Trigger Man

by Richard Futch

  So be it.

  Because I really have to get back to Annie. I saw her off on the plane hours ago. She’s probably close to New York by now and should safely be over the Atlantic soon. If not, I’ve done what I could.

  You see, Sautin’s secretary and fuck-doll takes in exchange students. From what I’ve heard she’s been married several times but they ‘didn’t work out’. That is exactly how Sautin put it, his face lapsing into the dry, deadly gaze of a rattlesnake sunning in the desert. She’s always done whatever Sautin wanted her to, right down to the cum-stain I found on her desk blotter one morning. Later on, she set her coffee mug right down on top of it and continued along as if it didn’t exist. The looks they gave each other the rest of the day are still with me. Jesus Christ, all these still-shots…

  One of her marriages produced a child, a boy. I don’t know his name because Sautin has never mentioned it and I don’t talk to her. She’s always known how far to press Sautin and the bastard pays her well. It’s a question of priority. She gets a new sports car every two years and the motherfucker’s always loaded. But I’ve never seen a child’s car seat in any of ‘em. That’s why she takes in exchange students. Somebody has to keep an eye on the kid.

  There have been at least three others before Annie, but there was never any need to take notice before. They had their jobs and I had mine. When I saw them at all, it was through the window of a car downstairs as I was leaving. Sautin never lets kids inside the building. Says he hates ‘the little bastards’ and I’ve learned when he says something he means it.

  It’s a goddamn good thing that doesn’t hold true for me.

  Annie’s been here since two weeks before the summer session started at UNO. She’s pretty, not beautiful; striking in the face in a way that’s impossible to put a tag on. Short dark hair and eyes, neither tall nor short; she should fade into a crowd with the least possible resistance. Only she doesn’t. And I can’t say why. Only by seeing her in person do you realize the difference, but I don’t even think that word approaches what she really is, what she’s capable of. Many people don’t notice her at all. I know because I’ve watched. First because I was instructed to, and later because I could do nothing else. When she’s around there seems to be something better about the day; people not even looking her direction tend to smile, look brighter just for a second or two. Maybe that’s why most people don’t pay much mind: most people are basically good, regardless of what I’ve thought most of my life. A little rough around the edges, sure, but inside, basically good. Perhaps that’s why Sautin was so shaken by her, why even I felt a slight twinge of guilty surprise when he grabbed my arm that day as we returned from Nine Dragons after lunch. Good people don’t take obvious notice, but evil people do. I know that just as certainly now as I know my own reflection in a mirror. And if there is a such thing as redemption I hardly think one deed can balance the scales.

  She became an obsession to him.

  I never thought much about his initial reaction to her through the BMW’s tinted windshield, but looking back he practically shoved the both of us through the front glass doors of his building, peering over his shoulder as if armed men were chasing us down from behind. But three days later when he called me at four in the morning, his voice torn ragged with whiskey and cigarettes, I began to pay closer attention.

  I began to use my brain for once. I also began to worry.

  He wanted me to break into his secretaries’ house while she was at work. He didn’t care if Annie and the kid were there or not, but he didn’t want her to know if she was. He wanted a photo of her. He also wanted clothes.

  At first my balls drew up in my stomach as I listened to that gasping voice on the other end of the line. I imagined he wanted her panties, a bra maybe, and I wondered what new turns he was preparing to make. But I wasn‘t quite on the mark. “Anything of hers,” he said that early morning. “Anyfuckinthing,” in a tone that paled humanity.

  So I told him the only thing I could. I said okay.

  And as easy as that the thing was set in motion, or at least I was finally made a part of it. When he slammed down the receiver I was left with the cold, dead buzzing tone which shredded the sanity of my darkened bedroom.

