The Devil's Necktie by John Lansing

high and perusing his own little piece of the American dream.
    His car was parked behind his mother’s house, and he sat there doing a mental accounting of all he possessed. He clicked the remote, and the warped garage door yawned open. Track lights that had been attached to an exposed wooden beam were turned on, throwing pin spots onto his unmade bed, couch, and semifinished living quarters in the tired one-car garage. He had a hot plate, a toaster oven, an avocado green refrigerator, a top-of-the-line sound system, and a newly purchased Vizio LCD flat-screen television mounted on the wall. On the opposite wall was a window so dirty, no one could see in or out. He had a swiveling Barcalounger that he loved, with cup holders set into the padded, black-upholstered arms. The recliner sat on a large burgundy area rug that nearly covered the entire stained concrete floor.
    Hector’s mother cooked all of his meals, did his laundry, and never set foot in his living quarters. He knew she was afraid of him, but would never say as much to his face or say no to his paying the bills.
    Eight years ago his father, in a drunken rage, had made the fatal mistake of beating the shit out of young Hector in front of his newly acquired friends in the Lil’ 18th Street Angels—a subset of the local gang, the 18th Street Angels, which had laid claim to Ontario for the past fifty years. Hector had been recruited in high school but still had to prove himself.
    No one questioned his father’s disappearance. But everyone knew the truth.
    Hector killed his father with the old man’s own carving knives. He stabbed him in the chest, the abdomen, the neck, until the bloody holes were too numerous to count. Then he drank a six-pack of his father’s Dos Equis while he systematically dismembered the body with the skill of a master butcher.
    Hector carefully wrapped the desecrated body parts in pieces of plastic drop cloth, bound the parcels with duct tape, and buried them next to an orange tree situated near the rusted chain-link fence that ran along the rear of the property.
    Someone from the Pro’s Ranch Market over on Desoto Street, where his father worked as a butcher, came around a few days later making inquiries, but fifteen-year-old Hector sent him on his way with, “My father got homesick. He is back in Guadalajara visiting family.”
    Hector moved into the garage and up through the ranks, becoming a full member of the 18th Street Angels, where a kill was needed to prove your worth. He had built a reputation for being a go-to guy. At five-ten and weighing in at two-twenty, he was all muscle and no fear. Thick brown hair, heavy brows, and black eyes that made other men blink first. He was being groomed by Armando “Mando” Barajas, who was a member of the Mexican Mafia and who also controlled all of the 18th Street Angels’ activities.
    He didn’t have any trusted friends besides Johnny, but that was okay. Life was good. Money, dope, sex were all for the taking. Yet Hector had discovered years ago a rush that was more intense than shooting crystal meth. A better high than heroin. More satisfying than a sexual orgasm.
    The kill.
    But more important, the cutting. His sharp knives gliding through flesh.
    Hector had to hide his arousal from Johnny after slashing the woman’s throat up on the hill. But that was easy because Johnny wasn’t really looking at him. He took the video but seemed distracted.
    It had been Hector’s idea to go old school on the whore and stage it like a cartel kill. He was smarter than he looked and took pride in his God-given talent. Change the play, save the day. He was taking his skill set to a new level, thinking on his feet.
    He took another deep hit of his joint and realized that, in a very strange way, he owed it all to his father.

10
    It was close to eight o’clock before Jack found a parking space on Abbot Kinney, in Venice, and walked the two and a