by
Susan Fry
Susan Fry has sold short fiction to publications such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crimewave, and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Her stories have also appeared in anthologies, including The Museum of Horrors (winner of the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best anthology). She’s won the 2004 Phobos Fiction Contest and a first-place prize in the 2001 Writers of the Future Contest. She was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award in 2005. She has a B.A. and an M.A. from Stanford University.
“Me, I'd do the one in the blue dress.” Kennedy leaned over the café’s rickety metal table and pointed at a woman walking across the plaza.
“Yeah, she’s hot,” J.J. said. But he felt sick to his stomach. He told himself anyone would feel sick after the two shots of tequila Chip had insisted on ordering him for breakfast. Not to mention the chorizo before that. The early morning light hammered against J.J.’s eyes. They’d driven all night to get to Juarez, and J.J. just wanted to check into the hotel and go to sleep, so he wouldn’t have to think about what Chip and Kennedy were going to make him do that evening.
“The one in the blue dress? You smoking crack, dude? She must be thirty.” Chip downed a shot of tequila and scanned the square.
It wasn’t really a square—more like a parking lot edged with crumbling cafes, little hotels, and taquerias. All the building windows were barred over, and someone had parked a pickup truck in the middle of the lot to sell vegetables and kitchen utensils to a group of women arguing in Spanish. Most of the women were older, but a few were young and pretty. J.J. didn’t think any of them looked like hookers. But what did he know?
“Her.”
Chip nodded toward a woman who seemed to be around their age—eighteen, maybe twenty. Her dark hair was long and flipped up at the ends, her skin a deep golden-brown. She wore a red T-shirt that was a little too tight for her full breasts, and faded blue jeans with a rip in one knee.
“Yeah,” J.J. agreed again, then bit his lip when Kennedy frowned at him. J.J. didn’t want Kennedy, of all people, to think he was an ass kisser. Kennedy wasn't Kennedy's real name. The frat brothers just called him that because his father and uncle were senators.
J.J. was relieved when Kennedy sat forward and poured him another shot of tequila.
“You deserve a reward tonight, compadre,” Kennedy said, “just for making it through rush this far. Not many guys did. But there’s always room for an academic in the house -– boost the frat’s GPA, you know? So drink up.”
J.J. hesitated. The color and smell of tequila reminded him of urine. But this weekend wasn't just a reward. It was his final test. If he passed, he was in. If not…
J.J. took a deep breath and drank. The alcohol burned down his throat and jolted into his stomach. He'd never even slept with anyone before. The one time he’d gotten close, in high school, his mother had come home early. J.J. and his date had scrambled for their clothing, and his mother hadn’t even turned away. She’d just folded her arms over her chest and laughed. J.J. had been too embarrassed to stand up for himself. He’d never had the guts to call the girl again, either.
And tonight he had to have sex with a hooker. What did they call them down here? Prostitutes? Whores? Probably some word in Spanish he didn't know.
“Hey, she likes me!” Kennedy waved at the girl in the parking lot. She smiled and waved back. The palm of her hand was much whiter than the skin on her arms.
J.J. sighed, wishing the girl had waved at him. But of course he wasn't Kennedy, with broad shoulders from prep school lacrosse. Or Chip, with a brown suede coat that cost more than J.J.'s mother had ever paid for a month’s rent. The coat lay in a pile next to Chip’s feet. Chip didn't give a damn it was getting dirty on the dusty sidewalk.
When J.J. had gotten into the five top universities in the country, his mother had just shrugged. She’d said she wasn’t going to pay for them. Community college had been good enough for her. Then she’d gone out and bought a new TV, a big screen one that filled up the whole wall of their tiny living room.
J.J. had tried to be understanding. His mother worked long hours as a receptionist, and his father had stopped paying child support once J.J. had turned eighteen. So he’d gotten scholarships. Good ones—enough to pay for tuition, the dorm, and books. He’d had to skimp on food, but he’d been able to sneak fruit and bagels from the dining hall.
