by Brian Keene
I made my peace with that early on.
Guys in my line of work . . . and girls, too, I guess . . . Listen, we’ve got diversity and intersectionality movements in organized crime, same as any other workplace. So, let’s just say people in my line of work. That better? People in my line of work—there’s always a chance you could die. We carry that shit around with us. We live with dying every day. You learn not to dwell on it, or else you end up with an ulcer or anxiety or an addict or worse.
My day job was a mid-list crime fiction writer, except that there isn’t a mid-list anymore. And in truth, my real job? There isn’t much of that anymore, either. So, no, dying wasn’t the problem.
Money was the problem, just like that asshole in Pennsylvania.
Now, how can that be? Well, it’s not like I can leave a big wad of cash in a plastic grocery bag for my wife. And even if she knew how to spend it wisely, so as to not arouse suspicion, plastic grocery bags full of cash are fewer and farther between these days, thanks to the Russians and the cartels from south of the border and goddamn Chinese cybercrime. Their cuts keep getting bigger and bigger, and we get squeezed out. But there’s still the life insurance policy, right? And it’s one hell of a payout. My family will be set when I’m gone. They’ll make more off putting me in the ground than I ever made for them on the side, and certainly more than I ever earned from those fucking paperbacks.
The problem is the life insurance policy itself.
See, when I first bought that life insurance, they sent me to a doctor for a physical and I had to fill out this questionnaire and all this other shit. And I lied. The part where it asks if you smoke, and if so, for how long? I said no. In reality, it had been one—sometimes two—packs per day, since I was eighteen. I quit when I was fifty. I’m fifty-one now. So, if I died of cancer that was attributable to smoking, my life insurance policy was null and fucking void.
But if I died from a heart attack while exercising?
Payday . . .
My heart was up to the challenge. For years, my wife and the doctor had been on me to change my diet and exercise more. My old man died of a heart attack. His old man, too.
Die of cancer? My family doesn’t get dick. Die of a heart attack? They get a payout.
So, what I did was go to the store and buy a fancy pair of running shoes, and some jogging clothes, and all that other shit—everything except a fitness tracker. Last thing I need, even at this stage, is the Feds being able to track me. Same reason I carry one of those pay-as-you-go burner flip phones, rather than a smart phone. Same reason I keep telling my family no when they ask if we can have one of those creepy artificial intelligence things Amazon sells that turn on your lights and play music for you. Same reason I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or any of that other crap.
Anyway, I bought all that running shit and brought it home, and my wife was . . . surprised. I’ve never been one for exercising. In the past, anytime somebody preached the gospel of running to me, I’d remind them that Jim Fixx—the asshole fitness guru who wrote The Complete Book of Running—died of a heart attack while running. Now, here I was, trying to do the same. My wife didn’t know that, of course. She just knew that I’d suddenly developed the urge to get in shape. After her initial shock wore off, she was happy and supportive. Hell, I hadn’t seen her that happy in a long time. You’d think I’d brought home a diamond necklace or two tickets to an all-expenses-paid vacation in Tuscany by the way she reacted.
That made me feel guilty, too.
Guilt . . . you try not to dwell on that, same way you do with death and dying. I know that some of the things I’ve done were wrong. I know that I’m not a good person. I’ve stolen from people. I’ve hurt people who couldn’t pay up—broke bones and noses, sent them to the emergency room. And yeah, I’ve killed people, too. Four times, in fact, over the last thirty years. Like I said before, I’m a bad person. But I didn’t struggle over the things in my past. The only time I felt guilty was when I hurt or disappointed my family in some way. Lying to my wife always brought on a bad case of remorse, and this time was no different, especially seeing how happy she was.
But, I was locked in now, so fuck it.
I started running.
