Chapter 29: The Lipstick Killer

Chapter 29

The Lipstick Killer

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The car accident that will kill Tom Atari 

is still days away.

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Her name was Muriel Tesla, and tonight she would become the first victim of the Lipstick Killer.

Tonight- the night before Thanksgiving- was perfect: cool, calm, with a great surging fog, poisonous, intoxicating, falling slow from the hills like foam in a beer- overflow in slow motion. The city was alive with reunion, laughter, the sounds of kids out of school. In homes loving mothers stuffing turkeys for tomorrow’s feast, their cautious daughters watching, learning the requirements.

Muriel- neither mother or daughter- just a shop girl at Lavette’s department store on the corner of Century Boulevard, just voluptuous, round calves and thighs, lips so swollen with love that she had to bite them to maintain. She was blessed with dark hair, the eyes of a kitten that would blink and make a man a boy and back again the other way around. Ms. Tesla was used to the smiles.

Her days were spent in the camera department, and men would buy just to watch her say thank you. With her lips aligned and her dark hair parted she was angel cake, and her portrait was the first picture taken with every new camera once she showed her admirers how to load their weapons. Keith, her boyfriend, away at university, leaving her lonely, but Muriel never weakened. This weekend would be her chance, their chance to be together for the first time in forever.

She was off work for the evening, home in her fourth floor apartment, entering to the spotlight of her lamp, stretching her legs, letting the ache out for an evening alone. Tomorrow was the meal with the family but until then: her pocketbook tossed on the wooden chair, reading the mail that was bills.

On the street her murderer emerged from the bushes. The man was dressed in black, smoking with one hand, in his other his lucky charm: the paw from a white rabbit.

The man stood on the corner, using binoculars, a graduation present, watching the girl in the window. He could see her close, but she kept bursting out of frame, her breasts inviting him, crossing his wires. He tried to sort this out... but he was incapable.

Muriel, above, about her rounds, concerto on the hi-fi, unaware that for the man below this was a ballet, enticement divine: open season. Brushing her hair in the mirror and then, into the kitchen for a small glass of milk. What's good with milk is chocolate cookies, and so Muriel pulled one from the jar, secure in the knowledge that small bites don’t count.

And down below the man smiled, unholy and foul, the snarl, and he was into the building through the front door, his heart pumping new juices through his veins.

Muriel stepped lively, violin in her head, her legs warm, spinning in her bedroom with her new scarf wrapped around her neck and in front of the mirror... what to pair it with?

The building's door man was out, having a stroke, so it was easy for the man in black to slide on by, to press the elevator button and to cock his head to steal a headline from a discarded evening paper.

Muriel, lining up shoes, stacking folded sweaters, hair clips, miscellaneous monuments to her own natural beauty, which she would forever deny. Biting her lip... maybe another chocolate cookie?

The new elevators... they move so fast.

Back in the kitchen and a whole cookie now, but a glass of water this time, to balance.

The elevator arrived on four, smiling wide. The man, winking back, “Thank you.”

Muriel’s eyes as she swallowed, counting calendar blocks on the refrigerator magnet... one day... two day...

Chisel in the doorjam and-

Three day...four day... until the day that she and Keith could once again.

Hammer to the chisel, a splintering of natural wood. The cowardly door conceded, and the man was inside. The girl turned but there was no time.

The man in black put the chisel and hammer to Muriel Tesla’s head and began to sculpt. Gentle, loving caresses against her muted protests, carving through her sweet dreams and loneliness, through the bones in her neck and her love of horses. In only moments her head was in his hands, free of the body responsible, and the man in black did believe that she was smiling up at him, forever in love and allegiance. He sat on the sofa, stroking her raven hair, and across the room her toes wiggled for the last time.

He giggled, taking her lipstick to write “gobble gobble” on the bathroom mirror, hearing the rush in his head, twisting the tube and watching the red rise, applying a thick layer to his lips and puckering, kissing the glass cold. Then his member in his hand, standing among the blood and parts, smiling wide, dripping salty sweat, straining to catch his breath before soiling the floor, treating himself to a deep drink of toilet water, leaving the way he came in and sure of only one thing: he couldn't wait to do this again.

Somebody call Tom Atari.

Chapter 5: Adrenaline

Chapter 5

Adrenaline

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The car accident that will kill Tom Atari 

is still days away.

