The Winner: Part Twenty

The next day, I’m sitting in my destroyed living room eating a sandwich from Subway that I had left over from a few days ago. I barely enjoy it. All I can think about is all the things I used to do to the sandwiches when I worked there. I half expect to get a clump of pubic hair in my mouth every time I bite down on it. I force myself to eat it anyway, if not for enjoyment, then at least for sustenance.

“Poopy,” I hear Apple whispering from the bedroom. “Wuz, goin’ on…here?”

I toss the last bit of stale bread from the sandwich on the floor where all the rest of the trash is piling up. It doesn’t really matter to me anyway. I stand up, brush the crumbs off my pants and walk into the bedroom.

I moved Apple from the chair into the bed last night and replaced the sheet with some zip ties I bought last night at the hardware store. Both her wrists and her ankles are secured to the bedposts. There are red marks where the plastic has chafed her skin.

Right now, she’s in a daze. I pet her hair and take a Kleenex to wipe away some of the drool that is running out of her mouth. I cleaned most of the blood off her face, but there’s still dried flecks of it in the creases of her face.

“Poopy, I feel cold,” she mumbles. “My bones hurt.”

“It’s okay,” I say, petting her hair some more. I reach under the bed and grab a black leather pouch from under the bed. I set it on my lap and unzip it and pull out a tangled length of rubber tubing and a hypodermic needle. “You’ll feel better soon.”

I set the rest of the contents of the pouch on the cardboard box I’m using as a nightstand for the time being. This idea came to me last night when I was thinking of ways to keep Apple quiet while I kept her tied up in my house. I’d shoot her full of heroin.

I went out to Baker Street, where all the homeless people, druggies, and prostitutes hung out. On my way there, I kept my eye out for the black car and those guys who had been following me. I didn’t always see them, but every once in awhile a black car would pass me, or I got a strange sense of deja-vu from some person who passed me on the street. This had been going on for the past week, but tonight, I tried to pay attention to exactly what the guys who were following me looked like; what make and model their cars were.

When I got to Baker Street, I paid some junkie three-hundred dollars to find me some heroin, as well as sell me his “works”, which included a couple of hypodermics wrapped in plastic from the city needle exchange program, a bent up, discolored spoon, and a small bag of cotton balls. He also found me a three day’s supply of heroin. “’Dis is da good shit right here,” the junkie told me. “You could smoke this shit and be flyin’. But if you mainline it, you’ll be out for the count. I guarantee.”

We went into an alley and I let him shoot up from my stash, just so he could run me through how it’s done, seeing as I have no fucking clue how to shoot heroin. Sure enough, after he injected a syringe full of this stuff into a puss filled sore on top of one of his rotted veins, he nodded off and didn’t say another word. A piano could have fallen down next to him and he probably would flinch, and this guy is a hardened user. I’m sure it would be enough to shut Apple the fuck up.

Of course, the thought of reaching into the junkie’s pocket and taking my three-hundred bucks back occurred to me. In his state, he probably would even care and I’m sure he overcharged me for this stuff. Still, I didn’t want to burn any bridges in case I needed more of this stuff.

As I left him in the alley, I noticed a guy watching us out of the corner of his eye, smoking a cigarette and trying to act nonchalant. At first, I figured it was just another junkie in this shooting gallery, but I got that sense of deja-vu from him that I’d been feeling tonight. I’m sure it was one of Burke’s men who was tailing me. I stood up, acting like I didn’t notice him and headed back to my loft.

I didn’t hear anything as I approached the door to my place, so I must have had her gagged well enough to keep the neighbors from hearing. I quickly went inside and to the bedroom. Apple had managed to knock the chair she was in over and scooch herself about a foot across the carpet despite being tied down. When she sees me, she tries yelling through the gag again, pleading this time. Her grunts sounded like something to the effect of “let me go” but it could have been “you sonofabitch”.

It didn’t matter. I went back to the living room where I could prepare a shot out of her eyesight, just like the junkie showed me. I palmed the needle, doing my best not to stick myself, then I went back into the bedroom and walked over next to Apple. She started grunting again, then let out a surprisingly loud scream when I stuck the hypodermic into the meaty part of her shoulder. Of course, this was a pretty ineffective place to inject heroin, so it took about ten minutes before it started to work on her. I paid close attention to her as she started to wind down, hoping I hadn’t given her too much. This fear was got even worse when she started to wretch. I knelt down and started tearing the duct tape from around her head, taking off large clumps of her blonde hair as I did it. When I pulled the washcloth from her mouth, a stream of gray vomit followed it. Then I grabbed the chair and set her upright so she wouldn’t drown on her own puke. A couple more heaves pretty much emptied the rest of the contents of her stomach onto her blouse. I cleaned off her chin and got her a cup of water from my Brita filter to wash out her mouth. Her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.

