CHAPTER 7 (If we could turn back time… what would the fun be in that?)
IAN: This is the second morning I have gotten up alone. I don’t know if I feel alone. The fact that Marisa is never coming home, has not quite set in yet. I wait to hear the car in the garage, her key in the door. Me calling out. “I am home babe.” Do I miss any of it? I don’t know. I am back at work. I need to stay busy, or I will over think the situation. My head is too full. I see Marisa in everything. The face I see, is not the face I remember, it’s the face of death. I moved out of the main bedroom, I moved my clothes into the spare bedroom, and I locked the door. The faces haunt me at night. All the faces, of people I don’t know. And some I do. Lorena, Mama and Liz. I don’t want to see Marisa’s face, I packed up all our photos. The house is clean. I don’t want to remember. I am not sure what I will recall once I remember. My life is in patches, things I want to remember, and things I honestly can’t recall. I have tried. I come up blank. I noticed a very strange thing. All my records have been pulled up, that happened yesterday. I can’t point fingers at Roberto, he was at the Wake. So I am on the suspect list again, bloody hell why? The other thing that’s troubling me…. the song on the radio, I wasn’t in time to switch it off. Throb-throb. Listen to your pulse Ian. Drive. I was stuck behind a truck about to pass it. Music, the wrong music. “There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say…”
BRENO: “Hello Ian. Sorry to see the lovely Marisa is eating a dirt sandwich. But buddy, you have me, and I think dear heartbroken Ian needs to take a backseat, lick your wounds. I can’t have a weakling on my team. So I am here to stay. Ian you will thank me, because your best buddy Roberto knows you killed Marisa, well technically, not you, me. I killed the whoring bitch, my bad, it was a mistake. This time, I had no intensions of killing anyone, so in my defence, oops. Ian calma. Sit back and enjoy the ride. And you can stay. I want you to remember, so before Master detective puts the cuffs on, I will take you on a journey. Ian, calma. I will protect you, but you are a big boy now. We need to take a drive.
Oh it is good to have control. Ian will get us both fried, but I need to open his mind before he trips up, and accidently pulls the plug on both of us. I stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of cognac. I have had enough of the horse piss Ian drinks. I watched the rear view mirror. Nice. Master Sherlock Roberto is on our tail again. Hmm. What to do? Well if he gets too close, it will have to be lights out. Oh Ian cale-se. Shut up. You sound like a cranky mulher velha. I lost my tail and sought out a place in the woods, the places Ian loves to run away from me. “Ian, we need to start at the beginning.”
IAN: Breno, no, I don’t want to know what you do with my body.”
BRENO: “Suck it up, I am here for you, moron. I have protected you since you where seventeen, I got rid of them both in one night for you, so you will listen, Ian, you have to listen, or we are dead.”
IAN: “Breno, I don’t know why you are in my head.”
BRENO: “Estúpido, that is what I want to explain to you. It all started with Mama. The abuse, the things she did to you, man what mama fucks her own son? That’s when I arrived in your head, prom night. Mama was drunk, as always, and you, well more precise, I had killed Lorena. You kissed her, and then she got all defensive. She had been a cock-teaser for months, and promised you she would give, on prom night. Well she scratched and punched you, just like Mama did, I took over, I won’t remember. I stabbed her with her car keys, it felt good. I smoke, you don’t. That is one thing Master Sherlock has overlooked, I burnt her under her breast, I tiny burn. Then I finished my smoke, and I let you walk home. Mama freaked the fuck out when you arrived home covered in blood. She was as high as a kite, she punched and slapped you. Mama forced you to take your clothes off, we didn’t have money for a suit back then, so you went in long pants, and one of Dada’s old ties. Well as I was saying she forced you to undress, all of it. The moment she grabbed your pinto, I took over. She didn’t like you fighting back. I strangled her, I didn’t stop until I couldn’t feel her pulse. The pulse is life Ian. That is why you are so acutely aware of it, I taught you, to listen to your pulse, so you would never lose control. The killing is all me. I am your guardian Ian. I placed your clothes in the washer. Then I moved her body into her bedroom, I broke a bottle, and I repeatedly stabbed her. I sent you out to buy a cola, and when you returned home, you found Mama dead. Roberto was kind to you, he protected you, so I have looked out for him, but he is now scratching in places, I don’t want him to. Do you remember that family that look you in? Just before you left for university? Do you remember Nina?”
IAN: “Si, I remember Nina, she was older, I think she was working, she would grab my ass when I passed her, I didn’t like her, she was crude, and vulgar. Yeah I do remember Nina Lima very well.”
BRENO: “I took her out one night. You were tucked away. And I fucked the bitch, you really do have an exquisite physique, but Mama fucked it up, by killing her smokes on you, no one has ever seen you naked, I made sure of that, not even Marisa, she tried to peek a few times, so I would covered the keyhole in the bathrooms. Nina got high, and she wanted to go another round, I was not game, she bored me, so I strangled her. And dumped her body in her car into the Rio do Peixe. Mama had life insurance, the only thing she did right. So I bought us the boathouse. It’s been my place of refuge since you tuned twenty-one. It became the place I would take the people who disrespected you. Liz Campbell, well she was out of boredom, and I had found out that Marisa was fucking doctor Sexy.”
