They had never seen the second child. They didn’t know for sure if there was a second child, if it was really in Europe, or if the French whore was just trying to get more money. A whore getting pregnant was an occupational hazard, not the fault of the john. The whores had crossed the line, called wives, disrupted families, demanded money, made threats, and signed their own death certificates.
Breathless, mouth bloodied, Thelma tried to get up, tried to race for the front door, but Medianoche caught her. He put his gun to her head, then put the barrel down her throat, made her gag. The French whore pissed herself. Piss rained all over Medianoche’s polished shoes.
He put the gun down on the table, made the French whore lick his shoes spit-shine clean.
She pleaded for her life, asked, “Why why why? Why are you doing this?”
Medianoche replied, “Because some people deserve to die.”
“Please . . . I beg you . . . Please . . . I am a mother . . . I have children. I have a son sleeping in the next room. He could be your child. Your son.”
“And that’s the problem. That’s the goddamn problem.”
“Please . . . no.”
“You’ll be where you belong in a moment.”
“Please.”
“Out back.”
“Please.”
“In the Dumpster with Margaret.”
Then Medianoche strangled Thelma. Strangling was an intimate act, forced the one being asphyxiated to look into the killer’s eyes. The murderer could watch the soul leave the victim’s body. It was an intimate act of hate. Medianoche had stared into Thelma’s eyes, let her see his anger as he saw her fear. He had her suspended in the air. He was her hangman, his hands her rope. The room in her house of ill repute was her gallows. Eyes filled with tears, the French whore gagged, coughed, spat, and stared at Medianoche’s face. She tried to claw him, tried to fight with all her heart to live. Suffocating, dying a slow, certain death. He smiled, let her breathe. The Beast came back inside the slut’s house and Thelma’s reddened eyes went to him, begged to be saved, but the Beast turned his back on her, turned his back on the whore he had cared for the most, the beautiful French girl he had made love to more times than he had his own wife, the whore who claimed to have birthed his children. The Beast told Medianoche to kill her, to do it slowly, to make her suffer for the phone calls, for the blackmail. The Beast told Medianoche to make her regret what she’d done, and then walked out the front door. The Beast stood guard on the front porch, didn’t want to see Thelma’s well-earned death. He closed the front door. Medianoche held Thelma by her fragile neck and manhandled her petite frame around the room. She kicked over lamps, eyes wide because now she knew she was seconds from death. This would be her end, his face the last face she ever saw. But as he choked her, Medianoche looked to his left and saw her snotty-nosed son, the bastard she had fed NyQuil like it was fresh orange juice. Medianoche saw that the trick baby had picked up and was holding his gun, saw his own .22 aimed at his face, at his head, and before Medianoche could drop Thelma and attack and break the neck of the fatheaded cereal-eating NyQuil-drinking son of a whore—BANG—Gideon was born.