Chapter 4- School
To say it would be unusual for Mark Neary, Chief Deputy of the US Marshals Field Office in Lexington, Kentucky, to arrive at the Blue Campaign Campus of Homeland Security for a personal visit would be up there with a vegan entering a steakhouse. Everyone watched through the glass office partition as Michael Neary looked up in surprise at seeing his father standing at his office door. His assistant Scarlet hadn’t informed him of Mark’s arrival, and people watched in awe of the interaction between father and son. A few made comments about actually witnessing Michael Isaac Neary smiling and showing emotion at the surprise visit. A collective sigh, along with a few ahhs, and awws, resounded through the workspace when father and son embraced. Mark Neary placed a gentle kiss on his son’s temple while the son embraced his father as if he hadn’t seen him in months, although they had been together the previous weekend.
“This is a surprise, Dad; is everything okay? Mom, Rebecca? Uncle Joe?” Slow asked with concern covering his face.
“Can’t a man come to take his son to lunch, catch up, and talk about getting in some hunting this season?”
“Of course, of course, but you seldom, if ever, come into the offices in Louisville. Are you hunting someone?”
“Son, I came to take you to lunch and have some man time without the womenfolk,” Mark said. “We are outnumbered and surrounded. They are trying to overpower us and make us have conversations about vaginas. That child of yours hit me in the mouth again when I tried to kiss her, so I’m here to file a complaint with the management.”
Slow laughed loudly, making everyone in the office turn to stare at this version of the man they’d never seen. He was relaxed, grinning and talking to his father as if they were old friends. His boss Jerry Steinfeld noticed the shift in the energy of the floor, making him barrel from his office to barge in on the fun between the men. He entered the office without knocking, a detail Mark took exception to from the man his son referred to as his boss.
“Mark Neary, to what do we owe the honor of this visit,” Jerry asked, extending his hand.
“Came to take my son to lunch, Steinfeld,” Mark said, staring at the man as he would a felon.
“Dear Jesus, the way you Neary’s look at people is very disconcerting!”
“Well, you can always concert in your own office, over there, since no one asked you to come over here,” Mark said with a smile on his face. The smile was menacing and unsettling, and Jerry knew better than to offer anything more. He nodded his head and left the office, standing outside the glass walls, peering in as if he wanted the last puppy in the kennel but was twenty dollars shy of the cost.
Mark turned to his son, “I always assumed you took the scut work to lessen the time you had to work in this place and for a weasel like him.”
“I keep the job as a cover, and I’m good at what I do,” Slow replied.
“You any good at making me a grandson?”
“Daddy, I’m working on a lot of things, including myself,” he said, looking at his father. “I did some shit last night which made me look in the mirror this morning asking Michael Isaac Neary some questions.”
“Well, damn,” Mark said. “Any regrets?”
“No, but your grandson may arrive cursing and using dirty words no man should know until he’s completed two military combat tours in South America,” Slow said, laughing aloud again. “Daddy, that woman! Lord help me, that woman makes me stand tall, deliver, and look for shiny, sparkly items to buy her for no damned good reason, like this!”
He leaned back in his chair and opened his desk drawer. From the drawer, he pulled out a black velvet box and passed it over to his father. Michael shook his head as his father opened the box and let out a low wolf whistle. “This must have set you back a few bucks?”
“I spent half of the check from my last scut job on it,” Slow said, taking it from his father’s hand to place back in his desk drawer. “Right now, she has a simple band. I want to give her everything she deserves in life and more.”
“You truly love her. I can see it when you think no one is looking, how you watch her,” Mark said. “You watch her as if you find it hard to imagine she’s your wife.”
“It is hard to imagine that she is my life every day and gifted me with a beautiful daughter. Abigail is who I’ve wanted for years, but never felt I was man enough to break through the demons in her life, or if I wanted to be the one who held her when she woke up shaking from the nightmares,” he said.
“And now?”
“She vanquished her own demons, Daddy. She didn’t need me to ride in on my white Harley, guns blazing, to sweep her off her feet. All she needs is for me to be there when she comes home, and when she turns over at night to hit a solid support beam,” he said.
“What about the other one?”
“The Archangel made a visit and enrolled her in accounting classes,” he told his father.
Mark physically pouted as he leaned forward. “If she takes my handle of Slippery When Wet, there will be repercussions and consequences! I will show up and fight a mutherf…”
“Daddy, let’s go get some lunch,” Michael said, rising and laughing as he collected his coat. He passed by his assistant’s desk to let her know he’d be off campus for a couple of hours. It did not escape anyone’s notice of the similarities between father and son as they stood in front of the elevator waiting for a car to arrive.