He’d gotten a part-time job to buy nicer clothes than the WalMart shirts his mother had grudgingly given him before he left. He’d thought about copying Chip’s clothes, but Chip was rebelling against his Dad, who did something big in the military. Chip’s sandy blonde hair was so long it straggled into his eyes, and he only wore faded, frayed T-shirts and baggy pants. Kennedy looked more upscale. So J.J. clipped his hair short and found polos at J. Crew that resembled Kennedy’s two-hundred-dollar Izods.
J.J. had made the mistake of wearing the clothes home over Christmas. His mother had looked him up and down and laughed.
“Look at you,” she’d said. “Who are you trying to fool? That girl you brought home? You’d need more than new clothes to impress her, at least from what I saw that night.” Then she’d laughed again. J.J. had wanted to walk out, but he didn’t have anywhere else to stay over the holiday.
An older woman standing next to the Mexican girl on the square shot Kennedy a dirty look, grabbed the girl by the arm, and dragged her away down one of the side streets. J.J. felt a stab of envy at her protective gesture, especially because the girl obviously didn’t appreciate it -- she waved sadly at Kennedy as she was pulled along.
“Mothers,” Kennedy said. “Can’t live with them, can't shoot them, eh, J.J.?”
“Yeah.” This time, J.J. picked up the tequila bottle himself.
“It's empty.” Chip pointed at the wet, brown squiggle of the worm at the bottom of the bottle. He signaled to the café owner, who was sitting idly in the shade offered by the café’s sign. On the sign, the word “Rosa’s” arched over the sun-faded cartoon of a laughing, dark-haired woman with a rose in her hair. The sign was rusted around the edges. The owner got up and slowly shuffled over to them.
“I bet even the girl’s mother would get friendly if we offered her enough dineros,” Kennedy said.
“That one?” The café owner opened a bottle of tequila as he spoke. “She will not let her daughter go with you, not with what has been happening. You want women? You talk to me. I will take care of you.” He filled their shot glasses until the tequila splashed onto the table. From the sticky stains on the table’s surface, that was the way he always poured.
J.J. squinted up at him. The man’s skin was as creased and brown as Chip’s suede jacket, and he was as thin as a stray dog. “What do you mean, with what's been happening?”
The cafe owner took the question as an invitation. He scraped a chair over from another table and sat down. He looked at the tequila bottle as if he would have liked a glass, too, but Chip and Kennedy didn’t seem to care, and J.J. didn’t dare offer him one himself. The man sighed, deeply, as if realizing this.
“The murders. Over six years, maybe two hundred women killed.” The café owner waved his hand, as if tossing something into the air. “Maybe more.”
“You're kidding.” J.J. laughed, but his laugh felt shaky.
Chip and Kennedy didn’t say a word.
The man shook his head.
“I no joke. They ride on the bus to work over the border, in El Paso, and then walk home to Juarez at night, across the desert. Every month, two or three—gone. Sometimes their bodies discover, sometimes no.”
“So who's doing it?” J.J. leaned forward, his mouth open.
“Drug runners, border guards, factory owners, who knows? No one cares. These women are poor.” The café owner spat into the dirt.
“Are hookers getting killed, too?” J.J. heard his own voice squeak. He cleared his throat, hoping Kennedy and Chip hadn't noticed. But of course they had.
“Oooh, J.J.’s nervous. Of what? The killer? Or the women?” Chip stuck out his tongue and waggled it up and down.
Kennedy barked a laugh.
The cafe owner shook his head. “Men no hurt. Only women.”
“Still looks like there are plenty left for us,” Chip said, looking back out at the square. “But maybe we better hurry.”
Silence fell across the table. J.J. glanced at Kennedy and thought even he looked shocked at the remark.
The café owner frowned. “It is a tragedy,” he protested. “Even your American news says so. It has been on the CNN.” He paused, as if waiting for an apology, or at least for some kind of acknowledgment.
Chip just rolled his eyes.
The café owner stood up and walked back into the doorway of his café. He didn’t even bother to take the money that Kennedy held out for the tequila.
“Jesus, Chip,” J.J. said, the words out of his mouth before he realized what he was doing.
“What?” Chip narrowed his eyes at J.J. His eyes looked mean. They didn’t match the casual, floppy strands of hair that partially obscured them, as if Chip was a commando peering out from a hiding place in the grass. “You got a problem?”