“Poo-py….what did…you…give to me?” she moaned.

I dabbed more of the vomit away from her mouth with some napkins. “Just relax. Everything is gonna be okay. Don’t you worry about your babies. I’ll get them back in just a little bit.”

Apple kept moaning, but it became increasingly incoherent as the heroin got absorbed into her bloodstream. Finally, when she was knocked out, I transferred her over to the bed and sat down on a clean place on the carpet. Now that Apple was taken care of, I had time to concentrate on my other problem, which was getting to my meeting with the FBI without Burke’s men knowing.

I was only able to think about it for about half an hour before I fell asleep on the carpet, but the more I thought about it, the bigger the problem became. I had to lose them without looking like I was trying to lose them. I’m pretty sure that they were aware that I was aware I was being followed and who was following me. If I was too obvious about trying to lose them, I’d open myself up to all sorts of retribution.

So I kept thinking about it all morning, until I had a loose semblance of a plan. The rest of the afternoon I spent trying to work up the nerve to actually do it, which is a lot different than the cerebral plotting I’d been doing before.

Anyway, I cook up another shot of heroin for Apple. I tie the rubber tubing around her forearm, tap out a vein and carefully stick the needle in roughly the same spot I stuck her the night before. She lets out a small yelp when I slide the needle in a pull the plunger back, drawing some blood into the syringe to make sure I hit a vein. Then I slowly pushed the solution into her bloodstream and undid the tourniquet. Apple gasped, and then seemed to melt into the bed. I pulled the needle from her vein and a small ribbon of blood leaked out of her arm. I dabbed at it with a corner of the bedspread until it the hole clotted.

“Cotton…” she moaned. “I feel like…cotton.”

“Just sit tight here, everything’s gonna be okay.”

I stayed with her for a little longer, just to make sure she was breathing okay. I looked at my 32 karat gold Rolex watch. It was two-thirty. If was gonna lose Burke’s men in time to make it to the meeting, I had to leave now.

After making sure my door was locked, I got into the elevator, took it to the ground floor, exited the lobby. The black car was right there across the street like it always is. I pretended not to notice it. Did they know that I knew they were following me? I was curious, though it wouldn’t really make much of a difference with my plan.

I walked out of downtown towards Downing Street. There was a porno video store slash-xxx arcade, live dancer booth type place down there called Alley Cat’s that I used to frequent back in the days before I could easily score porn on the Internet. It wasn’t a place that would be unusual for a porno-junkie like me to stop in, so hopefully it wouldn’t trigger any alarms with my followers. I figured I’d pay the ten bucks it cost to see a video in it’s entirety in one of the booths, then slip out the back door before anyone could follow me in. I’d have to pick a long, compilation video to give me enough time to make it to the FBI and back before they noticed. Alley Cat’s has one of the largest porno arcades in the state, and it did seem like these guys used some discretion in their surveillance. It would probably take them at least a half-hour before they even checked to see what I was doing in there.

As I made the long trek to the porno store, I mentally checked off all the ways my plan could fall through. If they immediately watched the fire exit on any place I went to, I’d be screwed. If the adult bookstore laws had changed since I last frequented the places and they made them take the doors off the booths so dudes couldn’t jerk off with privacy inside, I’d also be fucked. This could be likely since the neighborhood around Downing Street was rapidly being gentrified in the last few years. It used to be just your average, lower class, downtown crack neighborhood. Then it became popular with the typical, lazy, bohemian expressionist painter and noise band types. Now it was becoming popular with yuppies who were being priced out of downtown, where only people with money like me could afford a place any more. Just a couple months ago, they ran a report on the news about how the police were cracking down on vice in the area because they just opened an exclusive private school down there. Hopefully, the neighborhood hadn’t changed too much. I did know at least that Alley Cat’s was still there, thanks to a quick Google search I did the other night.

I crossed my fingers, hoping that things wouldn’t go wrong but fully prepared to improvise should something go sideways. Fuck, my whole life has gone out of control in just the last year and a half. I should be used to this shit by now.

Anyway, I get to Downing Street and the corner that Alley Cat’s Adult Book and Video Emporium was located and was relieved to see that the crusty old yellow and red sign was still there. They must not have changed it since the fucking seventies or something. I open the opaque that says MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO ENTER ABSOLUTELY NO DRUGS ON THE PREMISES and step inside. I’m immediately greeted with the familiar dull glow of florescent light and smell of antiseptic cleaner from the jizz buckets I used to remember. The smell brings me back more than anything. They say that smell unlocks memory more effectively than almost any other sense.

