Table of Contents
The Death of Israel Leventhal
Book Details
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The Pierce Job
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The John Doe Job
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
The Blue Job
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
About the Author
The Death of Israel Leventhal
BOOM BAUMGARTNER
Israel Leventhal can speak to the dead. This brings some interesting jobs his way, but his latest job leaves him a little more nervous than he likes, so he calls in a reinforcement: his best friend George, who can also talk to the dead. When the job goes as badly as he feared it would, Israel is driven to drastic lengths to survive it—lengths that change how he sees the man he's always called his best friend.
The Death of Israel Leventhal
By Boom Baumgartner
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by V.E. Duncan
Cover designed by Kirby Crow
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition February 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Boom Baumgartner
Printed in the United States of America
Digital ISBN 9781620049686
To Jessica, you've earned all those dinners.
"Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemos."
"The ancient rose is only known by its name. Naked names are all that we have."
Chapter One
On the east side of Chicago next to the shore of Lake Michigan, there was a warehouse. On that warehouse's dirty floors lay the bodies of two men and one woman, the only three people who could have leaked information that Longpharma was fixing prices; information which was now being used to blackmail Derek Long, a vice president at the company.
To find out which one had betrayed the company, Derek Long hired Israel Leventhal to talk to the dead. Or rather, hired the fixer Jaime LaFleur to find someone to talk to the dead. Israel took the job because it paid well, and one just simply did not say 'no' to Jaime LaFleur.
But the job made Israel nervous. There were three bodies on a warehouse floor in Chicago, after all, and it wasn't because of a mob war or an accident. These people had no reason to expect they would die at the hands of hit men. They were there because a supposedly law-abiding citizen was so angry that his wife blackmailed him that he killed the first three people he could think of who would give her that information.
Derek's hair-trigger temper was the sort of thing that made Israel nervous. He needed backup, even if it meant splitting the pay.
"I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted, mate." George Rose's voice had been thick with sleep when Israel called. It didn't even occur to Israel that maybe he was in another time zone.
"What do you mean, Rose?" Israel had asked, propping his phone up with his shoulder while he looked for familiar routing numbers linked to Derek's bank accounts; anything that might tip him that something was off.
"Isn't it obvious? Either you trust me to bring me in on a job on the down low, which is quite the compliment. Or you are asking me to stretch my neck out with you and get it cut off."
"Look, are you in or are you out?"
"Izzy," he drawled his name out in a low chuckle, "When have I ever said 'no' to you?"
"I asked to you to quit smoking," said Israel distractedly, his eyes scanning the numbers and finding nothing suspicious.
A long sigh stretched across their phone connection. "When have I ever said 'no' to a job?"
Israel smiled. "Never. But that is probably because you trust people too much."
There was a protracted silence on the phone before Rose said, "Probably. Or I want to retire at some point. So it's a simple smash and grab, yeah?" This is what Rose called an easy job when the corpse was already provided.
Even though Rose could not see it, Israel shook his head. "For me. Not you."
"I'm not going down in the void with you?"
"No. I've never worked with this person before, so I want someone watching my back, but I'd like to keep your name out of it..."
"So the great Israel Leventhal does not lose prestige for looking like he needs help on a smash and grab. I probably should have asked for details before I agreed."
"What? Were you planning on not bringing a gun?"
"Of course. Who needs that headache at airport security? I would have bought one in Chicago. It's just it's less interesting playing lookout while you zone out in front of a dead body."
"Would you have turned the job down if you knew?"
"Fair enough. Probably not. Pay is too good. I mean, it is good, right?"
"I'll give you ten grand."
Rose laughed. "So not great."
"It should just be a simple smash and grab, Rose. Don't try and extort money when you'll probably just stand there examining your finger nails."
"But I've got retirement to think of."
"You're thirty. You've got time. Look, I'll see you in Chicago. I'll text the GPS co-ords. Standard encryption."
"Fine, fine. Good night," Rose whispered huskily into the phone and then hung up. Israel tossed the phone on his bed and began to prepare.
*~*~*
The humidity was so high in Chicago that it felt like Israel was wading through his own sweat as he got out of his rented car, which was already packed for his getaway to the airport. His curly black hair instantly clung damply to his forehead and his neck, and he felt itchy all over. He was almost jealous of Rose, whose head was always clean-shaven.
As Rose emerged from his own car, he wiped his hands across his head, and then shrugged off his plaid bespoke coat with leather elbow patches. "Why you live in Chicago, I'll never know, mate," he said, squinting up at the sun. The sound of distant machinery whirring made his words difficult to hear, but Israel got the gist of it. Rose rarely went anywhere without complaining about it first.
"I wouldn't say I live here," Israel said. "I certainly stay away in the summer."
"And the winters, I should hope."
"I'm not stupid, Rose." Israel walked up to the warehouse, somewhat bowleggedly, in an effort to unstick his skinny jeans from the back of his thighs.