J.J. glanced at Kennedy. Kennedy just looked back at him, his face blank, a politician’s expression he might have picked up from his father or his uncle. As if he was waiting to see what J.J. would do. Above Kennedy’s head, the woman on the “Rosa’s” sign was still laughing. Just for a second, she looked familiar.
J.J. slowly shook his head. “No problem.”
“I’m glad,” Chip said. He picked up the empty bottle of tequila and shook it over J.J.'s glass until the worm plopped out. “Drink up.”
J.J. hesitated. Then, quickly, he tossed the contents of the glass into his mouth. Just for a second, the worm lodged in his throat, and he swallowed again and again, until the lump painfully slid away. Under the acid of the tequila he thought he tasted something worse. Something oily, rancid, meaty.
“Good job,” Chip said. “I hear it’s an aphrodisiac.”
* * * * *
“What a shithole,” Kennedy said, wrinkling his nose. “I can’t believe we’re paying three dollars a night for this.”
Chip snickered, but J.J. didn't think the room was so bad. It contained a narrow bed, a barred window, and a door opening onto a small bathroom. There were no insects, mildew, or water stains spreading over the ceiling. But J.J. wrinkled his nose, too, trying to learn to despise the thin, moth-eaten woolen bedspread, the smell of stale cigarette smoke, and the grime edging the white tile on the bathroom floor.
“Just don’t drink the water,” Kennedy said. “We have a big night tonight.”
His words sounded like a threat. As soon as J.J. closed the door behind them, he heard Chip laugh. J.J. pressed his ear to the wood, but he couldn’t understand the murmur of their voices as they walked down the hall away from his room. He cursed himself for sounding nervous when he’d asked about the murders. He was going to have to make up for it tonight.
J.J. threw his backpack on the floor, pulled a cracked yellow window shade down over the window, and stretched out on the bed. He closed his eyes. He tried to imagine himself lying on a bed in the frat house, maybe in one of the rooms on the third floor that looked out over the quad, where he could see girls walk by while he studied. The house was over a hundred years old, Kennedy had told him. Every room had its own brick fireplace and high ceilings edged with ornate, carved wood.
Kennedy had pointed out the photographs covering the wood-paneled walls of the long dining hall--old members who’d made good. The most recent pictures were in color, but when you walked backwards in time, they faded into black and white. The borders on the oldest photographs were yellow with age. J.J. recognized many of the faces from “Fortune 500” lists, the evening news, and even the Supreme Court. He found Kennedy’s father and uncle. They looked just like Kennedy, with their square-cut dark hair and square jaws. They looked down, severely, as if judging him. Just like Kennedy.
J.J. opened his eyes and sighed. Daylight bled in around the edges of the window shade. The room was hot. Even lying down, he felt the room sway from the tequila. He lifted the shade and wedged his face between the window bars, hoping to feel a cool breeze. He looked down over the square and recognized the café they’d sat in by the “Rosa’s” sign over the door. From up here, he could see the cartoon of the dark-haired woman clearly. That’s when he realized she reminded him of his mother. The same dark hair, the same wide, open mouth.
“Jesus,” he thought. “She’s even laughing at me here. That’s the last thing I need.”
The café owner came out and picked up their dirty tequila glasses and the empty bottle. As he bent over, J.J. saw that the man was going bald, his dark hair just a thin swirl over his scalp.
He remembered Chip’s remark about the women, and how Chip hadn’t seemed the least bit guilty about saying it. Just for a second, J.J. imagined going down and apologizing to the café owner. The man would look surprised, then grateful. He’d bring out another bottle and invite J.J. to sit and drink with him. By the afternoon, they’d be buddies. By nighttime they’d be brothers. He’d invite J.J. to stay at his house, and Chip and Kennedy would never know what had happened to him. Eventually, J.J. would marry the man’s sister and work in the café with him. Would that be so bad?
The café owner carried the bottle and glasses back toward the doorway of his café. On his way in, he swiped the dirty rag against the sign, more as if for luck than to actually try and clean it. There was a shiny patch on the cartoon woman’s dark hair, as if he’d been doing that for years. He’d probably still be doing it twenty years from now.
By then, maybe some future freshman would be getting the tour of the frat house during rush. Maybe he’d be standing in the dining hall, looking up at a picture of J.J., with envy and hope.
