One
The Machete Killer
Bill Hardy stretched out his cramped arms and tried to put circulation back into them.
Sitting in an unmarked police car watching a decoy for hours was not his favorite pastime. The
current case that he and his partner, Amos Baker, were on had them working into the wee hours
of the morning and both of them were exhibiting exhaustion. They were part of a task force of
both FBI and locales trying to catch a serial killer who had been dubbed by the newspapers as
“The Machete Killer” because of his choice of execution of his victims. He or maybe she used a
machete after torturing the victim and then for good measure cut off their heads and placed them
at the crime scene in a particular gruesome pose. The killer so far placed the head on a television
set, coffee table, in the shower stuck on the shower head, and the latest victim on the sofa
cushion watching television. No one had figured out the connection between where the victims
head was in relation to the body but Bill thought it was purely for shock value. So far the count
was four. He had decapitated two prostitutes in New Orleans and now two in Fort Lauderdale.
Since he had crossed state lines the FBI now worked with the local police in the dragnet.
Bill took another sip of his coffee and rubbed his eyes. Coffee was a tool to stay awake
but it always gave him heartburn and he lived on Tums on a daily basis. The woman decoy was
up the block and plying away at trying to seduce the killer to take a chance on her. Amy was five
foot three and a half inches tall, brown hair, long legs and body parts that matched up nicely. She
was in her early twenties and attending the police academy when Bill recruited her for this
assignment. It was a risky ploy and Bill extended himself picking the cadet. Amos was dead set
against the choice feeling she needed more seasoning but the commander of the academy
approved of the choice and Amos acquiesced. Amos still had reservations worrying that what
would she do in an emergency but Bill was a senor agent and had the pull. Meanwhile Amy was
delighted to take the assignment. She was a girl of vitality and, although her fellow cadets told
her that she was not ready she ignored them for this was a big break for her. Then again Bill
reassured her that she would be in no danger for she would be under his surveillance at all times.
Everyone assumed she was choose because of her looks and at random but in truth Bill was
smitten with her and secretly met her on the outside in clandestine meetings. They kept these
rendezvous to themselves because it was totally against protocol but there was definitely an
attraction between the two of them.
The morning of the stakeout Amy showed up at the academy Bill and Amos recapped
the details of the plan with her. A wire was taped to her and they checked it numerous times .
They picked an area for her to patrol where she would have little competition and could practice
her moves. That night they headed out and set up their trap. Within fifteen minutes Amy had her
first offer. After Amos and Bill interrogated the john it was determined he was not the killer but
an innocent scumbag. After three hours Amy was hit on by a half dozen other johns but no
machete killer.
It started to lightly sprinkle and she nervously played with her locket around her neck. It
gave her comfort and she shouldn’t have taken it on assignment. For over two years she was
seeing Joe Villa and kept it on the hush-hush. He was from the wrong side of the tracks and had
a minor record. She pushed him to clean up his act and stay away from the gang which was
pressuring him to join them. Secrecy became the key to their relationship and she confined it to
no one for she feared what the administration would do if they found out about her lover. Even
her own mother was in the dark about the relationship A year ago Villa joined the army with a
recruitment officer who avoided getting to know much about his enlistees but was more
concerned with his numbers. Within two months Joe was shipped out to get training and
deployed to Iraq. Before he left he gave Amy the locket. There were two parts. The one she
had his picture in it and he wore the other half with her picture. It was this half of the locket that
she unconsciously played with while on the street hoping to be picked up by the “machete
killer” and help capture him to make a name for herself.
“I am getting soaked out here, can we call it a day,” Amy said through the microphone
while shivering from the rain.
Bill looked at his watch and saw it read three ten in the morning. He put on his
windshield wipers and said, “You’re right we will pick you up in a second.”Bill looked at Amos
who was turning around in his seat to get donuts out of Dunkin Donuts box he had back there.
Amos always keep the donuts on the back seat so he had to make an effort to get them because
he was on a diet and tried to keep the sugar addition off his mind. Bill chuckled to himself.
