A Bloody Night
Carmen and Regan were lying in the bed; they were naked, sweating and panting. Regan put his left arm around her and she snuggled her head into his shoulder. Then he turned towards her and tilted her face to his and kissed her, — a long, slow and deep kiss — and slid his palm down to her bosom. She responded by clawing his back hard.
He pulled away, and said, looking into her eyes:
“Like the flames devour,
I crave to consume you.”
She laughed. “You did just now.”
He smiled and kissed her again — a quick kiss — before he slipped out of the bed and put on his pants. “Time to get up. Come on. Let’s eat. You must be hungry now after two climaxes.” He laughed.
She threw a pillow at him, laughing. “Shut up.”
He caught the pillow. “I am going to cook your favourite for dinner — mushroom and red cabbage salad,” he said, smiling at her.
Her eyes widened. “Seriously? But you are doing the dishes, remember?” she said with a mischievous grin.
“Sure, babe,” he said, throwing the pillow back at her and going to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, he opened a brown paper bag, took out the mushrooms and stared at them, and an evil smile spread across his face. Yeah, only I can do the dishes, he thought. Because you will be sick, and eventually die, by eating these mushrooms; these Amanita phalloides — Death cap.
Looking at the mushrooms in hand, he fell into a reverie of how to bury her corpse in the garden; how to take all the money from the warehouse safe; and how their entire life had changed so dramatically within a month.
“What are you thinking?” she said, and then hugged him from behind, letting her hands run over his chest and down to his lower abs.
He was, of course, startled by her voice, but didn’t show her. “I was just wondering how lucky we ought to be. You and I. And all the money we have got hidden in that abandoned warehouse.” The lies came out as easy as water rushing out of an open tap.
She smiled and raised up on tiptoe and kissed on the side of his neck, and moved into the kitchen. She was wearing a white top and tiny light-maroon shorts, which had SuperDry printed on its back; both clung to her body. Her hair was short and she had an athletic body as she used to coach in the gym until a month ago; they both were.
“What are you looking for?” he said when he noticed she was searching something in the kitchen.
“Where are the eggs?” she said. “I know you don’t like mushrooms. So I am going to make a Spanish omelette for you. Ah, here they are.”
“I’m surprised you remember that I love them,” he said, smiling at her.
“You have more surprises in store tonight,” she said teasingly, and started peeling a potato. How lucky you ought to be to die by eating the Spanish omelette that you love so much, she thought and smiled to herself. Then she felt her shorts pocket and made sure she had the arsenic safe.
They had been moving from one place to other for every few days now, and had planned to move away from that house soon — each separately, after killing the other — taking all the money they had hidden in the warehouse, somewhere to a distant and new land, perhaps far west, where nobody knew them before, where nobody could find out what they had done, and charge them for murder and bank robbery.
They set the table in the living room. But as soon as they sat down to eat the door buzzer rang, and kept on ringing. They looked at each other, puzzled. They both knew what went on in the other’s mind. Could it be the cops?
The door buzzer stopped humming, but the visitor started to bang on the door now. Carmen bit her lower lips and looked questioningly at Regan. He became sharp and his face looked foxy and mean.
“You wait here,” he said to her, and walked over to the door and opened it, just a crack, and looked out. Not the cops, but worse than them, he thought.
Vivian was standing at the door, her legs crossed. She was wearing a long-sleeve black jacket over a black translucent top, black jeans and a pair of black boots. Her dark hair was up in a ponytail. She had too much bright red lipstick on her thin lips; the red lips on her colourless face, that had a slight smirk, gave her a sinister look. She was leaning slightly with her left arm on the wall and the other arm was holding a Beretta .25 automatic, with the barrel of the pistol pointing straight to the ground.
She gave him a I-bet-I-have-frightened-you-bastard smile — and pushed him back into the room. He stood there like a stone. She entered the living room and stared at Carmen. Regan closed the door behind her and turned around, and only then he noticed Vivian had a pistol in her hand.
Carmen’s eyes grew large looking at Vivian as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her palms became wet with perspiration, and beads of sweat stood out on her forehead and upper lips. Nobody said anything for a long moment.
It was Regan who finally broke the silence. “Viv,” — he always called her Viv — “where have you been? We were so worried about you.”
“And why do you have a pistol in your hand?” he added after a moment and looked at Carmen, who looked quite shaken.
Vivian raised her hand and pointed the gun at Carmen. Carmen’s hands began to tremble, but she didn’t move; nor did she speak. Regan shook Vivian holding her shoulders, and cried: “What’s wrong with you?”
Vivian lowered the gun and started laughing. “Look at her face,” she said to him and laughed hysterically.
