Beautiful, Naked & Dead (Moses McGuire) Read Online Free PDF Page A

coffee mugs, all matching and relatively new. It made me embarrassed to think of the Salvation Army rejects that filled my shelves.
    Opening the bedroom door I moved the light across the tan carpet and up onto the bed and across her pale feet. She was lying sprawled naked on a daisy print comforter, she looked peaceful as if she’d fallen asleep with her head resting on a rust red stain. The world skipped a beat slipping sync for a moment. She was Sleeping Beauty, this was a cartoon; any moment seven dwarves would burst through the door. I felt myself drifting in and out of my body for a moment as I looked down at her, no way this was real. I pulled the light off her face hoping that when I looked back she would be fine, but I found myself staring at the wall, it was splattered with blood, hair, bone chips and gray matter. Facts. Hard cold facts. From splatter to victim. No entry wound on her face. I could see it go down. They had forced her to suck on the barrel before they pulled the trigger. Entry wound back of her throat, exit wound back of her skull. I traveled down her body. Her left nipple was hanging on by a ragged piece of skin. They used pliers on her. Random small brown circles on both breasts, her belly… they burned her with a thin cigar too large to be a cigarette too small to be a robusto. A browning red stain smeared from her pubic hair down to her thigh. Jesus Christ they… back to her face. Her lifeless green eyes stared up at me. My knees went weak, I slipped to the floor, tears rolling out of my eyes. I hadn’t cried in years. I felt the weight of it all pressing down on me. In this whole shitty world couldn’t they leave this one perfect flower alone?
    I don’t know how long I sat there, but slowly out of the darkness a sound found its way to me. It was a soft whimper coming from behind the bathroom door. Crawling to my feet I opened the door. A four-month old strawberry blonde puppy bounced out. She had huge paws and a wrinkled loose skinned sloppy face. Her wild wagging tail swung her butt around as she showed me her joy at being set free. Suddenly, the pup stopped dead still and stared at the bed. Tail and head down she edged towards her dead mistress. She sniffed the hand that hung off the bed. Gently the pup licked Kelly’s limp hand.
    Leaning over, I kissed Kelly’s cold lips. The last thing on her mouth should be a kiss, not a gun. Looking down at Kelly I wiped the tears off my face and felt myself go cold. Tears never helped anyone, tears were a luxury for folks living in safe little houses watching flicks about kids with cancer. Out here in the real world, they didn’t do shit. Taking a dish towel from the kitchen I methodically moved through the apartment wiping my prints clean from every place I had touched. Using the towel to open the front door I was almost out when I felt eyes on me, the damn pup. Looking out from the bedroom with those big lost eyes. “What the hell do you want me to do with you, huh?” I said. The pup looked at me with a depth of sadness I had never seen in a dog so young. “Fine, come on then, but I swear to God the first time you piss in my house I’ll sell you to the taco truck.” She didn’t resist as I picked her up, she crawled up to look over my shoulder, watching her dead mistress all the way out of the apartment. The damn beast weighed at least forty pounds and was well on her way towards monsterhood. But one look in those sad eyes told me her heart was even bigger than her massive paws.
    I called the cops from a pay phone outside a liquor store. When they asked for my name I said it was Tom Waits, and that I lived at the corner of Heart Attack and Vine.
    Climbing onto my Norton I nestled the pup under my leather jacket and rode towards home. A heart-shaped tag on her collar read Angel, no phone number no address. No evidence to lead anyone back to her mistress. John Q Straight put his name on everything he owns, but fringe dwellers know better.