The cashier desk is right by the turnstile. Some bored guy flipping through US Weekly doesn’t even look up to tell me: “Five dollars to browse. Entrance fee refundable if you buy something.”

I take out my wallet and flip through the bills until I found a five and put it on the counter. Without looking up from his magazine, the clerk sticks it in his register, then presses the buzzer to let me through the turnstile. It must have been a long time since I’ve been in here. It used to be only two bucks to browse. Fucking inflation…

Still, while I’d love to go through memory lane in this place, I had dire business to attend to. I immediately pass the glass case filled with leather straps, paddles, and enormous dildos and head over to the videos to start looking for one that has a lengthy running time. The first section I come to ends up being the gay section. I pass it by, after I look around for a little bit, I come to the realization that the entire store is a gay section. Dammit! I want to scream “No!” like Darth Vader when he learns that Natalie Portman is dead. Is nothing holy anymore? This used to be a respectable heterosexual porno store. The fucking fags want marriage, now this? What is the world coming to?

I stay cool though and remind myself that I’m not here to hang out. This isn’t really a crink in my plan since Van Hertzwelder already thinks I’m gay for what I did to his son when I was in jail. Being in here shouldn’t raise any red flags. So I start looking through the videos again, trying to look for the longest one I can find and ignoring all the extremely gay box art.

“Five dollars to browse. Entrance fee refundable if you buy something.”

I look up from the copy of “Stud Ranch 14” I have in my hand to see who is coming in. Shit! It looks like the guy who I saw in the alley last night. I recognize his goatee and everything. He hands the cashier his money, then starts looking over at me. I turn away quickly and try to act like I haven’t noticed him. Dammit! These fuckers are on me like a goddamn tick on a mangy dog. I thought I’d have a few minutes before they’d even come in here. I’m gonna need ninja skills to get out of here without them noticing.

“Stud Ranch 14” only has three scenes. Probably not long enough to cover me. The goatee guy walks around to the opposite end of the video stacks and starts acting like he’s browsing for videos too. I start to look through them desperately. Finally, I find one: “Dick Stretchy: The Compendium”. The cover is nothing but a picture of some impossibly buff gym rat with a penis that hangs halfway down his thigh, but that’s not the part that interests me. The dialogue box above Dick’s head saying: “Check this out guyz! Over three hours of footage from all my greatest scenes!” does. I nonchalantly take the video up to the counter. The clerk puts down his US Weekly and starts tapping numbers into the register.

“That’ll be twenty-six thirty two.”

“I don’t want to buy it,” I say quietly, hoping that the goatee guy can’t hear me. “I just want to view it in one of the booths.”

The clerk rolls his eyes. “We don’t have video booths here. Our DVDs are only for purchase.”

Okay, I’ve officially come to problem with my plan.

“Didn’t you used to?”

“Yes, but we had to get rid of them. Too many homeless people were using them to sleep in at night.”

I glance over to the door that used to lead to the movie arcade. There’s a big wooden door on it now with a sign that says “NO DRUGS OR NO SEXUAL ACTIVITY PERMITTED BY STATE LAW. SEE CASHIER FOR ENTRY.”

“What’s in there?” I ask.

“That’s the Man Hole,” the clerk says. “It’s twenty dollars to go in, forty per hour for your own private room.”

A light of hope here. I pull out my wallet, “I’ll take a private room for three hours.”

“I’m sorry, unfortunately all our rooms are occupied until five o’clock. I can put on a waiting list though if someone finishes up early.”

“No! I can’t wait!” I almost yell. Then I say five words that I never thought I’d say and never hope to repeat: “I need gay dick now.”

The clerk shrugs, “Well, just pay the entrance fee then. It shouldn’t be too hard to get an invitation into someone’s room. Those boys in there are always looking for smooth bottoms, cocksocket.”

I scratch the graft on my cheek, then pull out a twenty and hand it to him. “Okay, let’s do it.”

He puts the bill into the register then hands me a five back. “Your refund for the entrance fee. Go over to the door and I’ll buzz you in.”

I walk over there, feeling more than a little dirty. I try to glance over at the goatee man, but he’s across all the stacks of videos. I see him touch his ear and mumble something to no one. No doubt, he’s been listening to everything that’s been said. Still, I don’t think he knows my intentions just yet.

I stand by the door and there’s suddenly a jarring buzzing noise. The heavy lock on the door comes unlatched and I step inside. There is a neon sign on the inside that gaudly states:

“WELCOME TO MAN HOLES”.