Killer bgooj-3

by Dave Zeltserman

  We kept up this staring contest, me and this boy, until a middle-aged woman who must’ve been this boy’s mother realized that he was staring at me. She smiled apologetically at me, while at the same time reprimanding him. He shrugged her off and said something to her that I couldn’t hear, but I knew from the panic in her face what it must’ve been. She grabbed him and forcibly moved him so that he was no longer looking at me. After that I stared out the window and watched while other cars rolled past us on the Mass Pike. If people inside the bus were staring at me, so be it. I had more important things to worry about. And more mundane things also.

  Some of these more mundane things were necessities, like clothing. When Jenny was alive, I knew she was holding on to my old clothes for me, but once she died my kids probably threw it all out. Not that I knew for sure since Michael and Allison wouldn’t take my calls and I had no idea how to reach Paul, but that’s most likely what happened. So all the clothes I had were what I was wearing. In retrospect, I should’ve packed up my prison jeans and tee shirts and underwear, but the thought of smelling that prison detergent a second longer seemed unbearable. Even more so, the prison stench I had grown to imagine soaked into that clothing. As it was I was going to have to spend a good deal of time scrubbing myself before I’d be able to get that stench off my skin. Of course, I had far more than the mundane to worry about, but at least for a little while that’s what mercifully occupied my thoughts.

  It didn’t seem to take long before the bus came to a stop at a congested street corner and the driver announced that we were at the Moody Street stop. I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled off the bus, more tired than I would’ve thought. Bone weary could’ve described how I was feeling. While my work details kept me on my feet all day, I wasn’t used to walking as much as I had today. I stood for a moment blinking as I looked around me. My first impression was that the area was a mix of yuppie and blue collar, with ethnic grocery stores and low-rent shops side by side with trendy-looking restaurants. I might’ve driven through Waltham once, I couldn’t remember. I never had much to do with this area. Even though it was maybe ten miles west of Boston, this city could’ve been on the opposite side of the world as far as Revere and my old life were concerned.

  I stood on the street corner thumbing through the papers Theo had given me, the cold from the wind numbing my face. When I found the apartment rental form, I squinted at it until my eyes adjusted enough for me to be able to read the address on it. Then I set off on foot.

  The apartment Theo arranged for me was in the basement of a five-story brick tenement building which looked like it had been built in the sixties. When I first showed up there, the woman working in the office gave me an empty stare as if I were any other low-income elderly renter, and it was clear to me that she had no idea who I was. She was in her forties, heavy, with badly thinning red hair, and this dull look about her like she was someone who had little interest in anything, at least not enough to bother paying attention to what was in the news and in the papers. If she was the person Theo had dealt with, it explained why my application was accepted. Or maybe even if she knew that I was a confessed hit man, it still wouldn’t have mattered to her.

  Theo had set it up for the state to pay my security deposit and first month’s rent as part of the DOC’s prisoner reintegration program. After that I’d be responsible for all future payments, although I’d be getting additional state assistance checks for my first six months.

  After I signed the required paperwork, the woman gave me a key and warned me that in a week I’d have to make my apartment available to their pest maintenance person; which meant clearing the countertops and storing any plates, glasses and silverware in boxes so the kitchen could be sprayed. I didn’t bother telling her that that wasn’t going to be a problem.

  The apartment was a one-room studio with the kitchen and the living area all in the same space. It was supposed to be furnished, but there wasn’t much in it. A small cot, about the same as what I’d slept on in prison, and a badly chipped dresser from the seventies whose three drawers all stuck. The kitchen area had a sink and enough counter space to maybe hold a few canisters and a toaster. Three cheaply built and falling apart cabinets were placed above a stove that was from the same era as the dresser, and an even older refrigerator sat wedged in the corner. The floor around the stove felt greasy, and the small amount of countertop also had a thin layer of grease and other dirt covering it. When I moved closer, I noticed the small pellets scattered about. Mouse droppings. A quick look showed the bathroom was in worse shape, and even dirtier. Not much more than a tiny cubbyhole that barely fit the toilet, sink and shower stall crammed into it.