  ***

  The next day started off like any other. I awoke, took a shower, all the little niceties a million other people plow through before starting on their way. I had one thing to accomplish: get a photograph of Annie and a piece of her clothing. Just another job, albeit a strange one. Nothing really out of the ordinary because I was a paid man, and when Sautin said he needed something taken care of, I did it. I’d long since ceased worrying about capture; I could have been a Wal-Mart employee and felt about the same amount of tension. No more shaking hands and pounding heart. But some small intuition that morning warned me things were gonna be different this time.

  From what little Sautin told me I knew Annie had morning classes and left the kid at a childcare center near UNO. As I shaved my face and stared stupidly into the mirror I worked everything out in my head. Taking a cab over (paying cash, or course), working my way around back and entering the house. I didn’t expect any trouble. Daylight, night time; it’s all the same. Get in, get out. No sweat. I’d be back to the apartment before lunch. No more than a half-day at the office, but still, it didn’t feel right.

  I was nervous, irritable. Glad nobody was there to see me.

  By nine-thirty I was in the neighborhood. Working class, the kind of place where couples both had full-time jobs. On any other day I’d been a kid cut loose in a candy store, but not then. Every step felt like masturbating in public. By the time I got through the back gate and stood near the patio window I was sweating more than the temperature permitted. Nonetheless, I had a job to do.

  Amid this unnatural tension I went about my business and less than five minutes later stood in the living room. It was a neat place, nice furniture. All this shit that Sautin paid for, stuff that speaks of the reality of a mistress much more than the rote routine of a secretary. Or even a wife, I have to suspect. Digital cable box, stainless steel pots hanging above the tiny kitchen island again. Not one goddamn toy in sight. The place looked right for a Gregorian chant.

  I turned and headed down the hall. Every apartment is the same after awhile. There’s the living area/kitchen, then the short hallway breaking off to the bedrooms. People don’t realize how standard everything is these days, how fucking predictable. If a good thief has a sense for where the furniture is placed he’s actually in a better situation than the dweller. The thief knows someone else can be inside; the dweller doesn’t even suspect it.

  I felt the TV and it was cool; the place felt vacant.

  I pushed open the door on the left down the hall, already knowing that was her room. It opened and I just stood there as if someone had stuffed a pole up my ass and cemented it to the floor. The curtains inside were drawn, but a thin light filled the room, catching all the stray particles of dust that lazed around in the now-disturbed air.

  There was nothing at all strange, or odd, or telling about the room. Nothing except the absolute knowledge I should not be there. As if disturbing her things would jeopardize something as meaningful and needy to me as water. But I’m me; I stepped inside.

  It looked typical college-student, a little neater than most, but typical. I’d seen it all before. There were pictures of her family and friends stuck in the corner of the mirror of the bureau, and I found myself drawn to them. Smiling, smiling, always. Both her and the people around her. I wondered how she felt since coming to New Orleans, if she’d figured out the reason Sautin’s secretary took in exchange students. I wondered if she was getting anything done with school.

  I caught a look at my own reflection in the mirror and turned away. No time for self-examination. Then I turned and sized up the rest of the room. The bed was unmade and the closet doors stood partially ajar as if she’d been in a hurry that morning. A bra and panties lay on top of a small pile of dirty clo
thes near the night stand, and I immediately looked away. And at that moment I knew I wouldn’t have brought him those even if he’d asked for them. The ghostly presence of my grandmother forbade it.

  But what would it be? The picture was no problem; I simply had to slip one down from the mirror. What else? Something harmless, something she wouldn’t miss. I wiped a hand across my mouth and searched. The second my eye traveled the night stand I saw it: a scrunchie, those things girls use to tie up their hair. It even had a few of hers trapped in its many convolutions, and I didn’t think she’d be prone to miss it. The room was just messy enough…

  I hurried over and snatched it up.

  And that was that. Less than two hours later I was back at the pad, lying on the couch with a big bag of Lay’s potato chips between my legs and the empty remains of three Budweiser’s on the table. I think Patton was on the tube.