* * * * *
A knock on the door woke J.J. up. He rolled over, the taste of tequila and chorizo caustic in his mouth. The light behind the window shade was gone. J.J. hurried to the door, rubbing his face. Chip and Kennedy stood outside, dressed in black, as if they were going to a dance club instead of a whorehouse.
“Ready to party?” Chip looked J.J. up and down. “Dude, get dressed.”
J.J. found the darkest clothing he had -- a black button-down and gray pants. He started to pull off his shirt, then hesitated.
“No time for modesty,” Kennedy said. He and Chip laughed.
J.J. wanted to turn his back to them, but he didn't want them to think he was afraid. He dressed quickly, feeling their eyes on his bare skin, wondering whether they were going to watch him later, too.
Kennedy drove the rental, and Chip rode shotgun. J.J. sat in the back, feeling like a kid on a family outing. Chip tossed a backpack on the seat next to him, and J.J. wondered what was in it. He was afraid to ask.
Instead of driving deeper into Juarez, they drove away, into the darkness of the desert. A few lights hung over the road here and there, but most of them were burned out, with more and more dark gaps as they got farther from the city. Chip turned on the radio and skipped from station to station. J.J. couldn't see the city at all, now. Soon, the only outside light came from the half moon hanging over the desert.
“Jesus, Chip, stop with the music,” Kennedy said. “It's all that sombrero shit.”
Chip snapped off the radio, and the sudden silence made the darkness outside seem as vast as an ocean. J.J. thought about the women murdered every year. What if the killer was out tonight?
“Where are we going?” he asked, trying to sound casual. He glanced at the backpack again. It seemed empty, like a deflated balloon.
As an answer, Kennedy rolled down the window and howled up at the moon. Wind gusted into the car. Chip pulled a bottle of tequila out of the glove compartment, unscrewed the lid with a crack, and drank so quickly J.J. could see the muscles in his throat tense and contract. Then he passed it back to J.J.
“Here,” he said. “No drunk driving laws, right?”
“Just wait till you’re a brother, J.J.” The wind ruffled Kennedy’s hair. “You'll get your pick of the women -- all those sorority bitches hoping for a husband.”
“As if,” Chip said.
Nervously, J.J. got down a couple swallows of tequila. The bitterness actually tasted refreshing. In ten years, would he get some business deal because of what was going to happen tonight? He took another chug of tequila. His body felt loose, and his fingers tingled. He drank again.
Then the car jerked around him, bucking and heaving like a wild animal. The tequila splashed onto his face and neck, ice cold in the night wind, and the backpack rolled across the seat. They’d driven off the road.
“What the fuck?” J.J. said.
“Be quiet.” Chip pointed. “There.”
Kennedy shut off the headlights and the engine. J.J. squinted back at the road they'd just left. Two lights appeared in the distance. Slowly, they grew larger.
“What's going on?”
“Ssh!”
The lights got closer. They came from a long, white bus. It pulled up next to a sign by the side of the road. J.J. heard brakes squeal. The doors creaked open, and a group of people slowly filed out. Women. They were dressed alike, in T-shirts and long pants, like uniforms, as if they were coming home from work.
“Guys, this is not a good place to be,” J.J. said.
“Shut up.” Kennedy's voice was suddenly businesslike. He reached over the seat and opened the backpack. He pulled out a flashlight and turned it on. Then he took out three knives—a long hunting knife with a bone handle, a battered chef’s knife, and a smaller, straight knife. They were rusted and flimsy, and J.J. remembered the truck selling kitchen utensils on the square.
J.J.’s heart began to pound. “What are those?”
“What the fuck do they look like?” Even Chip's voice sounded different now. It was clipped, adult. Like he was used to command. He held out the third knife. “This is yours. It's a switchblade. You can stab or slice with it. This is how it works.” He pressed a button on the side of the knife, and the blade flickered in and out of sight, like a snake's tongue.
“In and out.” Chip grinned and nudged Kennedy. “Get it, in and out?”
“This isn't a joke, Chip.” Kennedy looked at J.J. “Go on. Take it.”
