The Garcia Effect - Diary of a Serial Killer

A Hapless Venetian: Martin's First Murder

Chapter 2

By lunchtime Martin's head was all a fluster; his thoughts were running wild. Murder was everywhere. There were bodies discovered buried in gardens, years after the victims had gone missing; there were rancid corpses left in apartments, reported by keen-nosed neighbours and found by the police several weeks after the murderer's trail had gone cold; there were body-parts discovered in dumpsters by refuse workers. There were slit throats; there were stabbed kidneys; there were busted windpipes and broken necks; there were gouged eyes and even gouged hearts; there was dismemberment and strangulation and impalement; there were electrocutions and drownings and shootings and bodies set ablaze while still alive. In one series of cases the victims had been bled dry, with no blood visible at the crime-scene – the conclusion being that the murderer was a wannabe-vampire of some kind. In other series of cases there was, similarly, a clear M.O. tying the crimes together: victims of a certain age group and a certain sex, all killed in the same way, usually in the same city. And all of these were only the unsolved cases, the cases where no suspect had been apprehended.

It really was a jungle out there. Anything could happen to anybody at any moment.

And suddenly it was lunchtime. Martin found himself in the Chinese restaurant, mulling over what he'd read.

"Me for your thoughts, lover!" She often said this. It was funny-cute rather than funny-haha.

"Oh, nothing, Penny, I'm just thinking about how the hell I'm gonna get through all the prep I have to do this afternoon before class, now that I've whiled away the morning having coffee and surfing."

"What were you looking up, man?" asked Spencer.

"Just stuff. You know how you start out at one website and get interested in something else, and one thing leads to another and before you know it two hours have flown by."

Martin was deliberately being coy. This newfound obsession with murder had to remain a secret, he'd decided. Everything had to be a secret from now on. He would stop discussing holiday destinations with his friends, too. He was determined to keep it all to himself, and to let himself be wafted along to wherever this new hobby of his might take him. But it was essential that nobody know about it – for their own protection as well as his.

"How's your egg-flied lice, Spence?" Martin enquired.

"It's da hood, man. Too oily. Too salty. I ain't eating any more of it." He melodramatically threw down his chopsticks. "I'm just gonna wait for my orange duck."

"I've got one of your ex-students in my pre-intermediate group, Spence," said Penny.

"Oh yeah? What's he or she like?"

"She's a real drongo. Weakest in the group, but by far. I'm probably gonna have to fail her at the end of the trimester and send her back down to you."

"Oh, Penny, don't do that, bi-atch! I specialise in low-lifes, but only so that I don't have to ever see their sorry asses again once they finish the course. I don't wanna have to deal with any repeaters because they expect special attention to get up to the next level."

"Well, you shouldn't have passed her last year if she was so thick."

"Penny, they're all thick; I pass them all up. Deal with it, ho. Anyway, what's her name?"

"Margarita Margarit."

"Damn it, negress, she really is da hood. She still thinks she has 22 years and that cooking likes her." Then, after a pause for thought: "...But she's got a hot ass, so you can send her back down if you like."