IAN: “What? Who?”
BRENO: “Ah, my bad. Doctor Grayston. They had had an affair for months, Roberto knows….”
IAN: “Roberto knew, why didn’t he tell me?”
BRENO: “He was protecting you, you are so blind, you believed it when she said she was working late. Ian I didn’t mean to kill her, I have no idea how it happened. I have never touched her, that was the first time. I know your anniversary is next week, and even when you met on campus, I stayed out of it. She is not my type. But the day she disrespected you, and then went and fucked Tristen, well I wouldn’t have it, but I never meant to kill her.”
IAN: “I believe you, carry on.”
BRENO: “So you two met, and you graduated, and opened your practice, you were safe, so I took a back seat, I didn’t trouble you, and no one else troubled you, but the longer you had your practice, the deeper the cracks became, and next was Pedro Cardoso. A faggot. I don’t know what made me snap, or what brought me out. He ended up at the boathouse, we don’t like men, but we do allow them to give me a blowjob. I know you tried to break through, when he stared humming a song, and you pulled back. I strangled him. I dumped his body in his apartment. For a while I sat back, then you closed the practice, and became a driver. I would watch how they would make fun of you behind your back. They thought you were too dumb to get a better job, they judged you, without knowing you, what Mama did to you, how hard you studied, the fact that you had your practice for fourteen years. Well I made an appearance, next was Caroline Eduardo, she was a real snob, she found mistakes in everything you did. She commented on your suit. I think she said something like, “How can a delinquent taxi driver afford a suit? Well that was all I needed, I had heard Mama call you that a thousand times. I took over, and drove to the boathouse, being a psychiatrist, you wrote prescriptions, for drugs that would calm them, get them in the mood. I would inject, or dissolve it in a drink, no one ever felt the pain, I know you don’t like hurting people. I played with Caroline for a few hours, she was by far more fun drugged, I don’t know what happened, but when she got up, she became dizzy, and fell through the glass table in the small sala, I piece of glass when through her jugular. Well I hate cleaning up blood, so I burnt her clothes, and her handbag, and dumped the body in the river, I moved the houseboat a few miles away, and no connection has been made, we had freak floods that year, so her body ended up miles away from the houseboat. I pulled up the carpets, and I tiled the sala, by far easier to clean. After her I killed four others. It happened, I do let a few go, if I can’t see the reason for their deaths, so I am not entirely a monster. The reason I am telling you is, most of these people, drove in your car, they will never find any DNA, I was careful, but their names were logged into dispatch, and I think that is why Roberto is on to us. I will have it changed today, completely. I have my ways, and this I can’t nor shall I tell you. But all those names. Luiz Dias, Marcela Gomes, Sabrina Aráujo, Victor Morais. They will be changed to other names. In an hour, I want you to make a print out of your records for the past two years. Remember the names, even if you can’t know what they looked like, so if Roberto asks you, you can give him their surnames, so memorize all of it, you can you have a fucking degree, and that my friend is how we stay out of the frying pan.”
IAN: “Will you kill again?”
BRENO: “I can’t say, I don’t know what triggers me to take over, Ian.”
IAN: “I know. It’s the songs Mama played over and over, the song she played the first time she sucked my pinto, now if you can block those out, you don’t need to kill.”
BRENO: “You are a fucking genius, yeah, it’s all coming back to me. Okay, I promise I will try to behave, and to block out the songs, I really want to see you live, so take off that wedding ring, and throw it in the Rio da Prata. You will start living, and I will help you, now remember get the printout.”
IAN: I did as Breno told me to. I threw my ring in the river, I had lunch at an internet café, and I memorized the new names. It didn’t take me long, I used to memorise all my patient’s names. I did this within an hour, and I watched as the document got erased in front of my eyes, Roberto walked in, while I was staring at a site for puppies, and according to the PC, I have been doing so for an hour.
Roberto and I searched for a puppy, he thought that was an amazing idea. He didn’t say how he found me, nor did he comment on my missing wedding band, I need to tan this hand fast, I have a white mark where the ring used to be. He asked how I was. I sincerely told him I was coping. Well I was. Even though he was after me, for crimes I didn’t commit. He knew about Marisa, but today was not the day to have that conversation, we will in time. I know more about my life right now, than I ever had, I fell in control, I need to hold on to my new direction. Roberto’s phone beeped, he looked at it, then he cussed, he apologised, and he left without saying good bye. I guess he got the new report. Hell this will throw him for a loop.
I drove for the rest of the day, now well aware of Breno in my head, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel alone. I have what I need tucked into my soul. A friend, a confident, a killer yes, but I now understand why he did it.
The day was busy, I stopped looking in the rear view mirror, I don’t need to see their faces, I am free now. I went home, made supper. I checked which bills needed to be paid, and made a note of it, I watched a movie. Went to bed, no nightmares, I got up at four, and I jogged. I didn’t run my ass off. I watched the sun rise, went home, showered and changed. I sent a text to Roberto. I was alive.
ns 15.158.61.55da2