***
I do a lot of my business at this bar called The Shantyman. It’s in the Tenderloin district, so that’s where I did my run every day. I’d switch up my route, same as with everything else in my life. That’s because you never want to get too predictable. Worse thing a guy like me can do is become a creature of habit—become predictable. That shit will get you killed. Going home the same way every day or eating at the same goddamned restaurant you eat at every Friday night makes things easy for those wishing to do you harm.
There are other bars and clubs in the Tenderloin. Big live music venues like the Warfield and the Great American Music Hall. Alternative theaters like Piano Fight, the EXIT Theatre, the New Conservatory, Counter Pulse, the Phoenix, and dozens of others. Used to be a lot of strip clubs there, too, although most of those have been closed down now. The Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre is still there, but it’s a shadow of its former self—kind of like it got cancer, too, and survived, but wasted down to nothing in the process.
The guys who showed me the ropes when I was a young man, coming up? They used to operate out of the O’Farrell, and some of the other strip joints, as well. Hell, this entire district has always lent itself to our profession, going all the way back to the days of Prohibition. Merchant seaman used to come rolling in, flush with cash, and our guys—I’m talking the guys who were doing this when I was just a kid—would alleviate them of every last dollar.
Not so much these days.
Everything is different now. Even The Shantyman. I guess the place was always a dive, but it used to have historical significance, you know? Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane played there back in the day, when they were first starting out. Years later, so did Metallica, back when they were still underground up-and-comers. These days? You can still hear live music there, but that’s at night. I’m too old for that shit. In the afternoon, the only music you hear is from the jukebox.
Anyway, I ran a different route through the Tenderloin every day, and always ended up at The Shantyman. Now, I know what I just said about not being a creature of habit, but I also said I do a lot of my business there. As a result, The Shantyman is a place where I felt relatively safe—at least, as safe as somebody in my line of work can ever feel. But, if I’m being honest here? I felt safe from the cancer at The Shantyman. I knew the regulars. I had my usual booth, facing the door. I knew my bourbon of choice would always be in stock. The place was always a nice transition from my criminal activities to my home life. Spend the day loaning money and taking bets and all the other crap, you don’t want to go home with that shit still in your head. You don’t want to go home if the Raiders or the 49ers didn’t beat the spread. You don’t want to go home if there’s still blood on your knuckles from the deadbeat whose lips you had to pulp. No, you never take that shit home with you. So, what I’d do is have a few drinks at The Shantyman before I went home to my family. It was my refuge. And once I got the cancer and started running, it provided another sort of refuge.
A refuge from the disappointment of not keeling over on the sidewalk somewhere in the Tenderloin. Because I ran every day, but that heart attack eluded me. I ran through squalor and splendor. I ran over garbage and cracked concrete and used needles and people shitting in the streets. I ran around hipsters and twinks, techies and the homeless. I ran past trendy coffee shops and artisanal cupcake stands and Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Thai, and Italian restaurants. I ran by cars blaring hip-hop and house and techno and metal and political talk and that terrible shit that passes for pop music these days. I pushed myself until my feet hurt, and my lungs and chest burned, and my vision narrowed to pinpricks. I forced myself onward when my ears rang, and I got dizzy and my skin felt flushed. I gritted my teeth in expectation when my chest tightened, and m
y pulse jackhammered in my throat. But still . . . nothing. I got winded. I coughed up blood. I got blisters on my heels and toes. I ran, and I ran and I ran, but still no heart attack.
And so, at the end of my run, I’d sit in my booth at The Shantyman—dripping with sweat and breathing heavy—and have a few beers until I had the courage to go home.
That shit went on for a month.
***
“If there’s something going on, I need you to tell me.”
I picked up the remote and paused the television. I was on the end of the couch, legs propped up on the coffee table. My wife had her head on a pillow in my lap. I’d been stroking her hair absentmindedly while we binge-watched a show that neither of us were really paying attention to She’d been playing on her phone, and I’d been thinking about dying.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She sat up and stared at me. “You’ve been acting different. I see it, and Vinnie sees it, too. He asked me yesterday if Daddy was mad about something.”
