by Darcia Helle
“Yeah.” Isaac’s smile faded. “You okay tonight?”
“Fine. Why?”
“Sometimes I think there’s a vacancy sign hanging in your eyes.”
Michael laughed. “There probably is.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
The words almost formed themselves, the story so close to slipping from his lips. Michael gazed at his best friend and smiled as the words receded. He shook his head. “No. Really, I’m fine. Maybe a little envious. Nadine’s quite the catch.”
Isaac glanced toward the ladies’ room. With no sign of Nadine, he turned his attention back to Michael. “I’m in love with her,” he said.
“Yeah? And that’s supposed to be a newsflash?”
“Give me a break here.”
“You deserve to be happy.”
“So do you,” Isaac replied.
“Don’t ruin the moment with a lecture.”
“I don’t lecture.”
“Yeah you do,” Michael said. “But it’s okay. I ignore you.”
“What a friend.”
Nadine returned. As she slid into her chair, she said, “I just had a mini course on Botox treatments. Apparently they are all the rage and I’m missing out. Amazing what you can learn in a ladies’ room.”
“Don’t learn a damn thing in the men’s room,” Isaac said. “No one talks.”
“That’s because no one wants to call attention to themselves,” Michael said. “Something about standing there with your parts hanging out and another guy doing the same thing beside you. Not exactly an environment conducive to conversation.”
Nadine shook her head. “Certainly is strange. I don’t know why guys can’t have stalls like women. Must be that you all secretly like to compare sizes.”
Both men broke out in laughter. “And on that note,” Michael said, “I’m going to make my departure.”
“You don’t want to stay and have a few drinks with us?” Nadine asked.
Michael pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “Thank you, but no.”
Isaac waved Michael off. “I’ve got it tonight.”
“No way,” Michael said.
He tossed two twenties on the table and stood. Isaac grabbed one of the bills, held it up to Michael, and said, “This is way too much. Take this back.”
Michael leaned down and kissed Nadine on the cheek. Then he turned back to Isaac, said, “Give it to the waitress,” and strode away before Isaac could complain.
Chapter 9
Darkness had settled by the time Michael pulled into his garage. He entered his house through the side door in the kitchen. As he turned to walk down the hall, his attention was drawn to a flashing light in the living room. The answering machine blinked angrily in the darkness. He’d been dodging his father’s calls for awhile and it seemed now even the machine had grown tired of it. He hesitated, briefly considering returning the call. With no more than a few seconds thought, he decided against it and moved on to his bedroom.
The rumpled sheets reminded him of Christina. The fact that he never bothered to make his bed had driven her crazy. But nothing else in this room brought memories. New house. New furniture. New sheets that had never held her scent. Sometimes that was the thing that bothered him most of all. The total absence of her. As if she’d never existed.
He stripped, dropping his clothes in the hamper in his adjoining bathroom. That simple act brought a smile. Before Christina, his clothes landed and remained wherever he happened to be when removing them. She had managed to break him of that habit. A sign that she was, in fact, still with him. And always would be.
Back in his bedroom he pulled on frayed shorts and a worn t-shirt. He stuck his feet in leather sandals, then went on a hunt for his disposable cell phone. He found it on his desk in his office, along with the keys to the rental car. Sliding them both in his pocket, he moved to his closet.
The time crept closer. Adrenaline surged through him. His movements were liquid, precise. His concentration focused. His pulse remained steady as he removed the Glock from the safe and slid in the loaded clip.
He tucked the gun in the waistband of his shorts and pulled his t-shirt over the top. Everything in place, he headed out to the garage. His mind had locked on the job ahead of him. Killing yet another scum. How many would this make? Twenty? More?
Not knowing the exact number right off meant they were starting to blend together. One steady stream of shit he’d disposed of. That probably wasn’t a good thing. This wasn’t supposed to be a full-time career.
But, really, what was the difference between being a full-time hit man and a part-time hit man? The end result remained the same. He killed people. And got paid.