"That would mean that less than half the year is enjoyable here."
Israel shrugged. "I like my apartment."
Rose laughed. "I guess that's a reason."
"Los Angeles isn't much better." Israel huffed and pulled on the handles of the warehouse door, which slid open thud by laborious thud. Evidently, the ball bearings had not been greased for some time.
"No." Rose nodded. "But I like my flat there."
"You're never there." Israel rolled his eyes, and then surveyed the large room. In front of them, as promised, were three body bags.
"No freezer?" Rose remarked, crossing his arms. "Some people have no courtesy."
Israel frowned at the bodies, and crinkled his nose. Judging from the stink that wafted toward them, the bodies were already decomposing. How did Derek Long know enough to hire gravediggers, but not care about keeping the bodies intact? From
his pocket in his blue and grey argyle cardigan, Israel pulled out a bottle of citrus oil, and dabbed it onto his upper lip. Wordlessly, he handed it over to Rose who followed suit.
"Cheers." Rose inspected the room, his eyes shrewd and calculating as they scanned over windows, and exits, and his finger always on the trigger of his gun. "Right. I'm more concerned about people sneaking up on us than getting out, so let's drag the bodies over there. The crates will give me cover if someone comes in guns blazing."
Israel nodded, though he wasn't sure if they were being too cautious. He was nervous, yes, but it was a gut feeling. He had had this gut feeling before with unknown clients and everything went well.
Even so, he followed Rose's orders.
The heavy body bags scraped across the floor, breaking the eerie silence of the abandoned warehouse. In the far-right corner, a crab scurried toward a large crack under the wall, instantly drawing their attention.
"Hm," Rose mused out loud. "Never occurred to me the great lakes would have crustaceans. Thought that was a sea thing."
The things we learn on gravedigging jobs, Israel thought wryly. "You ready, Rose?"
Rose bent down between two yellow shipping containers, and readied his gun as he peered through a crack to keep his eyes on the entrances. "Quick as you can, like. I'm already bored."
Israel tugged open a zipper on the first body bag. Gritting his teeth, he pushed against the wave of stench that nearly bowled him over and touched the swollen body of a man in his late thirties. Then he let himself sink into the void, where the dead could be found.
The man's eyes fluttered open. "No!" He screamed, raising his hands defensively.
"It's all right," Israel said, laying his hand against the hot, rubbery skin of the man to comfort him.
"Where am I?" His breaths were quick, and shallow.
"You've been hurt. I've called an ambulance," Israel replied easily.
"Wait, what? I was home. I was home a second ago… when..." The man began blubbering, his bloated jowls undulating as the memory shook his nerves.
Great. A violent death, Israel thought derisively. Derek Long could have poisoned these people to make it easier, but he had to go a more vindictive route. It didn't matter that two of these people were probably innocent. They all had to pay. "You must have hit your head harder than you thought," Israel said. He had learned this trick from Rose. People will believe anything when they think they've forgotten something. "I've called an ambulance. Someone attacked you. Do you know who?"
"No. I bet it was Derek."
"Who's Derek?" Israel asked even though he knew.
"My coworker. Someone's blackmailing him, and he thinks they got the information from me—"
The sound of a gunshot tore through Israel's trance. He had no time to consider what was happening, so he let instinct rule him. Instantly, he rolled away from the body and toward the crate. The body of bulky, grey-haired man lay bleeding in the corner.
"Fuck," Rose ground out as he laid out a spray of bullets. "Simple smash and grab, my arse."
Whoever who had come into ambush them answered with their own covering fire. A bullet raced through the gap Rose had been using to peer through, and smashed into the ground next to Israel.
A woman with dark hair rounded the corner, her gun poised. She pulled the trigger as Rose rushed her. He screamed in agony as he smashed his fist into her face. Blood trickled down to his shiny loafers.
Israel let instinct take over again, and he leapt up to knock the pummel of the gun out of her hand. They struggled against one another to get it, and Israel caught an elbow. Stars dotted his vision as he struggled against the attacker's choke hold. He never knew how long he tried to wrestle his way out. He did not hear Rose limp over, and pick up the forgotten gun that lay beyond Israel's reach. He did hear Rose shoot the attacker through the temple.
The woman fell heavily on his body and Israel wriggled away, grimacing as the sticky, warm blood saturated his cardigan, the scent of copper intermingling with the smell of death. At some point, Rose thudded to the ground as well, with a single "Fuck it" escaping his lips.
"Rose! Rose!" Israel yelled. "You all right?"
Rose groaned, and grabbed weakly at his arm. "No."
"Goddamnit, Rose," hissed Israel under his breath.
Israel took a deep breath, and willed himself to consider the next best action. What did he know? One, someone attacked him on a job. Two, George Rose was not supposed to be there. Three, he didn't get any information for Derek Long. Conclusion: maybe it would be best just to leave Rose here and make a run for it before someone else came, but the idea was more fleeting than it was tempting.