Then she said: “Let’s play something, um, perhaps, Truth or Dare.” She went to the round dining table where Carmen was sitting and sat opposite her, and motioned Regan to sit down.
“Now why do you want to play that?” Regan said, without moving.
“Nothing. I’m just so excited that my boyfriend is fucking my best friend.”
“No. No, you have got it wrong. It’s not what you are thinking,” he stammered.
The smile vanished from Vivian’s face and she gave him a cold stare. He knew it was impossible to lie to her. He went to the table and sat beside Carmen, and placed his hand on her thighs under the table as if telling her everything was all right, but in reality, he, too, was worried as much as Carmen, after seeing Vivian with a pistol, at this time. His cold palm on her bare thighs sent shivers down her back.
“Let’s start, then,” Vivian said, with a cunning smile. She put her Beretta on the table and spun it with her finger. All the three pairs of eyes followed the tip of the spinning pistol’s barrel until it stopped pointing at Regan.
Vivian looked up at him and asked: “Truth or dare?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouted.
She smiled. “So you chose truth,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him shouting at all.
“Now tell me. I just want to know two things. First, I know both of you failed to turn up under the bridge, where we had our rendezvous after getting out of the bank. But instead, the cops came searching for me with a picture of mine. I want to know who tipped them off to have me caught?”
She stared at Carmen first and then turned towards Regan. Carmen swallowed; sweat trickled from her temples to her cheeks and down her neck and disappeared into her white top. Carmen looked at the Beretta still on the table and looked up at Vivian, whose lips became a thin red line and was staring hard at Regan now.
“What the hell do you mean? I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. After I came out of the bank, Carmen told me you had informed the police to have Carmen and me caught under the bridge, and had planned to take all the money yourself out of the sewers. Of course, I didn’t believe that at first. But after seeing the police wandering under the bridge, I had to go with Carmen,” he looked at Carmen and turned back towards Vivian.
Vivian smiled at Carmen and said: “Well?”
Carmen dashed for the Beretta on the table and took it and pointed at Vivian, holding the gun with both of her hands. Then she smiled, for the first time after Vivian had entered, and wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm. Her smile widened and grew into a greedy grin. Then, she pulled the trigger three times, as quick as a wink.
Click, click, click. Nothing else.
Vivian laughed. “You think I will put a loaded gun on the table before you?”
Carmen turned pale as a corpse and the sweat made her top wet like an overflowing pool.
Vivian, still laughing, took out another pistol and said: “Bitch.” And she shot Carmen in the forehead. A boom mixed with Vivian’s laughter echoed in the house, which silenced the thump made when Carmen’s body fell on the floor.
“Holy shit,” cried Regan, his eyes wide and both hands on his head, looking at the body of Carmen on the floor, whose lifeless eyes were staring at the ceiling, and blood trickled from the small hole that the bullet had made in her forehead.
Vivian stopped laughing and lit a cigarette. “Get me a drink, honey. In a tall glass. Neat,” she said with a careless smile.
He himself needed a drink badly, so he went into the kitchen and brought a bottle of scotch and two glasses. He poured it into the glasses and handed one to Vivian. She drank it off in two large gulps and poured herself another glass.
“Let’s clear this mess first,” she said, pointing her fingers, with the burning cigarette in between, towards Carmen’s body. “You dig a grave in the garden. I will wrap her up in sheets and we will bury her,” she added coolly.
He finished his drink and put the glass on the table with a rather loud thud and stared at Vivian. It was true he had wanted Carmen dead, but he hadn’t wanted any violence, gunshot and bloodshed; and certainly, he didn’t want to share the money with Vivian now.
Vivian raised a questioning eyebrow when Regan hadn’t moved. Regan then stood up and went into the garden.
They buried Carmen’s body in the garden within an hour or so.
She lit another cigarette. “Now to my second question, where is the money? I want my share right away,” she said.
“We have hidden the money in an old warehouse a few miles from here. Yes, let’s go and split it right now, as you wish,” he said, without any life in his voice.
Vivian flung her arms around him and kissed him, with the cigarette smoke still in her mouth, — a greedy and messy kiss it was — and she slid her hand inside his pants. Suddenly, he got an idea and pulled away from her.
“But I’m famished now. I’m going to eat before we go to the warehouse,” he said and went to the dining table without waiting for her.
“Fine. Hurry up,” she sighed and followed him to the table. Anyway, I’m going to shoot you once you show me where the money is, she thought and smiled to herself. Enjoy your last supper, bastard.
She sat down opposite him and looked at the food on the table. “Too bad she had to die without eating her favourite mushrooms,” she laughed and started eating the mushrooms, one by one.
Regan thought his plan had worked well and began to smile his last smile before he started eating the omelette.