These were the moments Slow treasured. His father had been his best friend for the majority of his life; even though he had a decent relationship with his cousins, his dad was the go-to guy in his world. Silently he prayed that Jesus still loved him and would bless him and Abigail with a son because he wanted to be able to give his own son all the things his father had given to him. He was a good man because of Mark Neary.
He lived a good life that he was proud to have. There were three additional women in his life who loved him, simply because he showed up and did what a man needed to do. That kind of love, he thought to himself, you can’t buy or force.
****
Cheboygan, Michigan
He believed himself to be a good man and was good to his women. These dolls were his pride and joy. No one else wanted them, and they were castoffs. He rescued the babies, giving them a home with family and purpose. He wasn’t forcing them to love him, or at least he didn’t think so.
“Good morning, my lovelies,” he said to the women in the small rooms where he kept them behind locked doors. “How is everyone on this fine Friday? I have to head out for the weekend, so you have food stores to last until I return. Please make sure to hydrate while I am away. Daddy is going hunting.”
“We don’t want another sister-wife,” Irish said, hoping to stop the reign of madness.
“Yeah, the last one nearly got us all caught, Daddy,” Italy said, coming to the door and holding the bars.
“She is the one I’m hunting,” he said, smiling lasciviously. “I must tell you, ladies, as much as I love you, there is no real fire in the sex. With her, I don’t think my cock has been that hard since I was a kid. She was tight, too. China you are a snug fit, but you never get wet enough for me to really throw a good hump into you. My Chocolate Queen got nice and wet; shit, I’m hard again simply thinking about her. Mexicali, I shall come inside your cell for you to ride me and ease my burden.”
He opened the door, but this time Mexicali punched him in the erection. She wanted to be free of him. She wanted to be out of her cage and living anywhere but with the psycho who called himself her husband. For a year, she’d been held against her will as he tried often to impregnate her to no avail. Not one of the women had conceived.
Mexicali pointed to his penis, scowling and using her hands to symbolize his sex was bad. She used her arms to mimic cradling a child, then pointed at his penis. Again, she used the word bad in sign language. Sign language was her only method of communicating with him since he removed her tongue.
The Collector was furious. He yelled at her, “Keep talking shit to me, and next time it won’t be your tongue I cut out!”
It wasn’t him who was flawed. The unclean, impure women were at fault. And now, his Chocolate Queen had left him for that big, brawny brute of a man. If she were fucking him…he didn’t believe it after having the joy of his cock inside of her making her cum, she would want that brute in her bed. Shenita belonged in his bed, and he planned to find her. He would scour the corners of Indiana until he located his woman and then he had an idea.
He was so caught in his own thoughts, he forgot to lock Mexicali’s door. She too noticed his mistake and gently pulled the door closed, so it would appear he had remembered to secure the entryway. Mexicali moved to the corner of the room, away from the exit, and would wait until he left.
In his office, he pulled out his phone. His first call was to Beauty Kurtzwilde, shocked to find the woman was no more, and had been killed and left for dead in a car near the Gene Snyder Airfield in Falmouth, Kentucky. She’d been stuck with a knife coated in venom from a Costa Rican eyelash viper that was found in her system. The venom would have shut down her organs if she hadn’t exsanguinated first. That was no way to die.
The next call went to the head man himself. As much money as he’d paid over the years for a product, The Big Man could take his personal call. He punched in the number scribbled on a piece of paper in his wallet with no name on it written in ink only visible under a blacklight. The phone rang and a deep voice answered.
“What do you want, you fucking weirdo?”
“I want to find my last doll; she got away from me,” The Collector said.
“You and your doll collecting are coming to an end. Keep what you have, and order no more, and I would advise you to stop hunting for your own personal choices. You’re bringing too much heat,” Michael Kurtzwilde told him.
“I’m not responsi…”
“Shut your freaky little mouth, you twat-licking fool,” Kurtzwilde yelled. “Beauty attempted to fill your last order and it got her dead. Not only did you get my best Captain dead, but it also got me a visit from a Colombian Viper; a nasty fucker who stood on my desk and kicked me in the gotdamned face!”
“I’m a good customer, and I demand…,” The Collector started.
“Demand? Demand? You can demand nothing, and if you call me again, I will personally arrive and end your tit-cutting life, Stanton Rogers,” Kurtzwilde said and ended the call.
The Collector sat quietly. How did Kurtzwilde know he’d cut Shenita’s breasts? Kurtzwilde also knew his given name, which meant others did as well. The fingers of his hand intertwined as he leaned back in the seat. His Chocolate Queen was ruining everything. For this, he would find her, bring her home, and punish the bitch every night until she broke. It was his vow. This was his promise and new mission which gave him a pop of energy.
