The Closer Read Free

fished a pack of cigarettes out of her purse.
    The door swung slowly open. Her partner stood in the doorway, stun gun in one hand. Stanley, unconscious, lay at his feet.
    Nikki lit her cigarette and looked down at Stanley. She shook her head.
    “This is the Closer, you poor bastard. I almost pity you.”
    She kicked him in the head, hard.
    “Almost,” she snarled.
     
    Stanley woke to find he was bound, naked, to a chair in his own kitchen. There was a rubber sheet under the chair. His wrists were tied together in front of him, and lashed to his knees. Duct tape sealed his mouth.
    The Closer entered with a black bag, which he set down on a chair and opened. He was around thirty, with mid-length brown hair that hadn’t seen a comb in a while, and wore a black leather trenchcoat. He began to empty the bag of its contents, which he carefully arranged on the table.
    A box of surgical gloves.
    A small vise, a hatchet and a pair of pliers.
    A pair of pruning shears.
    A hacksaw and a ball-peen hammer.
    A packet of razor blades, a clear Baggie full of fish- hooks, and a box of table salt.
    A container of lighter fluid, a can of Drano, and a large hypodermic needle.
    An electric knife.
    A propane torch.
    The last items he pulled out were a small tape recorder and half a dozen cassette tapes.
    “Now, then,” he said calmly as he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. He put a tape into the cassette deck and hit Record .
    “Let’s go back to the beginning….”
    He reached out and ripped the duct tape off Stanley’s mouth with one hand.
    With the other, he picked up the hacksaw.
     
    She found them in a shoebox in the closet, eight white linen napkins folded into neat triangles and sealed in Ziploc bags. In the center of each napkin was the scarlet imprint of a pair of lips, a kiss captured on cloth.
    Nikki studied them. Each bag had a letter stenciled on the back in Magic Marker. She found one with a G on it, and inhaled sharply.
    “Gee …Genevieve? Is that you?”
    She sat down on the bed and pulled off the blond wig, tossing it to the side. She stared at the napkin through the clear plastic of the Baggie, studying the lips and tracing their outline with a fingertip. She suddenly felt immensely weary, like her body weighed a thousand pounds.
    “Oh, Genny. I hope you’re in a better place, sweetie. I hope this helps.”
    A muffled but agonized scream came from the kitchen.
    Nikki butted her cigarette out in a large, empty ashtray beside the bed. She let the baggy fall to the floor and put her head down, covering her face with her hands.
     
    “I know you’re lying.”
    “No! No! I swear to God!”
    “You’re as predictable as your victims. First you’ll deny you were really going to do anything, that it was all just a game. Then you’ll act tough, say I have no proof, threaten to sue me. When that doesn’t work you’ll try bribery, and finally pleading.”
    “I’m telling the truth, please, oh Christ—”
    “And then we arrive at this point.” The Closer reached down, selected a razor blade. He leaned forward intently. “This is when you lie. You tell me something that I’ll have to go check, because stalling is the only option you have left.”
    He crammed a rag in Stanley’s mouth to stifle his screams, and worked in quick, precise strokes. The flesh peeled back easily. He used fishhooks to pin the flaps to the tops of Stanley’s ears.
    “We’re past that point now. Now you’re going to start telling the truth.”
    Stanley nodded, tears leaking from his eyes, then gave a muffled yelp as the salty drops slid across the raw, exposed meat of his cheeks.
    “Consider that a preview,” the Closer said. He picked up the box of salt.
    He reached down for Stanley’s gag, then stopped. The two flaps of skin stretched to either side, with their tracery of red and blue veins, had their own grotesque beauty; they looked like the wings of a flesh butterfly, with Stanley’s nose the body.
    The Closer shook his