology he recalled, maybe sirens relied on men going to them most of the time? Even so, his heart was about to lodge a protest over all the scares.
Dead did not cut it. He needed alive. More alive than that one anyway.
He had another idea. Back to the city he went. Same car but with more cash in his wallet. Bait.
Slowly he drove into the suburb he aimed for, avoiding the obvious traffic lights and main streets where CCTV might catch him. This was where the deals went down, according to Merrick who had lived here years ago.
His hunting ground, now.
He cruised, looking for the right person. This was not going to be as easy as hauling away a mostly dead guy.
Another three nights and he found a promising human. Very alive but possibly wounded.
There’d been a pop-pop of gunfire but fairly muted, low velocity or something, only one scream and he’d seen her drop something a man scooped up and ran away with. No police sirens, yet.
Rain drizzled onto the windshield and his wiper blades shooshed up and down. He parked, switched off the engine, opened the door and exited, brought the collar of his black coat up higher, settled his fake glasses into place.
Streetlights reflected in opalescent rainbows off the puddles.
There.
Wolfgang headed toward the alley where the woman had fled. Dressed in jeans and jacket, she looked more like a dealer than a hooker.
The gun was in his coat pocket.
“You okay in there?” he asked, quietly. “Did I see someone shoot you? Need a hand? The cops?”
“No cops.”
“No? Hospital? Emergency? I can drive you?”
“I can—” She coughed and in the dull light he thought he saw blood on the ground. Lungs then. Maybe.
“If you have a chest wound, we need to hurry.”
He could barely see her, leaning up against the brickwork – mostly her eyes gleamed.
“Not going to call anyone?”
“Not… tonight.”
He thought she was chewing her lip.
“Okay. You look decent, man. Don’t try and fuck me over. I got no money or nothin’ on me anymore. He got all that.”
“Sure.” Wolfgang stepped away. “My car is this way.”
He led the way, heard her follow. There’d be blood on the seat, so he’d need to clean that up. He’d stop in a street he knew, in a dark spot where the lights were out, pull the gun on her, zip tie her wrists, put her in the trunk.
“I’ve been doing naughty things tonight, myself,” he tossed that back at her, laughed. “I’m going a back route
