Jude
The van stops outside a tall apartment building in a rundown neighborhood. I peek out of the window and see a gang of kids at the far end of the street, one man handing out little baggies of weed. The leader, a tall black man with cornrows and a tear-drop tattoo beneath his eye, is packing. I can see the outline of his pistol beneath his trousers. The rest are just kids, can’t be older than fifteen.
Of course we’d find that prick Barry in a place like this, I think.
Tool holds a shut-up finger and takes out his cellphone. The van goes quiet as Tool speaks. “Hey, baby doll,” he says, grinning like a madman. I can see the other guys are as nervous as I must’ve been a long, long time ago. The kid with freckles and the mop-hair swallows, his Adam’s apple a solid ball of shifting anxiety. “Is he up there now? Ah, you’re pretending I’m one of your girlfriends. Very clever. There’s a bonus in it for you; your acting is so damn good.”
He grins at the rest of us and then hangs up.
“Right, he’s up there. Let’s go.”
We pile out of the van like men ready to do murder, ’cause that’s exactly what we are.
Tool leads us to the apartment’s main door. He presses a buzzer. The door beeps and opens.
“Told him I was another girl.” Tool smiles as we walk into the building. “Stupid bastard thinks he’s about to have a threesome.”
Normally, I’d laugh, just to help the day along. But I can’t get Emily’s face out of my head, the fear in her features when the sleazy bastard pulled her into his lap. I know he’s done worse things—much worse things—but seeing him handle Emily like that burns into my mind. I clench and unclench my fists, bloody intent making my muscles hard, my senses honed. I’m not Jude anymore. I’m more than Jude. I’m a killer, stalking. The other guys, even Tool, keep their distance from me; I must look mad, scary, mad and scary.
“Which apartment is it?” I ask.
Tool tells me.
I run up the stairs, past graffiti-covered walls and over discarded needles. All around us, the sounds of drunk and high people smash through the walls. Somebody stumbles; somebody cackles; a plate shatters; a woman screams. I run faster, mind going into overdrive: Pull my woman into your lap, eh? Make my woman scared for her life? Fucking use my woman like she’s a toy? Try and hurt my woman? He’s a fucking dead man. No question. He’s dead. Fucking dead!
“Jude,” Tool mutters, at my shoulder. “You okay, man?”
“Fine,” I say, voice distorted because I’m growling like a beast.
We gather outside the door.
“Who’s doing the honors?” Tool asks.
I kick the door so hard all the hinges snap loose. It flies through the air like a tiny piece of fluttering paper and lands with a pathetic thump. The apartment is even more of a mess than mine was before Emily got her hands on it. The couch is not so much a couch as a threadbare collection of fabric and plywood. The walls are bare and black with damp. The floor is uncarpeted and reeks of alcohol and drugs. Needles are scattered everywhere like deformed flower stems.
The woman stands near the door, just to the side, and Barry sits on the couch, facing the door. The small, beady-eyed man is shirtless, displaying his twisted muscles. He’s small, but some men have a violent aura around them no matter their size, and Barry is one of them. I get the sense looking at this piece of piss that he wouldn’t flinch at hurting a child, a woman, anybody. A killer, like me, sure—but so much fucking worse ’cause at least I leave innocents out of it.
His beady eyes do something impossible when he sees us; they go wide.
He leaps to his feet, reaching into the waistband of his jeans. He fumbles. Reaches again. But it’s too late. I’m across the room like a torpedo. The world seems to slow as my heartbeat speeds up. I see individual beads of sweat dripping down the man’s naked upper body. I see his teeth, biting down on his lower lip. I see the way his hands shake and I see the light dusting of white powder around his nose. I hear him yelp. I hear the hooker run from the apartment.
Then time speeds up and my fist crunches into his stomach.
He keels over, collapsing onto the couch in a bundle.
I smack him in the face. I feel his cheekbone crunch. I smack him again.
“No! Please! No! Please!” he wails, bringing his hands to his head.
“No?” I spit. “No? You’re going to beg me? That’s your fucking plan? We know all about you, you fucking pedophile. We know about all the shit you’ve done.” I kneel down, grab him by the neck, and bring my face so close to his I can smell the coke. “And do you think I’ve forgotten about the way you grabbed Emily, like she was a piece of fucking meat for you to enjoy? Do you really think I’d let you get away with that, you fucking moron?”
I head-butt him. His nose caves and blood, powdered white, gushes down his front.
“P-p-please,” he whispers. “Just . . . please.”
“Have some goddamn self-respect,” I snarl.
I lift him by the neck so he’s on his feet. He tries to fall backward, but I hold him up. His arms hang limply at his sides.
“Not so nice, is it, having a big mean bastard in your face when there’s nothing you can do about it? Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you fucking raped children!” I explode on the last words, crushing my hand around his windpipe.
He splutters and dribbles, spit dripping down his chin in big phlegmy globules. I see Emily’s face, running continuously like a stuck DVD in my mind. I imagine this piece of shit tailing kids in his car, grabbing them . . . using them. My blood has turned to ice, lava, fire; my blood has run with hatred and killer’s intent more times than I can count. Now, it runs with a strong protective urge. I’m no longer in some hooker’s rundown crack house. I’m standing on the shore of a lake watching the bubbles of my dying parents rise to the surface. I have to do something.
“P-p-p—”
“Prick!” I let go of him and take a step back. I feel the others at my shoulders, ranged either side of me, but all of them know better than to get in my way right now, just as any smart man knows to get the hell out of the way when a bull comes charging at him.
A hush falls over the apartment, as though everybody knows what’s about to happen. The Judas Kiss has become a sort of joke around the bar at this point, but just because Tool has a laugh over it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t feared. I take another step back, aiming. Barry totters from side to side, a drunken man struggling to stay on his feet.
“You’ll never hurt anybody again.”
My voice is iron.
I jump, spin—and give him a Judas Kiss which sends him hurtling over the back of the couch, flipping head over toe, and landing in a crumpled pile on the floor. I jump through the air, throwing my entire weight behind my right fist, an MMA-style move that earns me a gasp from everybody, even Tool. I never know exactly what I look like when I give anyone a Judas Kiss, but Tool once told me it was like a giant mousetrap flinging shut.
I walk to the edge of the room. Barry moans softly from behind the couch. He coughs; he gurgles.
“Finish him off.” I wave a hand at the men. None of them argue.
They walk around the back of the couch and lay into him. His gurgling and coughing is replaced with whelping.
I turn my back on the scene and inspect my knuckles. They’re cut and grazed, but that doesn’t bother me much. It’s tough to think of a time in my life when my knuckles haven’t been cut and grazed.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, calming myself.
The prick who pulled Emily into his lap will never hurt anybody else.
A scream—a shout—and finally a gargling, choking noise.
“It’s done,” Tool says.
“Good,” I reply.
It’s only when we leave the apartment and a few pedestrians look at me sideways, I realize I’m coated top to bottom in a misty layer of blood.