The Death of Israel Leventhal

by Boom Baumgartner

  She bit her lip. "I didn't kill anyone."

  "I know you didn't."

  "There is nothing in the Bible against dealing drugs."

  "I supposed there isn't. But, but it's still pretty frowned upon, innit? Anything else you can remember?"

  "No," she responded. "Um, wait.. I don't know. The driver, I think he was… blonde."

  "Did you know him?"

  "How would I know…" She paused. "It wasn't an accident, was it?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "It was James. He had a blue truck. He ran out, and I wouldn't give him my stash." Her voice began to shake as tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh god, he hit me with his truck so he could get high?"

  "I'll sort it out, love. But, it's time for you to go."

  "Where?"

  Rose leaned over her and kissed her forehead. "Heaven," he whispered.

  Then the void dropped from all around them, and it was just Rose and Israel in a backroom of a funeral parlor.

  "I like little jobs like this." Rose smiled at to Israel, straightening his dark brown plaid tie, and buttoning the khaki-colored jacket of his suit. "Easy in, easy out. No torture. Now all we have to do is tell our client who has the drugs."

  "You can seriously look at a girl who was just killed for no reason other than a few bad decisions and say you like doing this?"

  Instantly, the warm veneer of Rose's face iced over, and he turned around to gaze at Israel stonily.

  "I took this job because you're new." Rose's eyes were cold, and steady, as if he were staring down the barrel of a gun, ready to pull a trigger. "And I like to look out for the rooks. But you make it very hard to do that because you want to take this job seriously. You are a gravedigger. You have a job that ninety-nine percent of the world would flat out deny existed, and the remaining one percent dread. You do what you're doing now, and you'll never crack the corpses you need to survive."

  "Of course I'm serious. We talk to the dead, and most of the time how we do it is illegal."

  Rolling his eyes, Rose leaned in toward him, his arms crossed. "The more you feel about the victims, the more in danger you are of joining them in the void. The more likely you are going to make a stupid decision and piss off the wrong fixer. The more likely you won't take another job ever again because it will get to you."

  Israel glared at him, unable to find any words to throw back at Rose.

  "How were you going to handle it?" asked Rose, raising his eyebrows.

  "What?"

  "What would you have done? Ask her point blank? She wouldn't have answered you. You have to give them a reason. Even when they are dead and have nothing to lose; you have to give them a reason."

  "I can't change things in the void like you can." Israel said quietly, looking down at his feet like a chastened student. He hated being new and not knowing.

  "That surprises you?" Rose opened a door for him, and ushered him out of the building, his casual gait belying his purpose of getting away as fast as possible. "You do know that deathmasks like me are fairly rare. You have to find your niche, and stick to it. What you're doing is as baseline as you can get, and you are a dime a dozen when it comes to gravediggers."

  "If you're so good, why would work with me?"

  "Cause you're serious, you're new, and taking chances is sort of my m.o. We'll see if I decide to work with you again, but frankly, mate, I wouldn't bet on it."

  The next time Israel met Rose, he was two years wiser and Rose was still the same fool. But by that time, Israel had made knowing things his niche. By that time, Rose needed him for jobs as much as he needed Rose.

  Chapter Ten

  Israel didn't remember how he got there, but in front of him lay an infinitely long hallway lined with stainless steel drawers. The tiles were a sea foam green and the lighting yellow. Shadows stretched across the opposite wall, but he couldn't tell what was casting them.

  Instinctively, he opened a drawer. There lay a woman with stringy blonde hair and cracked makeup.

  "Amanda?" he whispered.

  "Israel?" her lips moved, but nothing else.

  "You're still here?"

  Slowly, her gooey yellow eyes opened. "Where are we this time?"

  Israel gestured at the long hallway. "Looks like a morgue."

  Smiling wanly at him, she sat up. "You dream of dead bodies?"

  "You're here, aren't you?"

  "Fair enough." She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "I just thought it would be somewhere nice, like last time."