Still, too many made it easier to screw up.
How many was too many?
Michael shook off the thoughts and turned the key in the ignition. He brought his focus back to Ray Nelson. The creep’s voice haunted him, along with that triumphant grin as he’d talked about keeping his women in their place. Michael conjured up an image of the slimy prick raping young girls and let his fury build. He’d hold on to that until he pulled the trigger.
***
Michael circled the block in his rented Toyota. The digital clock on the dash told him that it was 11:27. Rain pelted the windshield and lightning occasionally lit a zigzag path across the dark sky. The gas station lights burned bright but no one hung around outside and no cars parked at the pumps. Quiet for a Saturday night but there wasn’t much to do outside at this hour during a storm.
Another half-hour before Ray Nelson headed home. Michael counted on the guy walking. If he caught a ride instead, plans would have to change. That would mean winging it at the last minute, which was not something Michael liked to do.
Cameras kept a mechanical watch over the gas pumps and the inside of the convenience store. For that reason, Michael kept his distance and only drove by the station twice. To pass the time, he found a nearby Wendy’s and ordered a Frosty at the drive-thru. Odd that it had taken years before the place finally added vanilla. Now at least they offered two flavors, neither of which he particularly wanted.
Michael asked the teenage girl at the window when Wendy’s was going to get around to making strawberry Frostys. Not that he expected her to know the answer. Now and then he liked to toss a question out there to get a reaction. Maybe even an intelligent reply. Not this time.
She said, “The machine doesn’t have a strawberry button.”
A strawberry button? Apparently that was all that needed to happen. Add a strawberry button and, presto, out comes a strawberry Frosty! He said, “Ah, hell, I have an extra at home. I’ll bring it by.” She stared at him in bafflement as he drove away.
Michael parked in the back of the lot. He ate the Frosty but didn’t really taste the chocolate. His mind held a clear image of Ray Nelson. The narrow eyes set too close together. The bushy eyebrows that pushed against the eyes, making them appear even smaller. The light brown hair, too thin and straggly. Tattoos on his arms made with prison ink. But, most of all, the complete lack of human emotion in those narrow eyes.
Michael held on to that image and replayed the words he’d overheard in the bar. He let his thoughts dwell on the girls whose lives were forever altered because of that one man. And the one whose life was lost. The Glock pressed against his skin. The familiar eerie stillness took hold of him as he shifted the Toyota into drive and pulled out of the lot.
Chapter 10
“Hey Ray!” Michael called through the open passenger window. “Wet out there. You want a ride?”
Ray Nelson peered out from beneath a soaked baseball cap. He stepped closer and squinted into the car. Michael said, “We met earlier today. At the bar. Remember?”
“Yeah,” Ray replied. “Tom, right?”
“Why don’t you get in? Too damn wet to be walking.”
Ray yanked open the door and eagerly slid inside. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Half a block and I’m soaked to the bone. I
hate not having wheels.”
“Where you headed?” Michael asked.
“Home, I guess. Amber Lane, off Fifth.”
Michael nodded as he glanced in his rear mirrors, then pulled out onto the nearly deserted street. He couldn’t have asked for a better set of circumstances. He said, “You feel like hanging with me awhile? I’m scoring some meth tonight. Ain’t no fun doing it alone.”
Ray sat up straighter, as if an electrical charge had passed through his body. He swiped at the water dripping from his cap and tried to sound nonchalant. “Sure, what the hell,” he said. “I got nothing going on.”
Michael reached down and dug a pint of cheap whiskey from under the seat. He’d poured a third of it into the gutter after buying it to make it appear as if he’d already started his party. He held it out and said, “Help yourself.”
Ray took the bottle and greedily guzzled more than a quarter of the contents. He attempted to pass it back but Michael waved him off. “Enjoy,” he said. “I don’t like to mix much booze with the meth. Fucks me up too much. You know?”