Israel hated that in the fading light of a broken down warehouse, he discovered the one gravedigger in his vast network that he needed around was about to die. Not for sentimental reasons, of course. Half of Israel's network depended on Rose, after all. Worse yet, Israel didn't know of any other deathmasks that would work as cheaply.
Right. There was simply nothing more sentimental than that.
That was bullshit.
He did it because George Rose deserved it. He did it because they were friends, or whatever passed for that in their particular form of employment.
Goddamnit. Goddamnit. Goddamnit. Israel had two problems. He did not have time to interrogate the corpses of their attackers to find out who had sent them, and he could not let anyone know George Rose was there. There was only one thing to do: destroy the corpses so they could never talk to another gravedigger. Israel scrambled up from behind the containers, trusting that there was no third assailant. Whoever wanted to kill him would not pay for more than two people to take out a lone gravedigger who should not have been aware of his surroundings.
Sweat streamed out of every pore as he struggled to drag the bodies of the would-be assassin's over toward the other corpses. Then he ran out to his car, grabbed a cream sweater vest from his suitcase, and soaked it in his gas tank. He sprinted back to Rose. "You okay, Rose?"
"Izzy? It… smells… like… petrol..." Rose muttered.
"Yeah, I know." Israel fished through the other man's pockets, finding his lighter pressed up against a pack of Turkish Golds. "Good thing you didn't quit, huh?"
Rose did not respond. With the blood loss, his grip on reality was likely to be tenuous at best. Israel tossed his sweater vest onto the pile of bodies, and then threw the lighter on top. It instantly lit up, and the stench worsened as it billowed out with the smoke.
Israel turned his attention back to Rose. "Goddamnit, Rose," he cursed again, trying to pull his large body up. It was no good. The man was what? Six-foot-two? That was at least six inches taller than him, and his body was a mass of muscles that Israel was never really sure how he developed. For God's sake, the man drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney. Health was not in his repertoire.
Of course, right now, health was definitely not in his repertoire as he bled out on the East side of Chicago and Israel had to desperately think of a way to get out of this.
"Come on, Rose. Help me out."
Rose rolled his head over to him slowly, and stood up like a broken marionette. Israel grabbed his good arm, and wrapped it around his shoulders as he hobbled him out to his car, grunting with nearly every step.
Struggling to keep Rose upright, he opened his car door and helped him in. Then he rushed to his trunk and dug into his suitcase pulling out whatever clothes he could. After amateurly bandaging up Rose with a wifebeater to staunch the bleeding, he dressed him in whatever pieces of black clothing he could find, which happened to be a black hoodie in which Israel usually slept. It was comically small on Rose, but Israel didn't have time to find humor in Rose's exposed stomach, and forearms, or the fact that he looked like an adult trying to wear kid's clothes.
He briefly considered taking Rose to the hospital as he peeled away from the warehouse, but a black man with a gunshot wound in Chicago conjured up all sorts of uncomfortable assumptions Israel did not h
ave time to dispel and questions Israel did not want to answer.
The only problem was that there was no way to get anywhere in Chicago fast, least of all by car. Israel tapped his fingers impatiently against the wheel, while Rose's breath hissed through his teeth in fast, labored gasps. His eyes were shut tightly. Israel reached out and grabbed Rose's hand. "You okay, Rose?" he asked, feeling to see if Rose was falling into the void.
"Fuck!" Israel slammed on the brakes, and swerved to the right to avoid hitting the car in front of him. Apparently, going into the void while driving was no safer than texting. Israel finally saw his exit, and he pulled out onto the shoulder to get to it, whizzing past the long line of stopped cars.
He was barely parked in the underground garage of his apartment before he slammed his door open and went to help Rose out of the car. The bigger man's weight sagged even more than at the warehouse, and Israel felt as if he were hauling rocks.
When he finally got Rose into his bed, it took an agonizing hour trying to figure out how to get a bullet out of a wound while Rose screamed and passed out in equal measures.
Thank god, Israel thought, for sound proofing.
He took the antibiotics from all the times he had failed to actually finish out a prescription, and fed them to the feverish Rose. Then he grabbed Rose's hand again, feeling out for the wall between Rose and void.
That was always the problem with Rose. He was powerful. Where Israel needed a fully intact corpse no less than two weeks dead, Rose could reach a soul in a body that had been decomposing for three months. But that same power which gave him that ability also ensured he had weak defense against the void. Anything could topple it, from a cold or a bad night's sleep, to being shot in the shoulder.
But Israel could sense nothing, and he suspected it was because Rose had passed out from the pain.
Israel felt tired as he gazed over his now bloodied mattress, and shook from the last vestiges of adrenaline that coursed through his veins. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced himself to concentrate on next steps.
Getting up slowly, he made his way to his kitchen. He poured himself a glass from a box of white zinfandel that sat alone on his middle shelf of his refridgerator and drained it. He closed his eyes again, trying to focus on what had to be done next.
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