I frowned, trying to remember if I’d been short with my son. “There’s nothing going on. Why did he think I was mad?”
“Because you’re distracted. He’s ten, and notices that. I notice more.”
“Like what?”
“You’re losing weight. You’re paler. You don’t eat like you used to.”
“It’s the running,” I lied. “You’re always after me to lose weight. I’ve cut down on the macaroni and gravy, is all.”
“That’s not all, and you know it. Is this a work thing . . . ?”
“Twenty-two years together, baby. Don’t make me make you an accessory after the fact. There’s no statute of limitations like in the movies.”
She shook her head. “Not that. I know better than to ask about that. I meant the writing. You haven’t done that in weeks.”
I seized on her assumption. “Yeah, it’s the writing. I’ve just been lost in my head, I guess. Publisher offered me a twenty-five hundred advance, but I’m stuck for an idea. I’ve been mulling that over.”
“Two-thousand five hundred dollars?” She shook her head. “I remember when they used to pay you five thousand for an advance.”
“The world has moved on, babe. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
She reached down, took my hand, and squeezed it. “Well, just try to be more open with Vinnie, okay?”
I nodded. “I will.”
I turned the television back on, and she turned her attention to her phone once more, and I was glad for that, because it meant she didn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.
***
A week into the second month, I figured the cancer was spreading to my brain. I’d been pushing myself even harder—running farther and longer and faster, and it was definitely taking a toll on me, but still no heart attack. The closest I came was one day when, in front of a bakery, I started coughing and hacking and couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, it felt like somebody had grabbed my heart in their fist and was giving it a squeeze. My arm tingled, like it was asleep, and my ears rang. When everything started to spin, I remember thinking that this was it, this was what I’d been working toward. I was gonna have a heart attack, right there on the street, and even if they did an autopsy on me, and figured out I had cancer, the cause of death was still going to be heart attack, and my family would get the payout. I dropped down to my knees, and then it passed. A few people gathered around me in concern. Most just walked on by, though, obvious in their efforts to ignore it and not get involved. Of the small handful who stopped, half of them just pulled out their phones, ready to record my death and then put it on YouTube.
Only one person asked if I was okay.
And when I looked up at him—if I’d had the breath to do it, I would have screamed.
First guy I ever killed was this Mexican. Now look. It ain’t like what you see in the movies. Somebody owes you money, the last fucking thing you want to do is kill them. A dead person can’t pay you. But this Mexican, he was into us large. And he was running his mouth on the street about how he’d gotten away with it, and fuck us, and we weren’t shit. So, we had no choice. I shot him twice—once in the throat and one in the head. Last time I saw him was when his body was slipping beneath the surface out in the bay.
But now I was looking at him again.
The guy looked at me in concern. Then he reached out and tentatively patted my shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked again. “You want us to call an ambulance?”
I stared at him, eyes wide. “How are you . . . I saw . . . ”
The ringing in my ears vanished, and the vertigo passed. Worse, my pulse returned to normal and the tingling in my arm went away. Once again, the heart attack had disappointed me. As my vision cleared, I realized that the guy crouched down next to me wasn’t the Mexican after all. He bore a resemblance, sure, but it wasn’t him.
Shaking my head, I waved him away and tottered to my feet, still wheezing and hacking. My palm was slick with blood and phlegm. When the onlookers noticed that, they backed the fuck up, which I was glad for.
“I’m okay,” I insisted. “Thanks.”
That time, I didn’t run, but walked.
If it had just been the Mexican guy on the street, I’d have just thought it was a case of mistaken identity. A brain fart. But then I started seeing the shadows, and that was when I became positive the cancer had spread to my brain.
