Survivor's Guilt and Other Stories

by Greg Herren

  I sat at my computer and cleared my mind.

  The city was surrounded by water, swamps. The swamps had alligators. I could take the car out there, dump the body…but how would I get back home? It wasn’t like I could summon an Uber out to the Manchac Swamp, or to Lake Borgne. I couldn’t leave a record behind, something the police could find. Getting rid of his rental car would be easy. I could park it somewhere in the Quarter and it would get towed.

  That would take days to sort out—the city’s inefficiency would work to my advantage there.

  So I drove the rental to the Quarter. I found an open spot on Dauphine Street between St. Philip and Ursulines. I parked, wiped everything down, casually walked to Canal Street, and caught the streetcar home.

  Getting rid of the body wouldn’t be that easy.

  I waited until dark to put down the back seat of my Honda CR-V. After midnight, I slung the rug over my shoulder, staggering beneath his dead weight, carried him down the front steps, and put him into the back of the car. At two thirty I drove out of my neighborhood and took I-10 and got off at Chef Menteur Highway, heading to New Orleans East. I knew exactly where to go. I’d researched the area for a ghost-written book years ago. There were fishing camps out on Lake Catherine, where Chef Menteur was bounded by the lake on one side and Bayou de Lesaire on the other, with Lake Pontchartrain just a little farther away. Bayou de Lesaire emptied into Lake Pontchartrain right before the Rigolets pass to Lake Borgne. The receding tide, with luck, would sweep the body out to the Gulf.

  I set the carpet down and cut the ties.

  I could see the glowing red eyes of alligators floating in the water as I rolled the body out. I removed the garbage bag from his head. I gave him a shove. He tumbled down the slope into the water. As I stood there panting, two of the gators started gliding across the top of the water in the moonlight, toward where his body floated.

  There was some splashing and I turned my head away.

  I left the garbage bag there and rolled up the rug.

  I went over the back of the car with bleach and water, just to be sure.

  When I was finished, there was no sign of the body in the water, and the alligators were gone like they’d never been there.

  As I drove back, car windows down to get rid of the bleach smell, I worried.

  I wasn’t going to get away with this.

  I’d been crazy to think I would.

  The fraud was bad enough, and now I’d killed to cover it up.

  But it was…it was a lot of money.

  And once all the money was in my account, I would leave the country.

  If anyone asked, he never showed up at my house.

  If I was lucky, he’d never be found, just another tourist who came to New Orleans and vanished, his rental car towed from the Quarter, suitcase still in the trunk, his shoulder bag missing.

  And I would be rich.

  It was just a joke, you know, when the whole thing started.

  Now it was criminal fraud for several million dollars, and someone was dead.

  When I got back home, I again checked on countries without an extradition treaty with the United States.

  Switzerland first, to open a bank account, and then Andorra.

  Andorra sounded lovely.

  Kind of like home.

  The Weight of a Feather

  It was one of those buildings that went up right after the war, slapped together in a hurry because the city needed more living space. The soldiers were coming home with their grim memories and the city was booming. People needed places to live if they were going to work in the city, and there was money to be had. It was an ugly building, yellow brick and cement and uniform windows, with no charm, nothing that made it any different than any of the other apartment buildings that had gone up, that were still being built.

  The Christmas lights winking in some of the windows didn’t make them look any cheerier.

  It was starting to snow, big wet flakes swirling around his head and sticking to his dark coat. There was no sign of life from Rock Creek Park at the end of the street. Max had walked past a small diner on the corner, a few lone customers behind windows frosted from cold. He’d thought about going in, getting coffee, but it was too risky.

  Best to get it over with.

  He buzzed the apartment, and the door buzzed open. There was a big Christmas tree in the lobby, empty boxes wrapped underneath. The white linoleum floor was already showing signs of wear and tear. He ignored the elevators and headed for the stairs. It was hot inside, steam heat through radiators making him sweat under his layers.

  The third-floor hallway smelled like boiled cabbage and garlic and onions. He raised a gloved hand to knock on 3-L.

  The man who answered the door smiled. Special Agent Frank Clinton was in his early thirties at most, cold gray eyes, his face battered from boxing Golden Gloves as a teen. He was wearing twill pants held up by suspenders over a white ribbed tank top. He looked up and down the hall. “Get inside, Sonnier,” he said in his thick Boston accent.

  Max stepped past him inside. Clinton smelled of cheap cologne, like always. The small apartment was spartan. A single bed. A table with a bottle of open whiskey. A small two-shelf bookcase. Beige walls, beige curtains. The tiny kitchenette with a gray coffee percolator on one of the burners. The little bathroom opening off the closet.

  Clinton shut the door. “You brought the money?”

  Max held up the attaché case. “And the pictures?”

  Clinton smiled. It was an ugly smile. He crossed over to the small two-drawer beige filing cabinet that served as a nightstand for the bed. He knelt down, unlocked it, and pulled out a file folder. He tossed it contemptuously on the bed. Black-and-white 8x10 pictures spilled out across the blue coverlet.

  “And the negatives?”