There was a light sprinkle of rain on the windshield and when Bill activated them they streaked
and caused Bill to lose sight of Amy. The smudge only blocked the view for only a few seconds
but during that small amount of time Amy scream’s came over the bug. Bill strained to look out
the window but lost sight of their decoy. As it rained more the next swipe cleared windshield
enough to indicate that Amy was gone.
Amos yelled in the bug, “Amy what’s your twenty, are you okay?, speak to us.” But the
bug was silent. Bill drove the car up quickly and both men rushed out of the vehicle. The
drizzle turned into a steady rain. They strained to see where Amy had gone. “Look, the door
to that building is open.” Amos pointed to a door that was moving in the breeze. It appeared
likely that was where Amy might have gone. Bill looked down and said, “ Isn’t that the locket
that Amy wears.” He picked up. “Amos get the flashlights from the car and call in for backup.”
While Amos was doing that he went to the open door and walked in with his gun drawn. The
building was an abandoned hotel with at least two floors. Amos joined him and handed him a
flashlight. “Looks like a hotel,” he stated. There was a staircase to the left and Bill shined his
light on the stairs. A shoe was on one of the steps and Amos picked it up. “It is hers.”
“Yeah, we better move it, we cannot just wait here for backup.”
The killer had taken Amy by surprise. She was shivering on the street while he watched
her from the abandoned hotel. She was stomping her feet trying to keep warm. He came up
from behind her and clamped his hand over her mouth. She struggled and tried to scream. He
carried her small body twisting and turning and yanked it back to the open door of the hotel. He
was huge and immensely strong. Her training at the academy was forgotten in the immediate
rush of her opponent. She was like a rag doll. Inside the hotel it was dark and smelled like hell.
He threw her against the wall and hit her in the face knocking her out. He then climbed the stairs
of the hotel with her body slung over his shoulder.
He took her into a room and tied her up on a contraption he had prior rigged on the back
wall of the hotel room. He tried to revive her because he was not turned on rapeing an
unconscious girl. The feeling of conquest was important to him. He had prepared the room in
advance. He had lit the candles of love in the room. They gave off the aroma of incense and he
thought in the back of his mind that would arouse his victim. He poured some water into a glass
and threw the water into her face hoping she would regain consciousness.
Amos and Bill almost tripped over a pile of debris on the second floor. Amos knelt
down and then realized that the pile was the body of a derelict.
“Where is his head?” Amos said softly.
Bill flashed his light around the open area. “There it is, on the desk over there.” He
walked over to it and flashed the light on the head with its open eyes. “Bastard put it there for
affect, looks like this guys been dead for a while. We had better split up. I will go up this row of
rooms and you take the other side.”
The two men separated and went their separate ways down their respective hallways.
Bill worried about his pick and how she was holding up. His gut was not giving off positive
vibrations and the heartburn was getting bad. Bill was now six rooms down and he could not see
Amos flashlight beam. He heard a muffled noise from the next room, took the door handle and
barged into the room.
Nothing could have prepared him for the sight in front of him. There was light in the
room because of the lit candles that shown flickers of the scene. It was surrealistic and bizarre.
On the other side of the room was the machete killer. Bill deduced this because he had one
handed raised above his head with his weapon of choice. The killers immense body blocked the
view of Amy but Bill instinctively knew she was there but he was not sure if she was alive or
dead. Bill yelled, “Freeze or I’ll shoot,” but knew in his heart the killer would not obey him. He
held his gun in front of him. Bill did not use what the FBI issued but instead had a Glock 23. It
was his personal favorite and being high up in the FBI he could get away with the indiscretion.
Hardy mirrored himself a little like James Bond. Bending the rules was okay as long as he was
being the rules.