  When the phone rang after dark I had no idea what it was or where it was coming from. In my dream I was lost and rambling in a huge, though somehow vaguely familiar house, searching for the source of the sudden, incessant ringing. It was only after the answering machine kicked on and I heard Sautin’s grating voice that I surfaced. His disembodied snarl filled the room, raising hackles along my spine with the imperative behind his words.

  I spilled the rest of the chips and the beer when I lurched across the coffee table for the receiver. I no more wanted to talk to him than see him at that moment, but just listening to his voice echoing off the walls was enough to get me going.

  I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until I put the phone to my ear, and by that time it was far too late to hang up. It sounded like he’d been running. Either that or drinking again. It was getting harder to tell; up until that point he’d always been an ‘ice man’. No longer. His voice cracked with nerves and he must have been chain-smoking from all the blowing coming from that end.

  The whole conversation lasted no more than two minutes, but it seemed much longer. I answered his questions and nodded at the walls. He sounded as pleased as a man headed to the dentist for a root canal. He said he’d be at my place within the hour to pick up the girl’s things and I said okay. Always the yes man. Because what else was there to say? Then I simply hung up the phone and went back to the couch. I didn’t bother cleaning up the chips and spilled beer; I just sat there and unwittingly dreaded the ragged man on his way over.

  ***

  The next day saw little action. I heard even less; I talked to Sautin on the phone once, about nothing. He was distracted and that made me all the more nervous. He didn’t ask me to do anything, nothing. I just sat at the apartment and waited. And waited.

  By the end of the second week it was too much. Late one Thursday night I worked up the nerve to call him, which was highly out of the ordinary. I didn’t expect him to be home but he was, even though I was ready to hang up by the time he picked up. When he did I could tell he was drunk and that was doubly strange. I’d never known him to be much of a drinker and here it was again. And all this time I’d thought he just liked to make money, legally or otherwise. He didn’t chase skirts (the secretary was his only fling, or at least the only one I knew about) drink to excess or do drugs. Usually. Just another typical businessman as far as I knew. No big deal. Was it Balzac that said, ‘Behind every great fortune there is a crime’? That is if you could even classify him as such. Hell, he had a lot more money than anyone I’d ever been associated with, but what he controlled could hardly be deemed a ‘great fortune’. Regardless, I’ve been young and stupid. I guess all error starts off in such small degrees.

  He wanted to know what the hell I wanted and I wasn’t up to the truth. I mumbled something--I have no idea what--and was cut off as he changed tone and direction. “You ever read the Bible?” he asked.

  At first I thought I’d heard wrong, that I’d missed something. Not so. He asked again and I said ‘no’ offhand. Of course, Grandma had familiarized me with the Book in the ancient past but I hardly considered myself knowledgeable of its contents. My reading interests had been elsewhere. I knew I used to believe in good and evil, but that had been a long time ago. He laughed.

  It was the most evil sound I’ve ever heard and the skin crawled along my back. My knuckles popped from holding the receiver so tightly. “Well I am,” he said and paused. “Or at least I have been,” he finished. “I’ve been busy lately with a problem that’s sprung up.”

  Again, I had no idea where the conversation was heading, but I decided to humor him to get an idea. After all, it was I who’d made the call. “A problem?” I asked stupidly, completely out of the fact that I had nothing else to say.

  “That’s right…” and his voice dragged behind a great load of alcohol. I wanted so badly now to hang up I could taste the bile rising in the back of my throat. There was only one thing left to say, and I could not avoid it. I swallowed hard and choked the knot down.

  “What problem?” I asked specifically.

  “The problem of the Apocalypse,” he replied flatly. The accompanying dull drone playing through the line felt like a timer about to explode. I coughed.

  “I’m not sure I get you,” was all I could manage.

  “Thought not,” he dead-panned. “Read The Revelation. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  And with that the line went dead.