  Clinton shoved the pictures back inside the folder, pulled out a tiny clear envelope of negatives.

  “And those are the only copies?”

  “I told you. I play square.”

  “You did.” Max put the attaché on the small table, opened the snaps. He reached inside and pulled out the gun with the silencer already screwed onto the end.

  “Hey—”

  That was all he was able to say before Max fired twice. Both shots went into Special Agent Clinton’s chest. He fell backward onto the bed, the shock frozen on his face as the blood began to run down the front of his chest. Max sighed and tossed the gun back inside the attaché case. He crossed quickly over to the bed, grabbed the folder with only a cursory glance at Clinton’s sightless gray eyes. He shoved the folder inside the attaché case, dropped the gun into his coat pocket.

  Sweat dripped into his eyes as he pulled open the top drawer of the file cabinet. He pulled out the first file. He didn’t recognize anyone in the pictures. But he’d been right. Frank Clinton was a blackmailer, and he wasn’t his only victim. He pulled out a few more folders, tossed them on the floor, letting the pictures spill out.

  Panting a bit, he stood back up. Clinton’s service gun was inside the file drawer. He put it in the other pocket of his jacket and carefully let himself out of the apartment. He went back down the stairs and back out the front door. There wasn’t anyone on the street to see him head into the park. He walked down the path quickly to the little stone bridge over Rock Creek.

  He took a deep breath and looked over the side.

  The creek looked grayer and deeper than he remembered. The strong current swirled and splashed its way through the park on its way to the Potomac. There was thin ice by the banks, much like the glaze on the donut he’d choked down for breakfast. The park was silent, other than the rushing water beneath the stone bridge. He felt like he was in the middle of a forest somewhere instead of a park in the nation’s capital, a short walk from civilization. The trees poking up through the snow were stark and bare and uninviting. There was no sign of life no matter which direction he looked. No couples out for a walk on a cold winter’s day, no runners in gray military
sweats, no birds or squirrels, no one out giving their dog exercise before heading back to the warmth of home.

  Just do it and get it over with.

  Someone could come along at any moment, and that would be a disaster.

  Max Sonnier looked back down at the dark water. The gurgling noise it made sounded almost like a beckoning voice, inviting him to swing a leg over the side of the bridge, close his eyes, and let go.

  Everything will be so much easier if you just let go…

  But he knew the creek was too shallow, no matter how deep it looked. Even if he stood on the bridge’s slick stone side, the fall would be at most ten feet—he might just break a bone, and really, wouldn’t his survival instinct prove too strong in the shallow water for him to keep his head under long enough to drown?

  Besides, he had too much to live for. Wasn’t that why he’d done it? Why he was here? To keep his life together, protect what was his, what he didn’t want to lose?

  His jaw set. If he gave up now, his entire life, all the sacrifices made, would be for nothing.

  Suicide wasn’t an option any more now than when he’d first thought about it, in college.

  If he’d missed any evidence, well, the creek water would ruin it.

  And someone would have to find it, wouldn’t they?

  The water might be shallower now, in the dead of winter, but when the snow melted in the spring the creek would rise. No one would see it resting on the bottom of the creek, and there was a chance that the current from the higher water in the spring would lift it off the bottom and sweep it out to the Potomac.

  Maybe carry it all the way out to Chesapeake Bay.

  Besides, even if someone somehow did eventually find it, the trail wouldn’t lead back to him.

  It was the only answer, Max, what else were you going to do? What else could you have done? Did you really have a choice?

  He closed his eyes. There’s always a choice, he heard his mother’s voice saying. And there’s no such thing as a wrong choice—you just have to figure out what is the BEST choice. Some choices are just better than others, that’s all—but you always have to live with the consequences of the choice you make. There’s no escaping them, so always make sure you make the RIGHT choice.

  He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, looking again furtively from side to side. He was still alone, no one in sight. He couldn’t even hear cars on the nearby road. The bridge was far enough down the sloping hillside so it couldn’t be seen from the road. He put his right hand into the pocket of his black trench coat and tossed the gun over the railing before he could give it another thought. It fell much faster than he’d thought it would, hitting the surface with a splash and vanishing in seconds.

  It was done.

  He turned and walked back up the path to the road. The wind was blowing harder, and snowflakes danced around his head as he repositioned his muffler to cover up the exposed skin on his neck. The wind was bitter cold, cutting right through his layers of clothes and his skin to the bone. He walked faster, putting as much distance from the creek as quickly as he could without breaking into a run.

  It was the best choice, he reminded himself as he walked, the cold wind somehow finding chinks in the heavy armor he’d bundled himself into. He hated the cold, hated the way the leaves changed in the fall and how everything turned gray and the snow came in the winter. He hated seeing his breath, hated how cigarettes didn’t taste as good when he smoked them through gloves, hated how he never really felt warm again until spring came. Ten years living in DC, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the winter. He didn’t think he ever would.