  Israel gave her hand to help her stand up, but as she rose, her feet did not touch the ground. "Half of the city was burning last time."

  "Well, aside from that it was nice." Amanda pursed her lips. "I think you might have some problems."

  "All of which are you. I have never been haunted in my dreams before. I don't even know how I'm reaching you."

  Amanda shrugged but said nothing.

  He let his gut tell him which drawer to pull on next. When he opened it, it was his father, though it was as vague as his memory of him was. He had a beard, and his hair was hard to tell if it was brown or blonde. It seemed both, and Israel couldn't remember which color it was anyway. The area where his nose was seemed blurry, but there were two dark bushy eyebrows distracting easily from the ambiguity of the lower half of his face.

  "Vater?" Not even realizing what he was doing, Israel touched his father's face. "Vater?"

  The corpse did not respond.

  Cautiously, Israel tried to wade into the void, not sure if it was possible if he was already in it. He wanted to know what his father would say when death released him of all the things that made him heavy for Israel. There was no void to be had.

  Amanda peered over his shoulder. "Odd. I thought he'd look more like you."

  Israel gazed at his father's face, frowning. "I look like my mother…"

  "She must have been much prettier than your father."

  Israel smiled unbelievingly. "Are you saying I'm pretty?"

  "Very."

  Israel began walking again, eye on every handle as they went by. None of them called to him the way the first had. Putting a hand on Israel's shoulder, Amanda stopped him. "You know, you don't seem disturbed by this."

  "Should I be?"

  "Yes. You're wandering around a morgue talking to corpses."

  "It's not any different than my job."

  "It's a disgusting job." Amanda spat. "Are you… are you unaware of that?"

  Israel trailed his fingers along the line of a refrigerator unit's door. "I think I just don't care anymore."

  "You don't care that you dug me up and threatened to torture me for eternity," she said flatly, crossing her arms, clearly unimpressed with his indifference.

  Israel shrugged, grabbing the handle of the door. "It's better when I don't think about it."

  "You're a bit of a shit."

  "Then why are you still talking to me?"

  "I don't know." Amanda sighed, gently taking Israel's hand from the handle and removing it. "Have you figured out if I'm real or not?"

  "Woodmansey did have an account in Chicago." He turned to gauge her reaction.

  "So I'm alive," Amanda said, clapping her bony hands.

  Israel shook his head. "I didn't say that."

  "You know what I mean. Oh, thank god. You have no idea what it's like to doubt your own reality."

  Israel faced her, and raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

  Rolling her eyes, Amanda moved down the hallway. The lights above them began to flicker. Israel looked at the corners of the walls and saw mold, which he had not noticed before. "Maybe I have unfinished business," she said.

  Israel followed her. "Could be. But Derek's been blackmailed, and now he's dead. What other business was there?"

  "My whole life wasn't him." The hallway they walked down ended in a door, but it was not steel as Israel expected. Instead, it was white and bordered by crown molding. "Maybe I'm just curious how this will end. Being dead is bo
ring."

  "For this to end, I need to know how it began."

  Amanda tilted her head, her stringy hair falling over her shoulder to obscure features. "I think you know." She opened the door and walked through. Her breath hissed as she walked through. "Why here?"

  Narrowing his eyes, Israel followed her. Instantly he recognized it as Derek's office, everything as it was before except Derek's corpse was no longer bleeding out behind the mahogany desk. "I don't know," he whispered.

  "This is where it started, you know." She looked about the room as if it were a distant memory, as if she was cataloguing everything and comparing it to what she thought she remembered.

  "What started?"

  "He had this friend. A new one. He came over from England, and Derek listened to his advice." Amanda floated over to Derek's desk and then turned her head over to a liquor cabinet in the corner. "We used to drink Derek's Talisker when he was away and replace it with whatever cheap whiskey we could find." Amanda laughed quietly to herself. "It was petty revenge, but it felt good."

  Israel followed her gaze and looked at decanter half-full of brown liquid. "I don't understand."