The calm from the tequila was gone. J.J.'s body was a mass of tensed muscle. In the glow of the flashlight, Chip’s floppy hair shadowed his eyes, and Kennedy’s mouth looked like a grim, straight line. They looked like strangers.
The bus slowly pulled away from the bus stop and headed back toward El Paso.
Chip rolled his eyes at Kennedy. “Oh God, J.J.'s going to be a pussy.” He reached forward, put the switchblade in J.J.’s front shirt pocket, and patted it.
“You guys are the ones killing all those women?” J.J.'s voice was a croak, dry from alcohol and fear. The women were gone now, into the darkness. How many were heading toward the car?
Kennedy laughed, a short, brisk chuckle. J.J. could easily imagine Kennedy in a suit. He could imagine him as president.
“Not the only ones, dumb ass. We’re just coat-tailing. A few years ago, the frat heard about the senoritas getting whacked down here and decided no one would miss a few more.”
“Don't worry,” Chip said. “It's easy. I was nervous, too, the first time.”
“The first . . . . “ J.J. cleared his throat.
Kennedy nodded. “It was our initiation, too. Now, we get to come down, watch the new guy do’em, maybe have a little fun first.”
“Or even after, if that's your thing.” Chip snickered.
Kennedy wrinkled his nose, as if in distaste. “For God’s sake, Chip. Have some class.”
Tequila flooded into J.J.’s mouth. He barely got the car door open before he threw up, his vomit splattering onto the hard desert floor. He took a deep breath, and his throat felt so raw that he heaved again, his stomach cramping, but this time nothing else came up.
After a second, he wiped his mouth and closed his eyes. He heard the other car doors open, and the dirt crunch under Chip and Kennedy's feet as they walked around the car. He felt Chip’s hand on his shoulder.
“You want to succeed in life?” Chip asked. “You have to understand power. It’s about life and death. There’s nothing more real than that.”
J.J. smelled the tequila on Chip's breath and nearly gagged again.
“It’s a rush.” Kennedy’s voice was persuasive, wheedling. “Like nothing you've ever experienced before. I promise. Come on, get up.”
J.J. shook his head.
Kennedy grunted in disgust. “Too bad. Come on, Chip.”
* * * * *
As their footsteps faded away, J.J. huddled in the back of the car and stared out the windows. The longer he stared, the more his eyes adjusted. The moon threw a blue light over the scrub brush around the car and a low clump of trees maybe ten yards away. But he couldn’t see Chip, or Kennedy. Where were they? Surely they were just hiding behind some of the bushes, laughing at him, at the joke they’d played on him. He touched the knife in his pocket. They could have gone down that afternoon and bought the knives on the square. They could have gotten the idea from the café owner’s story.
“Hey, guys,” he called. “Come on out. Enough’s enough.”
The world around him seemed to jump into silence, as if his voice had startled the insects and birds providing the background noise he hadn’t even noticed until now. He burrowed deeper into the leather car seat. It smelled like mold.
No Chip, no Kennedy.
J.J. wanted to think it was all a joke. But what did he know about their world, what they were capable of? Kennedy's father had probably helped start wars from his luxurious office in D.C. And Chip’s dad had probably dropped bombs, fired machine guns. What were a few Mexican women compared to all that?
J.J. remembered the look in Chip’s eyes when he’d treated the café owner like dirt. J.J. suddenly felt guilty. He hadn’t made Chip apologize because he was afraid of not getting into the frat. But now…now he was out for sure. And it wasn’t too late to stop Chip and Kennedy from killing one of the women from the bus. He could shout and warn the women before Chip or Kennedy got to them. And if he did? J.J. shook his head. The other women from the bus would probably run over, someone would call the police, and they’d think he was part of it. Chip and Kennedy would call their families to bail them out. J.J. would call his mother, and she would just laugh at him and hang up. His life would be over.
J.J. couldn't breathe. The thin metal walls of the car suddenly seemed like a cage, not a refuge. Chip and Kennedy had admitted they weren’t the only ones attacking the women. That meant there could be someone else, someone dangerous, out there right now. And J.J. would be an obvious target in a car only rich Americans could afford.