  As the path got closer to the exit on Sixteenth Street NW, he could see a parked police car. A young man in uniform with broad shoulders and narrow hips leaned back against it, talking to a young woman whose hands were shaking slightly as she tried to drink from a paper cup of some steaming hot liquid, most likely from the little greasy spoon diner there on the corner. He kept walking steadily, making sure his glances over toward them weren’t frequent enough to be noticeable.

  They’re just flirting, it’s a first date and it’s cold, that’s why her hands are shaking, it has nothing to do with you.

  He must be inconspicuous. If anyone noticed him, he couldn’t do anything that would make them remember him later.

  “You’re just out for a walk, that’s all, nothing more, getting some exercise, not wanting to be trapped inside all day,” he muttered under his breath, lowering his head against the wind and making his face—his mouth already covered by the muffler—even less recognizable.

  Not that his face was all that memorable in the first place.

  Besides, it was far too soon for anyone to have found the body, wasn’t it?

  You shouldn’t have taken so long to throw the gun away. How much time did you waste on that bridge? You should have just tossed it over the railing the minute you got there and got the hell out of there. You should already be home, everything taken care of, getting ready to leave town on the train tonight, long gone before the police get involved.

  It had been a mistake to stay in the park so long.

  Mistakes were how people got caught.

  A mistake was why he had to go to the park in the first place.

  He’d been so careful. He’d always been careful, even in New Orleans where he didn’t need to be as much, where everyone just turned a blind eye as long as you didn’t rub their faces in it, where so many other men he knew would sometimes head downtown to the French Quarter to satisfy their baser needs. No one talked about it, of course—that just wasn’t done in polite society.

  And those nights in the French Quarter made his marriage to Bitsy so much more tolerable, so much more bearable.

  He wasn’t sure he was completely safe now. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel safe again.

  He couldn’t be sure Clinton didn’t have another set of pictures hidden away somewhere, but that was the chance he’d had to take.

  But if the whole thing had been a trap designed to catch him…

  Isn’t that how Hoover operates?

  He pushed that thought away. You’re just being paranoid. No one’s interested in you. You haven’t had access to anything anyone would want in years.

  But…it couldn’t have just been about cash.

  He needed to believe Agent Frank Clinton had been working alone, that no one else at the Bureau knew, that there were no telltale notes hidden away somewhere that would surface and point to him. He had to believe that the negatives and prints he carried in his attaché case were it, and those—those would be destroyed as soon as he walked into his home and could throw them into the fire.

  He had to just get there.

  He nodded to the police officer and the young woman as he walked past them. The cop was young and relaxed, far too relaxed than he would be if he’d been called to a murder site. So the police hadn’t been called yet. He resisted the urge to walk faster, to get away from the apartment building as quickly as he could. But he couldn’t do anything that might make them remember him once the body was discovered.

  He had to be nondescript, forgettable.

  Just another man out for a walk on a cold snowy day, that’s all he was.

  This is how people get caught. You know that. Just keep walking and acting normal.

  And after today, it was important to act like nothing was different, like everything was just the same as it always had been, before that day a few months ago when Aleks walked into the grungy, dimly lit bar in the seedy part of Washington.

  He hadn’t been to that bar in years, not since Bitsy got pregnant the last time and warned him if he didn’t give up his inversions she’d leave him and get a divorce and “tell people things.” Bitsy didn’t come right out and say what things she was talking about, but she didn’t have to—she never liked actually saying it, and only did when necessary, contempt on her face and her voice shaking with self-righteous loathing.

  But she’d always known,
even before they were married, about his little bachelor’s studio on St. Philip Street in the French Quarter just up the street from the blacksmith shop. She knew about the parties, the sailors and artists and soldiers from Jackson Barracks who would stop by for a cocktail on a hot Saturday night, sultry nights when everyone’s skin had a slight sheen of sweat, nights when cold drinks filled with melting ice were just the thing to press to your hot forehead before everyone else left other than the night’s guest, who would be snoring in the damp sheets when the musician across the street would come out onto his balcony at four in the morning and play mournful notes on his saxophone wearing only his underwear because it was too hot to wear anything else, his creamy coffee skin glistening in the light from the streetlamps below, with the ceiling fan blades spinning overhead pushing the thick night air around in a futile attempt to make it cool enough to sleep.

  She knew and looked the other way, because she was getting old enough to be called a spinster behind her back, and marrying a younger man with a bright future in politics was better than turning into the old, bitter spinster aunt everyone else in the family pitied and whispered about after she left the room.

  Ten years later the bright future in politics had turned into an important-sounding but essentially meaningless job in the State Department where he pushed papers around and tried not to fall asleep at his desk, with a town house in the Dupont Circle neighborhood and three children who looked nothing like him that he only felt a slight degree of fondness for, most of his free time spent feeling trapped and wishing he could escape. That was why he’d gone to the bar that night, while Bitsy and the children were in New Orleans visiting her family, his hat pulled down low and his jacket collar turned up high to hide his face from any watching eyes. The bar always smelled of sour alcohol and sweat and desperation. He sat down on a warped stool at the scarred bar and ordered a gin and tonic while the Andrew Sisters sang “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” on the jukebox. He was halfway through the drink when a young man sat down next to him.