Mo took his time as Charise struggled. Her legs kicked out furiously, sending plates, glasses and silverware crashing to the floor. Her arms thrashed, alternating between trying to claw out Mo’s eyes and removing the garrot. Then, impossibly, she had a knife and was savagely stabbing at him. She slashed anything and everything, lacerating both in the process. Eventually, the long exhale. Her arms fell to her sides, her legs stiffened, and then her body seized epileptically before all ninety pounds of Charise gave up the ghost.

 

                  “Shame, honey. Shame.” Mo let her corpse slump to the bloody tile floor. Appraising himself, he found blood dripping from his forearm and oozing steadily from his upper thigh. This wasn’t part of the plan.

 

                  Looking around the house, he found a first aid kit. He stifled his howls as he tightened his belt around his thigh. He found an extension cord to for a makeshift tourniquet that temporarily stymied the flow from his arm. In a junk drawer, he located a needle and thread and proceeded to give himself stitches, which hurt more than anything he had ever experienced. Probably worse than someone shoving a red-hot pike up the head of my dick, he thought, head reeling. His vision went swimming. He wanted to pass out.

                 

The disposal plan called for Mo to sink Charise’s weighted cadaver in Lake St. Claire. Relying on the cover of darkness, he snuck to the next block where his black Crown Vic waited. Without turning on the lights, he returned to Charise’s place and started backing into the garage.

 

“What’s going on here?” A high-pitched, nasal voiced man with a flashlight demanded. Mo looked around. He didn’t see anyone. Then, a tubby man in an open bathrobe moved into his headlights. “Are Charise and Matty okay? I live next door. They’re not usually so loud.” The guy picked the wrong time to insert himself into his neighbor’s business, Mo thought. The man popped his balding head in the driver’s side window of the Crown Vic, “I’m Walton.”

 

Mo noticed fresh blood, still dripping down on the car door. Walton’s eyes followed. “Walton, you have perfect timing. Can you help me with Charise? I need to get her into my car and take her to the hospital.” Mo, much depleted, spun lies in second gear.

 

“What happened?”

 

“One minute we were chatting, the next she hit the floor.” Mo wasn’t exactly mister think-on-your-feet and the late hour wasn’t doing him any favors.

 

“Why don’t you just call an ambulance?” Walton asked absurdly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“Hang on a sec” Mo improvised, loathing the little man for making this a two-fer. He finished backing the Crown Vic into the garage. He moved slowly and deliberately, like an old man afraid of falling on the winter ice. He wondered how much blood he had lost.

 

Mo gave Walton a small head start into the house. As Walton stood paralyzed by the sight of the bloody mess, Mo snapped his neck in one deft move, dropping his body to the floor with a deep thud.

 

Seeing the clean-up job ahead of him, he decided a little pick-me-up was in order and rifled through the cabinets until he discovered a secret stash of Pappy Van Winkle.

This probably belongs to Matty anyway, he rationalized and didn’t think twice about pouring himself two fingers of the thousand dollar bottle of bourbon.

 

He switched on the TV news. Nothing soothed his jangled nerves like a female news anchor’s voice. This time, she was talking about the government torpedoing Meals on Wheels. The next story was about axing healthcare for the elderly and disabled. Mo shook his head.

 

He poured another double and let it settle. He slowly maneuvered Charise and Walton onto the tarp. And used a whole roll of duct tape on them.

 

                  The news anchor delivered another update: they estimated more than a million dogs, cats, and birds were dead after their families were displaced by a wildfire. One lucky labrador was reunited with his family. At least the story ended on a high note.

 

                  The dead were wrapped up like a corpse burrito by the back door.  Mo helped himself to two more fingers of bourbon before summoning all his strength to move the massive burrito into his trunk.

 

                  “Hello? Hello? You there, Mo? Mo?” A voice with a heavy New Jersey accent hollered into his ear from his phone.

 

                  Mo managed a debilitated, “Yeah, boss?” The Pappy Van Winkle must have done a Rip Van Winkle number on him. How long had he been out? Outside, the day was sunny and pleasant. This was about as exposed as you get. This was how you get caught. This wasn’t at all like him.

 

                  “You don’t sound right. I’m coming home.” The voice on the other end belonged to his boss and client for the gig, Matthew, a.k.a. “Mad Dog Matty” Rossi.

 

                  Rolling his eyes, Mo got back on his knees and put all his elbow grease into eradicating the blood stains. More good news on the news: A caravan of people three miles long was hiking from El Salvador to the US in search of asylum. The government’s gracious advice? Don’t come.

 

                  “What the shit?” That would be Matty, letting himself into his own house and exclaiming at its bloody condition. “Mo, she’s supposed to be underwater by now. And you’re supposed to be long gone. What the  - .”

 

                  Mo pulled his gun from his pants and shot a single nine-millimeter round dead center between Matty’s beady eyes. He poured himself another two more fingers of Pappy and announced to no one in particular, “I hate people.”