Raoul's First Murders Ch. 04

Mr. X takes his snort for an answer and nods.

"And my daughter, no less."

"No less," Raoul sighs.

Mr. X tries to pour himself yet another shot, but the bottle slips out of his shaking hands, crashes on the coffee table, and shatters on the floor between his feet.

"Well, fuck," Mr. X sighs. After looking at it a while, he looks up at Raoul. "Get me another one, would you, boy? I'm a little tipsy."

Raoul stands up, goes to the bar, grabs a big bottle of vodka and another glass.

"Oh, yeah," Mr. X nods. "That's good. Straight from the USSR. You don't know how lucky you are, boy. Straight from the USSR."

Raoul pours it, puts it on the table in front of him.

Mr. X is about as big as one of Raoul's legs. His arms at their thickest are smaller than Raoul's wrists.

"Much obliged," Mr. X says.

Raoul returns to his sofa and watches Mr. X drink. The man must really be able to hold his liquor.

About halfway through the glass, he looks up at Raoul.

"My daughter too?"

"What do you want for her? I'm nice to her."

Mr. X nods, looks back down into his vodka. Then he throws it back resolutely, as if he's made a firm decision.

"Alright, you lousy motherfucking sonuvabitch. Look in my eyes and tell me you're not fucking my wife."

"How about this? How about I look in your eyes and tell you" — Raoul waits until he's looking up, until they're making eye-contact, and then coldly, with a sneer, with his deepest voice — "I'm fucking your wife."

"You little shit."

"I'm putting my big man meat in her pussy and filling it with my juice. She cums hard for me, screaming like a banshee."

"After all I've done for you. Get out of my house, you ungrateful bastard."

"Ungrateful bastard? All your poetry, and that's the best you can do? You've done nothing for me except neglect your wife for years. And now, thanks to that, your wife is going to have my baby."

"Jesus, you little shit. Get the fuck out."

Raoul snorts derisively at the little old man, then stands and turns to go.

Behind him, he hears Mr. X laboring to his feet as well.

For a moment they stand, like in a soap opera, looking at each other in the mirror behind Mr. X's bar.

He sees Mr. X draw his arm back to throw his glass. Raoul waits calmly to see where the glass will go so he can flinch out of its way. Slow motion begins. The glass sails past him as he dodges to his left. It smashes into the mirror, creating a spider web of cracks.

Raoul looks in the mirror again, sees dozens of fractured images of himself looking back at him, sees himself broken into pieces.

Mr. X collapses onto the sofa weeping into the palms of his hands, his little body shaking.

Without speaking, Raoul walks out to his bike.

He still has the money, he realizes. Mr. X completely forgot about the money. He doesn't give a damn about fifty grand. His mailbox probably cost fifty grand.

All that money Shirley could have.

All that money. Tens, maybe hundreds of millions.

And she's mad about him. Bonkers. She'd eagerly sink a lot of it into his business. Millions of dollars.

Her husband beat her, Raoul remembers. Bruised, she said. Two black eyes.

There, in the saddlebag of his bike, Raoul knows, is a length of rope. He thinks of the banister of the balcony overlooking the entry foyer, just in front of the bathroom where Scarlett found Shirley with Raoul's cum dripping from her face.

There won't even be evidence of a struggle. The little old man is drunk as fuck. They won't find him until Tuesday. He'll be ripe as hell.

———————

I have to stop this, Raoul promises himself, riding home in the bright sunshine. I have to stop this.

I can't let it keep being this easy.

———————

That's it for this series of stories. I hope to pick up the story during our young hero's "Bright Hedera Days," but until then, please leave comments and suggestions. Thank you!