  "This friend gave me Woodmansey's contact. It's how I discovered that Derek was fixing prices. It's what I used to escape."

  "What was his name?" Israel tried to keep his voice low, and neutral, but he could feel an unbridled anticipation crashing through him. This could be the lead he needed.

  Amanda ignored him. "I thought about it a lot, and I couldn't figure out what he got from it. I thought maybe he wanted to sleep with me. Most men do."

  Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Israel nodded and waited for Amanda to add details.

  "But I think there was something more. I mean, how did he know about gravedigging? How did he know Derek? I saw what I wanted to see and didn't ask any more questions."

  The word "gravedigger" stabbed right through Israel, and his breath hitched in his throat. "Amanda, what was his name?"

  "Charles." She said, her yellowed, watery eyes looking up at Israel sadly. "Charles Hastings."

  Israel's eyes widened, and he grabbed the edge of Derek's desk to keep his balance. Charles was his last thought before he woke up in his hotel room.

  Chapter Eleven

  George wasn't really sure how many days had passed since he had come to Izzy's flat. He drifted in and out of sleep, fighting nightmares most of the time. If his waning nausea told him anything, Charles had given him a minor concussion.

  George had been dreaming about a waterfall that his mind told him was Izzy when his cell phone rang. The number was familiar, but his mind couldn't work out from where. "Hello?"

  "George?"

  Even in one syllable, George recognized the Irish accent. "Aodhan?"

  "Thank Christ. Georgie, where are you?" His voice was high pitched and quick.

  "What?" George slurred, still not awake.

  "Georgie." He punctuated every syllable of his words with heavy worry. "Where are you?"

  "Chicago." George wiped a tired hand across his brow.

  "You have to leave."

  "What?"

  "Someone put a hit out on you. I heard it from a bodysnatcher who didn't know we were friends. You have to leave."

  "Is it Charles?"

  "Why… fucking hell, George. Did you go see Charles?"

  George paused, a vision of Izzy standing on a street corner in a new hair cut blurring with his face half gone stood in the corner of the room. "Yes."

  "Christ. You know, if Charles thinks you'll kill him, he can no longer stroke his cock to the thought that you never take revenge. He must have put out the hit."

  While Aodhan spoke, George blindly groped around the nightstand for his wallet and keys. His hands brushed against a box of Turkish Golds, and he stared at it uncomprehendingly. Had he purchased them? Were they real?

  "George?"

  George ignored the cigarettes and grabbed his wallet. "Fine. I'll go. Where to?"

  "I don't know. I don't go a lot further than New York, so I don't know how far this stretches. Maybe shack up on a nice frowning rock in the mountains that sees everything coming up to it."

  George froze to the sound of a door opening. When George had stopped speaking, Aodhan called his name, anxiety clear in breathy words. "George? Georgie?"

  Fuck. George hadn't taken a gun with him from Miami, and he didn't pick one up on his way back to Izzy's flat.

  Slow, and cautious footsteps filled the air as George ended the call and rolled over to hide behind Izzy's mattress.

  A dark figure filled the doorway, but George couldn't make out a face. He had drawn the curtains because the sunlight gave him a headache. Blinking, George tried to contemplate his options. He could rush the hitman, but whoever it was would likely be prepared for that. No, it was best to pretend he wasn't there until the last minute, rush him, and just hope it turned at all right.

  George shook his head. That was an awful plan. He needed to get around the attacker, and grab a knife from the kitchen.

  It seemed like a good plan, except George was trapped in Izzy's room. Even if he could shimmy underneath the bed, there was no way he could do it silently enough not to alert his attacker. And, if this person was good at his job, which George had to assume he was since he managed to get into Izzy's flat without any issues, he would check under the bed. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

  George grinned as a new plan unfolded in his mind. He knew what he needed to do. It was crazy, but it at least had some semblance of a possible success rate. He took his wallet, and slid it across the floor underneath the bed. Footsteps came closer, and then there was a small hiccup of silence before George heard the rustling of the duvet cover as the assailant lifted it to check under it. George leapt up and over the bed. The other man had quick reflexes, but he had been prepared for an attack below, and he was not quick enough to aim.