He took a deep breath and opened the car door. The door pinged, and the light blazed on. J.J. winced at the sudden brightness. The light would show anyone who might be watching exactly where he was, so he quickly stepped out and shut the door behind him. The light shut off, and J.J. couldn’t see a thing except the bright white image of the car’s interior, still burned onto his eyeballs. He blinked, but his eyes were going to have to adjust again to the darkness.
He heard footsteps.
J.J.’s heartbeat doubled. Someone had seen the light and was coming for him. He stumbled forward through the scrub brush, trying to stop his knees from shaking. He didn’t have to go far, he told himself. Just to the trees, to hide. He remembered where they were, and he could already distinguish enough to see their shadows.
He felt his hand swat against a tree trunk. He quickly squatted behind it, close to the ground, listening. The night was silent again. He’d probably imagined the footsteps. He took a deep, trembling breath, and for a second he felt safe.
Then he heard the footsteps again.
He stopped breathing. He crouched as still as he could, trying to stay quiet. His lungs ached to gasp noisily for breath. His eyes were nearly adjusted now, and the ground glowed an eerie silver from the moon, the scrub a bleached white. The air smelled sharp and green, like pine needles.
The footsteps were close now. A dark shadow flickered against one of the trees.
“Kennedy!” J.J. hissed, suddenly full of hope. He jumped up and grabbed the figure by the shoulders, ignoring the thorns that tore into his arms. He took a full, relieved breath.
But it wasn't Kennedy. It was a woman. Both of them froze, just staring at each other. The woman was older, maybe his mother's age, with dark hair, like his mother. Her arms were soft under his fingers. The moon shone on the whites of her eyes, and on her pale teeth as she opened her mouth to scream.
Before J.J. realized what he was doing, his hand covered her mouth. “It’s all right, I won't hurt you,” he heard himself say, even though he knew she probably didn't speak English. If she screamed, he knew how it would look, being out here, alone with her, a switchblade in his pocket. He tried to hold her gently, not to hurt her. But the woman grunted and bit the palm of his hand. Pain lanced up his arm, and J.J. pulled away from her with the shock of it. He heard himself curse. He heard himself say, “Bitch!”
The woman’s dark hair whipped around her face. She stretched her mouth open again, to scream. She looked like she was laughing at him.
The switchblade sprang into J.J.'s hands, his fingers remembered Chip's instructions, and he felt the blade snicker out. He thrust it forward, gently, more a warning than a blow. To his surprise, the blade slid effortlessly into the woman's stomach. They both gasped, as if they’d kissed, or something even more intimate. J.J. pulled the knife out and stared at it. The blade was dark. The woman staggered, as if trying to run, and he thrust again, harder this time. That’s what Chip would do, or Kennedy. They’d get the job done. It felt satisfying, like he was finally accomplishing something important. Who would care how it had happened? He was doing it. He was in.
The woman slumped into his arms, gasping. Liquid gushed out onto J.J.’s shirt and hands, wet, then immediately sticky. J.J. held her weight for a second, then let her body fall to the ground. The gasping stopped. The only sound he heard now was his own, ragged breathing in the darkness.
Then other voices. Chip and Kennedy. He walked toward them. His legs trembled, and each breath was as cold as the knife he still held.
“This is a switchblade. You can cut or slice,” he heard Kennedy say, mimicking Chip. Then Kennedy dropped into his own voice and laughed. “That was a good one.”
J.J. frowned. He shook his head. Their words moved sluggishly through his ears. He couldn't make sense of them. He heard the car door open, heard Chip say, “Hey, what the fuck? J.J.'s gone.”
“Probably tossing his cookies again,” Kennedy said. “Hey, J.J.!” he called out. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Here!” J.J. said. His voice sounded deep and hoarse, like an older man’s voice.
He heard a click, and the flashlight beam swept over him. He had a quick mental image of how he must look to them—blood-spattered, triumphant.
Above the flashlight, Chip and Kennedy's hands were clean.
For one dizzying, exhilarating moment J.J. felt the rush Kennedy had described. It sizzled through him, like lightning. It was all about power. He wasn't just their equal, but their superior. He had killed, and they had not.
Then the flashlight clattered to the ground, its beam pointing out into the desert, and J.J. saw the horror on their faces.
END
Copyright© 2009
by Susan Fry