The beast turned around and ran out Bill with his machete above his head. Bill took a
stance and started blasting away. Bullet after bullet hit the approaching fiend but did not slow
him down. His momentum and his size overcame the recoil of the force of the gun. Finally he
was right in front of Bill and ready to strike. Bill was able to grab his hand with machete in it
and held it from striking down. He took his gun and fired up into the brute. The first shot went
through the brutes neck straight into his brain and into the ceiling above. The second bullet went
in a path in front of the first bullet and exited out of an eye socket. All of a sudden, as if the wind
is knocked out of him, the killer crumpled into a pile burying Bill. He did not feel pain from
the blade that had sliced him on the shoulder but waves of exhaustion and being buried under a
huge individual who was latter measured at six foot eleven caused him to go unconscious.
Amos heard the shots and rushed towards the room. As he approached he yelled out,
“Bill, where are you?” Bill could not answer for waves of nausea ran through him as he realized
the machete had sliced through his shoulder and he was bleeding. Faintly he called out to Amos,
“here” before passing out from the shock of being cut and viciously attacked.
Bill finally stirred when the EMT gave him a whiff of ebony salts to revive him. He was
in the back of an ambulance and was being attended to by the man in white. He saw Amos,
“what happened,” he muttered the words garbled by a shot he had been given unknowingly. Bill
tried to sit up but could not. “You got a little cut up by the killer, but it’s not too bad. You did
get lucky because one of your shots blew his brains out.” Amos instinctively brushed away
something on the shoulder of his jacket but did not tell Bill that some of the killers brain tissue
had plopped down on him from the ceiling.
“Where am I?” Bill asked.
“We are on the way to the hospital so they can stitch you up. The killer is on the way to
the morgue.”
“Where is Amy?”
Amos hesitated, knowing it had to be said but he did not want to say it. “She’s dead and
there was nothing we could do to save her.” Amos left it at that. He did not add that it was one
of Bill’s bullets going through the killer that took her life. At that point there was nothing to gain
by telling his partner that he did what the killer had planned to do. Instead of saving Amy the
protectors’ actions caused her death.
A couple of days later Hardy got out of the hospital. As soon as he got to the office Amos
showed him the machete he retrieved from the evidence room. It was a machete from Brazil.
The Killer himself was a recent indigent who had come to America from Brazil as part of a
wrestling promotion. As soon as the wrestling promoter got tired of his ranting and ravings he
had evicted him out of his contract and was in the process of sending him back to Rio when he
pulled a Waldo and disappeared. His murder spree started soon after.
A country with no President?
Are you turned off with the election as it comes to a final breath?
Are the issues the candidates are discussing boring you to death?
Is this the best group that we can put up on the slate?
I have seen better used as fish chum and bait.
“Sorry am I”, would be what Yoda would state.
None of the above is the showing of last place.
The names spin in my head and I cannot get the noise to rest.
None of the above is the check I will fill in, and that is the best.
A moment of desire
I had a girlfriend who gave milk of magnesia from her ample breast,
It came out in a flood and it was sour and a pouring of liquid mess.
Her navel was a large as to float a small ship,
I dated her only once and then gave her the slip.
But she was a stalker and a talker to boot,
I declined although she was willing to give me her loot.
She was insane with a twist of Hitchcock and a temper hot as a fire,
In a moment of crazy passion I drowned in my own desire.
Now she declared pregnant to the world in a voice of a roar,
She declared me the father and my ego was skewed as a spear through a boar.
The child was born in eight months of bloating womanhood,
He was somewhat like a devil and had a cobra hood.
I ran from this family and took refuge, arrested by the police,
I hid from them and refused to acknowledge them and the phone calls finally decreased.
Now I lie in my cell staring at the walls, a man broken into parts,
My sin was a moment of passion and it speared me through my heart.
The Great Scams
Most of life is weaving between the scammers. The lies are bold and frequent.
Who do you trust as the news exposes the scammers one after another?
The biggest scammer of all, our government. They spend money as if they made it. Wait for it that is right, they do make the money. And we are taxed for it.
Then they spend the money. Have you looked at what they are spending it on?
Not on you, but on countries that then bitch that they are not getting enough of your money and then make threats against you.
The next scammer the medical profession. We are scanned in hopes to find something that we can then be charged for. We are given foods that cause cancer and then charged for the damage that cancer does to our bodies.
