Bicycle Shop Murder 22

His real name was John Smith. It sounded like a fake name for a hit man anyway, so he opted for a cooler sounding name: John X. He had relocated from Amarillo to Arlington when he was 22, and had established himself as a well-to-do bachelor over the three years he had lived there.

He wore expensive Italian suits and drove a new Jaguar. Nobody really knew him, but the people in his neighborhood, at the grocery store, the bank, and at restaurants seemed to think highly of the image he had created for himself.

He was sitting on a Greyhound bus, traveling to Shreve­port, Louisiana. How he detested wearing ordinary clothes. And what was that awful smell—the old man in the seat in front of him?

There were a few rough-looking characters on the bus. They had probably sized up John X, and at 5?6?, 160 lbs., he looked easy. They would think they could take whatever money and jewelry he had. If the thugs had known how much cash John was carrying, they would not have hesitated to jump him. But they would have been very sorry. The revolver under his jacket, and his skill of using it, would more than compen­sate for his lack of stature.

The bus trip was unpleasant, but necessary. He would steal a car in Shreveport, drive it to Coreyville, and do the job. When the police connected that car with the murder, it would lead them to Shreveport—not to Arlington. Some poor sap would have his car stolen, and if he didn’t report it right away, would be investigated in connection with the murder. If the guy were lucky, he’d have some kind of alibi.

Earlier, John X had walked to a 7-Eleven and called for a taxi to take him to the bus station in Dallas. It was departing at 12:45 PM, and he was cutting it close. Buford had wanted the job done right away. If the taxi got there soon, he would make it.

He had studied the lunchtime customers as he waited. The Indian guy behind the counter had three people standing in line. There was a fat woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, bouncing around like a conductor’s baton, as she demanded a carton of Virginia Slims. Next in line was a con­struction worker type. Behind him was an impatient young executive wannabe in a cheap suit, holding a diet Coke and a Snickers bar. He appeared to have already consumed more than his daily allowance of caffeine.

On one of the isles was a young woman holding a crying baby on her hip while scolding her toddler, who had just suc­cessfully toppled a giant display of microwave popcorn.

The first bullet would go to the Indian, before he could press an alarm button or go for a gun under the counter. Next, he would take out the construction worker before he could react. The big hulk could have ripped off John’s head with his bare hands. But he would never get the chance. One clean shot to the head and he would hit the floor like one of those huge bags of dog food you buy at Wal-Mart.

The young guy would be peeing in his cheap pants. He would be easy to do. The young mother would frantically try to shield her kids. No way she could make it to the exit in a hurry. The fat woman might take a run at him, but he doubted that she could move very fast. The biggest threats from her would be cigarette burns, or suffocation under her gigantic butt.

Too bad all of them would have to die. He really only wanted to kill the construction worker, who reminded him of Peter, Jackie, and Phillip. He had wanted to kill that trio every day of his life since high school. Good thing he didn’t get his hands on a gun until after graduation.

A lot of teachers and students could have died. But he didn’t have any intention of going to prison. His killings must all be done in such a way that he could escape cleanly. None of his corpses would ever lead the police to him.

He would never actually kill Peter, Jackie, or Phillip. He would get caught if he killed them, because he would want the world to know he did it. He would want his entire graduating class to know that he finally got revenge on those three football player punks who mercilessly picked on him, beat him up and made him the biggest joke of his school. But if he could have, maybe it would have finally ended the laughter that still echoed in his ears.

Instead, he played his favorite video game over and over: High School Retaliation. He figured that the people who wrote the game must have been abused in school, just like he was. In the game, he was a character named Johnny who showed up at school one day with a .44 Magnum. Presumably, the game writ­ers were Dirty Harry fans.

As Johnny went from classroom to classroom, he would seek out the punks who had beat him up, pulled his pants off and stuffed him in a locker the day before. A crowd of students had cheered them on. He could blow away some of them too.

John always felt the adrenalin rush when he blew their heads ‘clean off,’ as Harry Callahan would say. Sometimes he would wait until his victim was standing in front of a window so he could watch the head fly off and crash through the glass, leaving the body standing headless for a brief moment before it collapsed to the classroom floor, jerking hopelessly.

Nothing gave John X more pleasure than playing the game—except real killing with real guns. And yes, he even owned a .44 Magnum. But he had never used it on a job. Yet.

The taxi had arrived in time, and John had made it to the bus station, paid the $35.00 fare and got onboard. He had just murdered five adults and two babies—but only in his mind. Killing them would have served no purpose—other than the sheer joy of it. But it would have been too risky.

And besides, he had a job to do. Marty would be a sitting duck. But John would occupy his mind on the four-hour trip with devising some interesting new way to kill Marty. That was the real fun of it for him. Each murder had to be a little differ­ent in some way. He liked being creative with his craft.

**********

Marty had decided to wait at the Holiday Inn for Cynthia Blockerman to return, as Buford had requested. Her car was still in the parking lot, but he didn’t expect to see her any time soon. He did expect Buford to send somebody to kill him. He knew the killer would come soon, but he didn’t know whether his death would be by gunshot, poison, an explosion, or some other means.

He was not too worried about it. He would take reasonable precautions, but wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Marty knew he was a dead man. Buford would keep sending hit men until somebody got him. Or he would just call his buddy on the parole board, and Marty would eventually be found and thrown back into prison. If he couldn’t be fishing, he’d just as soon be dead anyway. Years of killing and prison life had numbed his senses.

He had been surprised a few years earlier when a new cell­mate’s sad story actually revived something in a deep, long-for­gotten place in his heart. It was a young black man, who at age 12, had seen his older brother brutally and senselessly mur­dered. It had destroyed his life. The young man’s story had stirred a righteous rage within Marty. He would have hunted down that murderer and slaughtered him if he had known the killer’s name.

Marty wanted revenge for him so badly that he would have given his own life just to see that wretched man in the grave. It would have been like Marty killing his own father for the years of misery he had dealt his son. Alcohol had killed him before Marty could work up the nerve to do it himself.

**********

Greg and Cynthia were approaching Dallas. Soon, they would meet the notorious Buford Bellowin. In the meantime, Greg struggled with his mixed emotions about Cynthia. He was very attracted to her. But he couldn’t let the physical attraction blind him to the fact they she might well be a murderer.

He wanted to believe her story, but he didn’t want to be a fool. Was this an innocent, kind woman of high moral value? Or was she a talented liar, capable of killing without remorse? He hoped he could survive the relationship until he knew the answer to that question.

Then Cynthia looked at him and smiled, and he knew he couldn’t possibly resist her, no matter what she had done. It felt as though the two of them had just stripped naked, and dived off a high cliff over a beautiful river. The water below looked cool and inviting.

But what if it was only six inches deep?