----------------

There had to be retribution for Heather Jasmine. Tom was no hero, no policeman or judge, but at one time or another every man has the right to hold the hammer.

She was a child, an innocent soul brought into this world and tainted by angry humans, who misdirected her, used her as fuel and burnt her before she could stand on her own. That soul was now gone, forever, irretrievable, before it had a chance at awareness, before it got a day for redemption, and now Tom found himself suddenly sanctified, sitting in his Chrysler 300 outside the gates of MCM studios, loading his gun, singing along to the Diamonds’ ‘Little Darling,’ and feeling no fear.

His body alive with righteousness, this was God’s work, had to be.

The gates opened, slow, and from the driveway descended the new black Lincoln, the car of reputable producer Marvin Millser: talent scout, filmmaker, child pornographer. He was done for the day, having spent the last six hours creating wholesome motion pictures that would establish morality for the country, planet. The last hour of his day was spent with a ten year-old boy, naked and romantic, while the child's Mother waited blind in the lobby, praying to the heavens that her son might become a star.

Tom dunked the Chrysler into Low and that’s just what she did, purring slow on the cement behind the mogul’s creeping vehicle. Atari- on fire- followed good, one of his specialties, invisible at a distance, using billboards and the shark-fins of fellow cars to navigate the highway’s shallow waters and stay in the black Lincoln’s blind spot.

The usually impetuous Tom Atari was in complete control of his emotions, his hands steady on the wheel, his heart metered in beat, until turning off La Cienega Boulevard, when he suddenly heard Heather’s hot whispered breath in his ear: “save me.”

That’s when his car smashed into Millser’s, bumping it into a country club shrub. The hood plowed through to the other side of the greenery- the headlights getting to see how the other half golfs. Tom was out of his car even before Millser’s driver, who came at him with a swift drop of a tire iron. Atari countered by shooting him in the face.

The driver dropped it, and while the liquid adrenaline poured through Tom's body he opened the car door and took Marvin Millser out of the backseat. He grabbed him by the collars of his expensive suit and he shook him hard. And he shook him harder. And he shook Marvin Millser out of his spell and back into sanity. The producer- chubby, balding- was finding it impossible to catch his breath. He was in fact hyperventilating, his chest seizing and his arms shaking.

Tom spoke in a voice he didn’t recognize: “Tell me.”

Millser, afraid, could not have spoken if he had wanted to, his lungs fighting his body for air. There were tears in his eyes, and Tom- out of habit- wiped them away.

“Tell me.  Tell me who got to Heather. Why she was set up- why I was set up. Why did she have to die?”

Both men trembling on the side of the road, the deaf chauffeur smiling peacefully at the clouds.

“I’m not the one...” Millser gasped, his chest heaving involuntarily.

Tom shook his head, “It’s the whole goddamn studio, right? The whole industry?”

“Big- bigger,” Millser panted, “It’s Project Geronimo.”

A Cadillac, turning up the road, saw the accident and honked its horn, which was when Tom turned to look, letting the gun drop, giving Millser the chance to yank it away.

Tom whipped his head back to see Millser put the gun between his lips and take a sip of gunpowder. He fired and his skull exploded from below, splitting pretty and leaving an eye over each of his shoulders. The Cadillac carried on.

Tom would not remember getting back in his car and driving home, or the Marion Davies movie playing on television that night. He would not remember the aspirin, or the glasses of milk, or the falling asleep on the sofa in his suit and stocking feet. He would remember the words ‘Project Geronimo,’ and the look on Millser’s face when he took himself out of the game.

America watched Miss Davies on television skating sweet to the red mill, and Tom Atari fell asleep, wide awake for the first time.

.

Chapter 2: The Bloody Vermiglio

Chapter 2

The Bloody Vermiglio

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The car accident that will kill Tom Atari is still days away. 
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“You’re a doll, Sandy... an absolute doll.”

She sat across from him at the restaurant, smiling for once in her life, the depth of her beauty finally unfolded. Tom Atari, for a single, flickering moment, was happy.

“I didn’t do anything. I knew you needed a break. And everybody needs a char-broiled hamburger sandwich with some french-fried potatoes... so today you get the best of both worlds. You’re gonna love this food.”

They were in the new hamburger place two blocks from Tom’s office, at that perfect moment when the lunch rush has died and the dinner rush not yet arrived. The place was young enough that everything was clean: glasses that still sparkled. It was quiet. It was safe. Hamburgers were on their way.

