not the guy she was dating, but an insurgent who had to be taken down.
And down I went.
II.
I woke up in my bed and every inch of my body hurt, like Godzilla had stepped on me a few times, treating me like Little Tokyo. She must have put me in bed after she knocked me out. I could hear her in the living room, pacing about, talking to herself.
I reached under the bed, where I kept a .38 snub nose in a shoebox for intruders. There are a lot of criminals in Los Angeles. I checked the chamber and made sure the six rounds were there. I had been on the firing range, and my Dad had taught me how to shoot.
I limped to the living room, wondering if she had broken my foot. Determination and self-preservation kept me moving.
She stopped pacing when she saw me. “Oh, God, Brad,” she said. “I’m so sorry what I did. I don’t know what happened—I snapped, and.…”
She saw the gun I was pointing at her.
“Brad?”
“Get out of my apartment,” I said as calmly as I could.
“I don’t understand.”
“Get out of my home, and get the hell out of my life, you psychopathic bitch.”
Her eyes became hard. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I don’t know what happened to you,” I said, “but you’re nuts, and I want nothing of it. Look what you did to me.”
She stepped forward. “I can explain.”
I didn’t give her a chance. I fired three times, all in her chest.
III.
I poured myself three shots of vodka. I wasn’t aware of the pain in my body now that I had a dead body to contend with.
I considered what to do. Call the cops? Would they believe me? Soldier goes crazy, uses the karate chops, I had to shoot her. Or would I get fifteen years for manslaughter? I had plans, dreams, schemes. Even if the D.A. agreed it was self-defense, the scandal would ruin me; no studio wanted to hire a writer who’d shot a woman, justified or not.
I used to surf in Malibu when I first moved to Los Angeles. I still had two boards, and two surfboard bags. Allison fit into of the bags; I had to bend her body some, using gloves on my hand; I got her in there, zipped the bag up, carried the bag over my shoulder down to the garage and placed her in the trunk.
No one saw me.
I had no idea what I would say if anyone did.
IV.
I drove toward Malibu. It was past midnight. I kept to the speed limit. I stopped off at a canyon on the way. No one was on the road. I parked, opened the trunk, and dumped her body into the canyon.
Driving home, I went through my story for when Wendy reported to the cops her sister was missing more than twenty-four hours.
“I was expecting her to come by,” I would say, “and she never did.
“No, everything was going great.
“We panned a weekend trip with her sister and fiancé.
“I’m really worried about her.
“Did you ask the Army? Maybe she went back.…”
And when someone found the body…?
I couldn’t think that far.
V.
I slept for two days; then met my agent for lunch. He had a meeting set up for me with Harold Croker, head of a new cable station looking for quality material. “Get your best pitches ready,” said agent. Normally, I would have been excited, but the only thing on my mind was Allison Bennings’ body: when they would find it, what I would say when the cops came around.
But there were no cops for now, and what I found strange was that Wendy had not called or come around asking where her sister was.
I found out why when I got home.
Allison was there.
She was cooking dinner, some sort of stuffed bell pepper. She had opened a bottle of wine.
“Bet you didn’t know I was an awesome cook,” she said. “I thought I’d make us something special for our two-month anniversary.”
She looked fine: no gunshot wounds, no bruises from being tossed into a canyon. She was more chipper than she usually was, the Allison I had known. It was obvious I had no idea who this woman was. I killed her again when she slept, after we had made curious tender love, no rough stuff. I took a pillow, put it over her face, pulled the trigger twice. I used the second surfboard bag and did the same as before: bundled her into it, took her to the canyon, tossed her down. “Let’s see you climb back up with two bullets in your brain,” I muttered into the darkness of the earth.
VI.
The next day she called and asked if I had a sleeping bag for our trip to Big Bear. “I have an extra, and a tent, if you need it. I’ll come by at seven, okay? I have a surprise for you. I want to cook you dinner. Well I guess it won’t be a surprise now, huh? See you then, Brad. Love ya!”
I didn’t even contemplate how weird this was getting. All I knew was that I was going to get it right; I was going to kill her for good this time. I would put six bullets into her body, then reload the pistol and put six more into her carcass. I would chop off her head and bury it in the desert and put her body in a different canyon.
It was five o’clock and I heard someone opening the door to my apartment. She had gotten in before; she must have made a copy of my key. Why was she here early? No matter, I would kill her now rather than later.
A middle-aged man with a bald head, wearing a military uniform, stood at the opened door and smiled at me.
“Hello, Mr. Thompson.”
I pointed the gun at him.
“No need for that, Mr. Thompson.”
Someone was behind me. Before I could turn, I felt a needle pierce my neck and my knees gave way, I felt like jelly and I laughed at the man’s bald head and asked, “Where did all your hair go?”
VII.
I came to sitting on the living room couch, still smiling. The man in the uniform sat across from me, and another bald man, twice the size and half the age as the uniform guy, and wearing a dark sweater and black jeans, stood to the right of me, a syringe in his hand. He was waiting.
“How do you feel, Mr. Thompson?” asked the man in the uniform.
“Strangely, pretty good. This is some happy drug you gave me.” I felt calm, at ease, wanted to giggle.
“We gave you something to relax you, and so that your mind will be more receptive to what I am about to say.”
“Lay it on me, General Feel Good,” I said and giggled.
“That would be Colonel, son,” he said, serious. “You murdered one of our operatives, two units destroyed, in fact. Allison seemed to be happy dating you. So what happened? Are you a serial killer and our file on you was all wrong?”
“She’s the nutcase,” I said. “She snapped on me, acting like she was back in the Middle East and I was the enemy. She beat the crap out of me. I thought she was going to snap for good and do me in, so I protected myself.”
“Hmm. What triggered her ‘alter’?”
“Her what?”
“What made her violent?”
“We had an argument. Nothing big, but she wigged out.”
“She’s a trained killer. A weapon.”
“And I was sleeping with her,” I said, finding it funny.