I noticed the first one the next day. I was running again, still intent on killing myself, although by that point I’d started to think of other ways I could commit suicide without making it look like that. I jogged by this homeless woman camped out on the sidewalk. She’d tied a piece of string around the tail of a dead rat, and she was swinging it at anybody who got within range. Every time she did this, she threw her head back and cackled, revealing gray teeth and bleeding gums. But what caught my attention was the little black cloud over her shoulder. It was about the size of a baseball, and it looked exactly like what I just described it as—a tiny storm cloud, like a baby version of the big black thunderheads that come roiling into the city off the bay. If you tried to focus your eyes on it, the whole thing turned blurry. It seemed to . . . vibrate. I don’t know if that’s the right word, exactly. The thing looked like it was there, but maybe elsewhere, too. Like it was occupying two spaces at the same time or some shit. But I saw it, for real, floating there right beside her head. The crazy bitch didn’t seem to be aware of it, and neither did anybody else. I blinked my eyes, trying to clear them, but the shadow remained.
I started running again, wondering what the fuck that had been. Something wrong with my vision? A hallucination? I’d Googled the shit out of cancer when I first got diagnosed. When it spread to the brain, hallucinations happened—phantom smells and sounds and seeing things that weren’t really there.
I figured that’s what it had been.
Then I started seeing them everywhere. It was like people’s shadows had a shadow of their own—miniscule smoke-like blobs, always hovering just over their shoulders, right next to their heads. I saw them on my runs, and when I was working. I’d go around the Tenderloin, making my pick-ups, and the poor saps who were into me for various amounts had them floating next to them. Not every person in the city had one, but the amount who did was still staggering. I saw them with the hipsters and twinks, techies and the homeless. I saw them as I ran past the trendy coffee shops and the artisanal cupcake stands and the Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Thai, and Italian restaurants. They were especially thick outside of bars and nightclubs, abortion clinics and needle exchanges, doctor and psychiatrist offices, and other places where desperation and depression hung thick.
I decided it was one of two things. Either I was suddenly seeing auras, and despite what the New Age holistic pagan bullshit artists tell us, all auras are black . . . or the cancer had spread to my brain.
I figured the latter was a pretty safe bet.
I ran harder. Punished myself more. Coughed
up an obscene amount of blood and phlegm. Thought my lungs might explode. Dropped more weight.
But was still alive, despite my best efforts.
***
I’d just finished a run, and was kicking back in my booth at The Shantyman, nursing an IPA and mopping the sweat off my brow when Tony Genova walked in.
Tony’s with an East Coast crew, the Marano Family, although I don’t think they qualify as a family or even a crew anymore. Old man Marano died two years back, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. The Feds never got him, but I guess that fucking disease did. And in the years leading up to his death—I’m talking about long before they ever diagnosed the old guy—he was up to some crazy, heinous shit. Like I said before, I know I’m not a good person. None of us are. But the shit that Marano had his people doing? That was fucking evil. Tony and his buddy Vince got caught in the middle of that firestorm, but they came out okay. I know for a fact they both cut corners where they could—not necessarily refusing orders, but not doing as commanded, either. Rumor had it that Tony and Vince might have been the ones who took out Marano, rather than the Alzheimer’s, but far as I know, it was just that—rumor.
Used to be Tony came out here four times a year for business, and I was always his point of contact. These days, the Marano organization was in chaos, with different factions vying for control, and even more of them getting arrested or working as informants. From what I’d heard, Tony had sort of retired—well, as much as anyone in our line of work can ever actually retire—and was freelancing now. So, I was surprised to see him when he walked in, grinning that fucking shit-eating smirk of his.
He also had a little shadow cloud hovering over his shoulder.
I smiled as he sauntered over, then stood up and gave him a hug. This was my first opportunity to try to touch one of those tiny clouds. It’s not like I could walk up to some stranger on the street and do it, and my family didn’t have them. So, while he was squeezing my ribs, I gave his back a hearty couple of slaps and then his shoulder. My hand went right through the thing, as if it were smoke. The blob congealed again as soon as my fingers had passed through it. There was no smell, no tactile sensation . . . other than a second of coldness.