  Chapter 18:Sautin’s Revelation

  That night I sat down and read it. And when I was done I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about. The man wasn’t religious—even in some holy roller, screwball way--and I never saw him reading anything except the financial section of The Times Picayune. Him reading The Bible seemed about as off-center as the President of the United States suddenly announcing he was bisexual. Or so I thought. At that time I didn’t know Sautin was having dreams of his own.

  But I found out soon enough.

  Anyway, The Revelation. I didn’t know what to make of it. All that talk of angels and demons, signs in the sky, monsters and burning cities. I had no idea where Sautin was coming from but it made me plenty nervous regardless. Reading the short book of prophesy brought my grandmother’s long discarded warnings; it brought back the sense of doom she had prophesized for evil men, and now I was one of them. A burglar, a thief, even worse, a murderer.

  I remember staring at the silent phone sitting in its cradle until the sun peeked between the buildings.

  Like now…just like now.

  ***

  At nine o’clock I took a cab to the CBD and stood awhile outside Sautin’s building. At a quarter of ten I took the back stairs up to his office suite, not wanting to encounter any of the other tenants in the elevators. I wanted full advantage of my invisibility.

  The whole top floor was his private suite though he actually used less than half of it. A seldom-used freight elevator ran a direct line between the waterproof basement right below street level and the top floor. Sautin said the shaft had been there when he purchased the building, and he’d had the elevator installed shortly thereafter for his own private purposes. It’s been used for disposal several times that I know of. The living seldom ride its cables.

  I came in down the hall near the restrooms, and I ducked inside the Men’s Room for a moment. My guts were boiling and I had the beginnings of a headache. My hands were shaking again. Another bad sign. I’ve never been that nervous before, but it proved to be a sign of things to come. There’s only one significant difference now. Then I planned on living; now I don’t.

  My face didn’t look too bad in the mirror; a little drawn, but not much different than usual. I washed my hands, splashing water on my cheeks and running my fingers through my hair. Then I cleared my throat, set my jaw, and left the cold confines of the empty fifth floor restroom.

  I followed the magnificent green carpet to Sautin’s suite. The reception desk was empty and I checked my watch to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. His secretaries’ days off were about as infrequent as a priest’s. My unease grew. I glanced b
ehind the wilting palm, through the twin glass doors that opened to Sautin’s foyer. The door to his office was slightly ajar. I walked around the desk and pushed through the glass doors. I heard a clear, crisp tinkling: a coin meeting the bottom of an empty glass. It was a sound I well remembered from my stint on Chimes Street.

  The glass doors in the foyer were swinging shut when I heard his voice. “Jesse,” it rasped. “Get in here.” I swallowed hard and entered the man’s office.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen him in such a mess. He had on an old T-shirt and his hair was an uncombed nest. He obviously hadn’t shaved in several days. I could see his raging, bloodshot eyes from across the room even though the only light in there was what managed to seep through the seams of the custom-made drapes which squeezed hard against the double-paned glass along the south wall. A bottle of Jack Daniels sat on the desk, half-empty. I stood by the door while he sized me up, almost expecting him to lick his lips like a lioness stalking its prey.

  He nonchalantly flipped a quarter into the empty glass, studied it a moment as it tattooed out a rhythm, and then grabbed the bottle by the neck and drank deeply. He didn’t even grimace when he sat it back down again. “Want a drink?” he asked behind those snake eyes. I simply shook my head and waited.

  “Close that goddamn door,” he said and I did. He motioned me over to his desk with his right forefinger. Then he ran a hand through his own thick, black hair and turned his deadly gaze on me. “You read it?” he asked. A nerve in the hand holding the bottle began ticking violently. An ashtray pushed off to the side of his desk was brimming with cigarettes and I’d never known him to smoke. In fact, he’d adamantly fumed against the practice on several occasions.

  I nodded and sat down in the big leather chair usually reserved for his business contacts…or the doomed. I wasn’t sure which one fit right then.