“Yeah…” Ray swallowed another mouthful and leaned back in his seat. “Work sucked. I need the help unwinding.”
“I hear ya.”
“Pair of little whores came in tonight. Falling all over each other. Practically feeling each other up. I mean, fuck, it was hot. So I tell them and they freak. Called me a dirty old man. You believe that shit? Old man?”
Ray took another gulp from the bottle, then said, “Little sluts tell me they’re only 14 and if I don’t watch it they’re gonna call the cops on me. Fuck. Just what I need. I’m already on parole. I say they’re old enough to show off tits and turn a guy on, they got no right crying to the cops when a guy reacts.”
Michael worked on keeping his expression relaxed and his hands from wringing Nelson’s neck. His muscles were so tense that he expected them to snap. But he kept in his role as Tom the Lowlife and said, “Just a bunch of cockteasers.”
“Yeah,” Ray replied. “Only they ain’t gonna get away with that game for long. Can’t keep teasing a guy and not eventually pay up.”
Michael swung the car into the empty lot of an abandoned Asian restaurant. Graffiti marked the aging walls. He drove around back and parked in the darkness, pretending to wait for his connection to arrive with his drugs.
Ray continued to gulp down the whiskey. He said, “I have to walk this straight-and-narrow line around my boss. And my fucking parole officer. Sucks, you know?”
Michael visualized Ray Nelson bleeding profusely, dying a slow and painful death. He said, “Haven’t had the pleasure of a parole officer yet. Hope I never do.”
“Yeah, well it was a bullshit charge got me there,” Ray said. “I’d landed a pretty decent job, working at a factory, got me a nice place to live. Things were going good. Then I met this young honey. She was all into me, I could tell, but she played hard to get. You know the type.”
Michael flexed his fingers to keep them from snatching the gun from his waistband. He said, “I sure do.”
“So I gave her what she wanted. Fucking bitch goes crying to her daddy that I made her. Little bitch gets caught doing the nasty and covers up by saying I forced her to. Got me in all sorts of shit.”
“That truly sucks,” Michael said.
“Yeah.” Ray gulped down more of the whiskey. He said, “I got something special planned for her, though. She knows how bad she wanted me. This playing hard to get shit? I ain’t a fan of that game. Soon she’ll find out what that gets her.”
Michael gazed out the window into the darkness. He couldn’t find any words to respond. At the moment he had all he could do not to kill Nelson with his bare hands.
Ray drained the remaining whiskey. “When’s this dude supposed to show?”
Michael took note of the slur that had slowly been developing in Ray’s words. He smiled at how easy it had been. “Another couple minutes,” he said.
“I gotta piss.”
And that took care of the last problem. How to get Nelson outside so that he didn’t splatter the guy’s brains all over the inside of the car. He’d figured the booze might do the trick. He said, “Yeah, me too.”
“What the hell,” Ray said as he pushed the door open. “Ain’t like I never pissed outside before.”
The two men stepped out of the car. Ray staggered a few feet away. His back was to Michael as he relieved himself, so he didn’t see Michael pull the Glock from his waistband. The rain had about worn itself out and only a light mist now fell over them. Clouds moved away from the moon and stars, allowing a sliver of light to filter through.
Michael stepped around the car and was less than three feet away when Ray turned. Ray gave him a funny, sort of confused look. That quickly turned to anger and he said, “What the fuck you doing? You couldn’t piss on your own side of the car? You some kind of freak?”
“You know that girl you mentioned? The one playing hard to get?”
“What?”
“The girl you’ve been chasing after since you got out of prison. The same girl who put you there to begin with.”
Ray glanced down at Michael’s hand, finally noticing the gun. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“You raped her.”
“No way. She wanted it. Like all the rest of them teasing bitches.”
“You’re going to die tonight, Ray.”
Ray staggered back a step. “Who the fuck -”
“So why don’t you at least be honest before that happens.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“You still think they deserved what you did to them? All those girls? Even the one you recently murdered?”