The cigarette companies. I remember when they said they did not cause cancer.
Now they admit it but have the gall to hold activities to stop you from smoking their product which has in it substances that make you addicted to it.
Car companies. Volkswagen should be ashamed. The recalls are so many that you cannot keep track of them. Which car is safe, ask Ralph Nader.
When someone says I am telling you the truth, do you believe them?
Churches are places to go where the truth will be told?
I am now searching for a man or woman who will tell me the truth.
I know it will be a long search down dark alleys and into the surf of sin.
Pray for me.
Zoned Out
I have a bad problem and one that I do not really understand,
When I think of something deeply my mind goes out of hand.
Let us say I am writing a short story in my mind,
This is dangerous for I should not go and drive.
My focus zeroes in on what my characters are doing,
What happens around me goes by as if I am not viewing.
I can actually see my characters reacting to their situations,
I write and rewrite the script as if they were real creations.
My wife says I get that look of total focus,
It is like some magic trick or hocus pocus.
I hope you like what I create and write about,
Sometimes I wonder and have some doubt.
But most of you have been supportive and fair,
Accepting my weird wit and comical flair.
So I will continue to blog and hopeful write something that you deem good,
To my readers I acknowledge you and hope that I am not misunderstood.
Believe
It was an amazing time with crazy notions,
Our brains reeled with convoluted motions.
We landed on the moon and yet many sat at their t.v.’s with disbelieve.
They thought it was a ploy, a movie made by NASA, the reasons they did not seek.
There was even a movie that promoted that theme, called
Capricorn One, do you believe it or not?
We were in the era of conspiracies that cropped up on every theme and thought.
It was used by many, it even was used, in commercials of things that we bought.
Above is a still from the movie, it is not the moon!
And now in 2016 we have new themes that boggle our minds,
Our lives filled with doubts and cracks in our cerebellum are sure signs
Who do we believe, who is trust worthy and will tell us the truth,
I do not know for I have pickled my brain in gin and vermouth.
A scam artist and she was a woman
I never imagined it. But the proof is in the pudding if you wish to stick your finger in it. I will not mention the school, or a name, or a date but I will reveal the facts.
There was a teacher at my school. She knew she was moving to another state and there was three months left on the school year before she moved. She complained of stomach pain and went to the doctor.
Before we knew it she started going every week at least once a week and sometimes twice. The excuse was the only appointments she could get where at the end of the day. So since she had a last class after a break she would get someone who had a free period to cover the class. Being kind hearted teachers she found a few who did that for her. She pulled this off a least a dozen times.
No money involved just a thanks. And then one teacher got a little tired of it. She called the doctor she was supposedly seeing. There were no appointments. She was scamming the school and taking off the afternoons because she could and she was leaving anyway so the attitude was “what are you going to do about it anyway.”
I knew this woman was a scam artist from before but I kept out of it. I use to sell life insurance and in that world you get to know agents who sell car and home owners insurance. The lady in question asked me if I knew an agent. I gave her my Allstate friend who wrote her apartment insurance with some riders on her jewelry.
Low and behold she was robbed and the list was quite extensive. She put in a claim for over ten thousand dollars. This was the beginning of the year and the agent under obligation of responsibility did not tell me. Claim was paid. Then the woman in question asked me if I knew another agent. At this point I asked why and she told me of the claim. I gave her my State Farm agent. She called him and took out a policy just like she had with Allstate.
Now, I know you are getting the drift. I was in my friend’s agency talking to him when the call came in. She was robbed and faxed over the list of what was taken.
I had my friend at State Farm call my friend at Allstate and he faxed over the list of what they had paid out. It was the same list that she now was claiming. Same jewelry and other belongings. No changes. The agents called up their respective adjusters to pursue the fraud.
Now you know why she was leaving state. The noose was tightening. But I kept quiet, and then she played the coverage game. I controlled myself. But when she was gone I breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at her in the faculty room was a chore and I was glad she was gone.
Normally I look for the good in people. She made that difficult.