She could know his name, but she never would understand the depths he would dive to bring her back. He would find his Chocolate Queen, and they would be happy together. If he needed to let the others go to make her happy, he would make that sacrifice, but they had seen his face.
The women would need to die.
****
Louisville, Kentucky
Today, Helen went by the college to check out her new school. Like her niece Naomi, she liked school but never had the funds to work on a degree. She would start small and learn as much as she could in the time allotted for her training. The first thing she wanted to do, once she got her school credentials, was to log into the new laptop using the internet. Her first search was for Stanton Rogers.
The computer given to her by The Archangel allowed her access to files and record databases most people didn’t know existed. Entering his name, she pulled deeds, tax records, and more. The Collector didn’t have much in his name.
“He thinks he’s smart, but he’s not cleverer than a woman with a grudge and a promise to keep,” she said softly. Curiosity made her do it, and she typed in China Rogers, bringing up a mid-sized cabin in Sheboygan near the Crib Light. “Found a spot you missed, Mr. Collector. I’m coming to your neighborhood, Mr. Rogers. I’m coming with an axe to split your nasty little head open.”
For thoroughness, she typed in Mexicali Rogers and came up with nothing. She typed in Irish Rogers and came up with a few bars and nightclubs around the country. As a last resort, she typed in Italy Rogers, which brought up a home in Ludington, Michigan. That was the house where he’d taken her for those two weeks. She found him.
“Ah ha, good Sir. The game is afoot,” Helen said, feeling a new sense of power.
****
The power wasn’t left on in the three-bedroom modular home for her return. When Helen arrived home, instead of finding a dark house in the tree line on Slow’s property, she found her cousin waiting for her on the front porch. She parked the truck Mark Neary had loaned her in the allocated space near the front door, parking and climbing the stairs of the decking to meet her cousin.
“Good evening,” Helen said. “Do you need a key to the place, or do you have bad news for me?”
“Why would I have bad news?”
“Why would you be sitting on the porch waiting for me to get home when it’s getting dark. Is everything okay?”
“Helen, everything is fine,” Cherry told her. “I miss you.”
“You saw me yesterday, and I live across your backyard,” Helen said, sighing deeply. “Abi, are you hiding from your husband?”
Cherry laughed loudly, shaking her head no. “I am not hiding, I came over for some girl time, to chat, and have a cup of something hot and brown, plus, I come bearing gifts.”
“Gifts,” Helen said, uncovering the boxes sitting next to Cherry.
Helen unlocked the front door of the home, reaching inside the door to turn on the porch light. Illumination shone on the boxes to reveal a crafting table and a brand-new sewing machine. To go with the sewing machine was a smaller box with a die cutter and a crafting cutter. Helen’s eyes began to mist.
“We had to leave everything in our lives behind to start over,” Cherry said. “It is unfair for you to lose so much when you’ve given all that you have, each and every time I’ve asked. Please let me give back to you.”
“This is not necessary,” Helen said, wiping away her tears.
“For me, it is more than necessary, Helen,” she said moving closer to her cousin. She embraced her fully. “I’ve never taken time before to comfort you with touch and connection. Each time a demon popped up in your life, I just showed up to vanquish it, hoping you’d be okay in the end. I’m letting you know that I can give love and show you affection too. I can give you love.”
“Please stop, Abi,” Helen said. “I get it. I do. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why the demons are always coming for me. I don’t bother anyone. I mind my own business, and there is always some asshole wanting to hurt me…or own me…or control me.”
Cherry’s grip on her cousin tightened. The childhood memories were ugly. The journey to the life they shared in the small home was fraught with missteps but they were making it; barely, but they were making it. Life was finally turning in their favor.
“Those days are over,” Cherry said. “We don’t have to worry about making the rent and keeping the lights on while putting food on the table and staying warm. From my last job, I’m able to help replace your things.”
“You also need to give your husband a hefty chunk as well to cover me and these utilities,” she said.
“No need; the water is from his well. The homes are on separate septic systems, and the power comes from a huge generator in the back of the barn. That thing is massive. The gas is propane so everything is self-sustaining,” she told Helen. “We deserve this happiness.”
Helen pulled away from her cousin. In the dim light from the front porch, she looked her cousin in the eyes. She gripped Cherry’s shoulders and shook her a bit.
“I have to go back and get them,” she said. “I knew you would come for me and I held on to fight until your arrival. They are expecting me to come back for them. I will get them free.”
“Understood, but first, we have to take care of Helen before Helen can rescue anyone else.”
“Helen is fine. Helen will be fine,” she said, squinting her eyes. “That son of a biscuit eater knows I’m coming back and he’s waiting. I’m going to get that bastard!”