  A bullet smashed into the wall past George's shoulder.

  "Fuck," the man cried as George plummeted in to him. The two wrestled, and George thanked God for his extra height and weight, and the fact that this hitman clearly relied on a gun to do most of his work. George wrestled it out of his hand, and then pushed his elbow into the man's throat.

  Though it was dark, George instantly recognized the square jaw of Kelly Bolduc, his face reddening as he struggled for oxygen. Kelly fucking Bolduc.

  George had thought they were friends. Sure, Kelly had taken a job from him, but he hadn't cared. George was a good guy like that. Charles and Kelly's face blurred into one as his face contorted in pain. Kelly scratched at George, causing long bloody lines to stream down his arms. George ignored it, on fire with an anger he had never felt before. He had thought Kelly and he were friends. Bad friends, but friends nonetheless.

  Was George doomed to trust the wrong people for his whole life? He pressed in harder, yelling incomprehensibly as he did so.

  And then it was done. Kelly no longer struggled but George kept pressing down.

  Finally, he pulled back and stared at the body. Even when Charles left him to die, George believed in trust. But how could he now? Even Kelly betrayed him when he had given him so much.

  George blinked back tears and dove into the void.

  "What the fuck, Kelly?" he asked darkly, unable to look at his corpse of his now deceased friend.

  Kelly rolled his head around, and blinked owlishly. "So... this is what it's like on the other side?"

  "Why?" whispered George.

  "For what it's worth, Rose. It wasn't personal."

  George swallowed, and turned his gaze to him. "If it wasn't personal, I should hope you wouldn't do it at all."

  Kelly shrugged. "I needed money."

  George shook his head, not believing that this could be a reason. It was the same reason Charles had given him, as if that absolved people of their crimes. "I let you take the Johnson job from me. You got money."

  "It wasn't enough."

  "What about
the favors you owed me for letting you have it?"

  Kelly grinned, and shrugged. "I was sending you to your beloved Leventhal. That's a favor."

  "Piss off."

  "Fine. I figured if you were dead, what good were favors?"

  "There is no humanity in this business," muttered George darkly.

  "You just figured that out now?"

  "Well, you certainly owe me those favors now."

  Kelly gurgled something George thought was probably equivalent to an amused snort.

  "So who sent you?" George sat down on his heels to lock his gaze with Kelly's.

  "I don't know. He called himself Woodmansey."

  "So, you never met him."

  "Of course I didn't. What if you killed me and made me talk?"

  "What if, indeed." George raised his eyebrows, and flattened his lips into a neutral line. "Why did he send you?"

  "I didn't ask, but I assumed it's because you're trying to get revenge for Leventhal, and he doesn't want to die."

  "So he's responsible for killing Leventhal?" Coldness replaced the heat of his anger, and it spread to the very tips of his fingers.

  "Maybe. Or maybe he's connected to who is. I don't really ask a whole lot of questions when I'm asked to off someone. It could mean I know too much, and will be next on the list. Look, I did what I was asked. Well, I tried to do it anyway." George felt a pull of energy as Kelly tried to cock his head, and it fell awkwardly to the side. His neck almost looked broken. "You have a goddamn concussion. How the hell did this work out?"

  "Practice. Years and years and years of it. You did almost get me though, I'll admit that."

  Kelly chuckled derisively. "Kind of sucks that skill isn't everything in this business."

  "Luck is very helpful." George wiped one large hand across his face. "Look, mate. Tell me how you were going to tell Woodmansey you killed me?"

  "Phone. Right back pocket."

  George placed his hand Kelly's shoulder and pushed him over. Gingerly, he pulled the mobile out of his back pocket, suddenly feeling squeamish about touching him. The phone he pulled out looked as if it cost twenty dollars at a Walmart. When he pushed the button, it was confirmed with a small text that told him how many minutes the phone had left. 150.