Ray lunged forward but Michael easily knocked him back on the ground. Ray fell on his ass with a splash and a grunt. He looked up at Michael with an expression of disbelief. Michael pulled the trigger.
Ray’s body, minus half his head, fell backward. Blood mixed with the rainwater and swirled in the puddle around him. Michael stared at the blood, wondering how it could look the same as everyone else’s.
He went to the car and grabbed a rag from the backseat. He wiped his prints from the gun, then tossed it over by the body. A minute later, he was on his way home.
Chapter 11
Michael had been in his office less than a half hour but already he was immersed in his work. After greeting Ruby and sharing a little small talk, he’d shut himself inside and had since been putting the finishing touches on the software he’d been designing. He had a lunch meeting at noon with his client and wanted to be sure he’d corrected every one of the kinks.
The phone on his desk rang but Ruby would answer it in the next room. He ignored the sound and continued tapping on the keys, watching the images on the screen move. A few minutes later Ruby pushed her way into the room and eased the door shut behind her. She stood watching him until he stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention.
She wore bright orange linen pants and some kind of loose smock top with large splashes of color. It wasn’t as if he could miss her standing there. He said, “What’s up?”
“It’s your father,” Ruby said.
“On the phone?” Michael sighed. “I know I was supposed to call him back. I just haven’t gotten around to it. Tell him I’m busy and I’ll call him tonight.”
Ruby didn’t move. She planted her fists on her hips and continued watching him. Her expression told him nothing. “What?” he asked.
“Evidently your father grew tired of waiting ‘round for you to return his calls. He’s here.”
“Here?”
“You heard right. Out in reception, likely wondering what lame excuse you’ll come up with to get rid of him.”
Michael swiped a hand through his sun-bleached hair. “Ruby, I don’t have the patience for his crap today.”
Ruby came around the desk. She placed her hands on his shoulders and gently squeezed away the tension. “I understand your feelings, Michael,” s
he said. “But the man is your father. And he’s looking bad. You need to see him, let him tell you what’s on his mind.”
“Alcohol’s what’s on his mind. He probably needs money.”
“You won’t know if you don’t talk to him.”
“Ruby…”
“Five minutes. Then I’ll interrupt, remind you about an appointment you’ve got to get to. Five minutes won’t kill you.”
“You sure about that?”
Ruby gave Michael a playful slap on the back of the head. As she walked away, she said, “I’ll send him in.”
The man who walked through the door didn’t look like the same man Michael had seen only weeks ago. Or had it been months now? Michael frowned as he realized that the last time he’d seen his father had been back in April, on his 59th birthday. Michael had stopped by to take him out to dinner. His father had already been too drunk to leave the house. They’d had Chinese take-out and then his father had passed out in the recliner. That had been nearly four months ago.
“Hi Dad,” Michael said. He motioned to a chair across from him. “Grab a seat.”
John Sykora crossed the room and lowered himself onto the chair. The process seemed to require as much exertion as a ten-mile jog. John offered his son a smile and said, “How have you been?”
“Okay. Busy.” Even the cold-hearted bastard of a son Michael was couldn’t help but notice the yellow cast to his father’s eyes. Or the pasty pale skin. The man had also lost at least fifteen pounds. Michael refused to acknowledge what his brain was telling him. And so he didn’t ask his father how he was or what he’d needed to talk about. Instead he said, “Your air conditioner working all right? Those guys weren’t sure how much longer it would last.”
“It’s fine,” John said quietly.
“Good. It’s been too damn hot to -”
“Mike, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“You want some coffee? We could grab some at the diner down the street.”
“Please, Mike. This is really hard for me.”
Michael leaned back. He nodded for his father to go on, unaware that he was holding his breath. This moment didn’t come as a surprise. The surprise was in how bad it hurt.
“I’m dying,” John said. “Liver cancer.”
Michael didn’t react. He let his breath out slowly and stared at his father. He saw the man his father had been 27 years ago. How had it come to this?