Tom looked across the table, deep into Sandy’s ocean eyes, wondering just how much she knew, wondering if fucking her would ruin her grace. This wasn’t the first time he had imagined her body against his, her blond hair swaying across her bare breasts. He wanted to tell her what he learned last night, but it was too early in the day to tell this sweetheart that the government was a lie and her country a fraud. He hadn’t swallowed it all himself. Anyway, being here with Sandy made him feel good- why spoil it? There was something in the air, something almost warm. Almost right.

Sandy took a long sip of her strawberry milkshake. Through her straw.

Tom saw through her dress, into her heart- it was a rooster-shaped weathervane, spinning in the sea breeze- squeaky, fucking rusty on top of it- but surely pointing true north. He had thought about making her his own, getting out of this business. Then what? Retirement. And living life.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

He wanted to tell her, was ready to tell her, but the waitress came with the food. Maybe later.

Sandy, cheese on her hamburger, french fry in hand: “Cheers. And if you mention Project Geronimo I’ll break your face.” They bit, eating, and the girl was right: one holy hell of a hamburger sandwich. She smiled, mouth full, “Try it with ketchup.”

Tom spotted him then: across the restaurant, sitting at a table and engrossed in a menu, in his respectable suit. It was Lou Vermiglio- the dirty ex-cop, three hundred pounds of hungry greed. Beside him was a mousy woman- his wife- and two young kids, a little girl and a little boy.

Son of a bitch

“What- who are you looking at? Tom, stop.” She saw the look in his eyes.

But Atari was already standing, already crossing the room. He couldn’t hear Sandy’s pleading: all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, the sound of anger overtaking. He could feel his face getting red as he got closer.

Rage.

Lou looked up and back down to his menu before looking back up at Atari, eyes going wide. He didn’t speak.

“Sgt. Vermiglio! How nice to see you!”

His wife looked over. So did the kids.

“Are you still a police sergeant? Or were you kicked off the force?”

Lou was frozen, caught in a modified nightmare. “Don’t do this.”

“Do the kids know? Do they understand why you were kicked off the force?”

“Why Daddy?” It was the boy.

“That’s enough, Jackie,” shot Lou.

"Does your wife know about the graft, or why you spend your nights kicking the shit out of private investigators?”

“Who is this man, Lou?” The wife, afraid.

“It’s just Tom Atari. He’s a longtime pal. We used to play cards. But he’ll be leaving now because he would never try to talk to me when I’m having lunch with my wife. And my kids.”

The eyes of the young ones- 9, 10- moved in unison from their father to Atari.

Tom bashed the butt of his gun into Lou Vermiglio’s nose, splintering it, spurting red blood onto his appetizer plate. Sandy was up and on her way.

Mrs. Vermiglio jumped to her feet but Tom kicked her in the chest, shattering her collarbone. Jackie- the boy- leapt in to help his mother but Tom punched the child in his jaw, breaking it and knocking out three teeth: one baby, two permanent.

Lou was on his feet, improbable, reaching for his piece but Tom socked him in his fat belly, letting him reel. Atari took this chance to knuckle Vermiglio’s face, repeatedly, flattening his nose, working his face into an angry pulp of ground chuck.

Vermiglio tried to fight back, but his left eye socket was crushed and he was blinded by the blood from his open forehead. His little girl wept, eyes closed, still seated at the table.

Sandy, hysterical, jumped on Tom’s back, trying to pull him away. When he reached back to peel her off the bloody Vermiglio staggered to the entrance, pulling blind until his hand found the door and he made his way outside.

Lou stuttered down the sidewalk like a robot taking his first steps, looking in vain for an ambulance, policeman, or God. All he could find was a fire hydrant, and he fell to his knees forsaken.

Then Tom was out the door after him, running to the end of the block, bending down to lift Lou’s head up by his hair, smashing the man’s face into the yellow fireplug, over and again, knocking out teeth, missing the sounds of the sirens and the shouting of the officer.

The cop shot Tom in the back, and the piercing of the bullet brought a pain so pure he could no longer see, no longer understand what it was all about...

What was it all about?

Tom fell to the sidewalk, bleeding quiet. Inside the restaurant his hamburger sat lonely in the empty booth.

.