  The place had a dank, unhealthy smell to it. Given the old-style industrial tiles used in the flooring, it was clear that the basement had never been intended for habitation and must have been meant for storage and converted later to apartments. I knew from experience that the tiles were made with asbestos, and I noticed a few of them were crumbling which made them health hazards. It would probably cost a small fortune to dig them all out so they had chosen to ignore it. Later when I had time I’d buy some cheap carpeting to cover them and hope that that would save me from lung cancer. Yeah, I know, wishful thinking.

  I stood still for a moment, taking in what five hundred and sixty dollars a month bought these days. A dirty, musty, pest-infested space of maybe four hundred square feet, which made it both spacious and luxurious compared to where I was coming from. I’d make do. First thing I’d have to do was clean the place and get a few items – a lamp, a radio, and a card table and folding chair so I’d have someplace to eat. That would have to be later, though. It was three o’clock and I had to report at eight for work, and the bone weariness I’d been feeling earlier was now more as if my bone marrow had been replaced with lead. Christ, I couldn’t remember being this worn out. I moved over to the cot. The mattress had a brownish-yellowish stain running over it. I flipped it over and the other side wasn’t much better. Fuck it. I took off my jacket and lay on my back on the mattress. The damn thing smelled heavily of perspiration and body odor, maybe even worse than what I’d had in prison, but I was out within seconds.

  chapter 5

  1969

  I know he’s dead. I think it happened when I cracked his head against the door. It wasn’t that hard a blow, but he must’ve had something already wrong with him. Shit, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I sneak a quick peek over at Charlie and Hank. They haven’t caught on yet, so I keep up the act pretending the fucker’s still breathing. This was only supposed to be a shakedown, and I don’t want to let on yet that I’ve fucked up. My first kill, and it’s a damn accident.

  “You miserable cocksucking prick,” I say, lifting the dead fucker by his collar, his head lolling limply to the side, “where the fuck’s our money?” While holding him up with my left hand, I start hitting his dead face with my right fist.

  Hank and Charlie are swapping jokes. They stop. The only sound is me punching that dead face. It doesn’t sound much different than if I’d been pounding a cold slab of beef. Charlie tells me to relax, that there’s no reason to work up such a sweat. I sense Hank moving closer so he can get a better look.

  “Shit, Lenny, I think he’s dead,” Hank says.

  “Fucker’s just playing possum,” I say. I’m breathing hard now from my exertion. I reach back to throw one last punch, but Hank grabs my arm and stops me.

  “He’s not playing. He’s dead.”

  I make a face as if I still don’t believe it. “In that case, I better fucking make sure, huh?” I pull my arm free from Hank’s grip, grab a lead sap that I keep under my waistband, and hit the dead man hard enough in the skull to leave a three inch dent. I let go of the body and it drops with a thud to the floor.

  “Fucking vicious sonofabitch,” Charlie says, but he’s laughing softly, maybe even with a little admiration. The two of them are taking it better than I would’ve thought.

  Because it was on
ly supposed to be a shakedown, none of us bothered wearing gloves. Hank and Charlie have been in the game longer than me, and they start walking around the room wiping off fingerprints. I bend down over the dead man, wipe my sap clean using his shirt, and pull out his wallet. There’s three hundred dollars in it. He was on the books for five grand, but at least this is something. I tell Hank and Charlie about the money. “I knew the cocksucker was holding out on us,” I say. I kick the body a couple of times in the chest, hard enough to have killed him if he wasn’t already dead. I’d rather have Hank and Charlie think I’m a psycho then give them any hint about me worrying how Vincent DiGrassi is going to take this. And I am worried.

  Hank and Charlie have worked their way to a back entrance. Hank tilts his head to one side, signaling for me to join them. I kick the dead body once last time and, as nonchalantly as I can, leave with them.

  We walk quickly down an alley, then once we’re a block away, at a more normal pace to a side street where we left the car. It’s late, the streets are empty. Charlie’s laughing softly, puts an arm around my shoulder and comments how I’ve got antifreeze running in my veins. Hank looks deep in thought. After Charlie pulls away, Hank moves close to me and tells me softly enough so only I can hear that DiGrassi isn’t going to be happy. As if he’s telling me something I don’t know.

  We still have some time before last call. I’m driving so I stop off at the Broken Drum. Since I’m the one who fucked up, I buy us each a half a dozen rounds, beating last call by minutes. The bartender’s not happy pouring out so many rounds that late knowing how much longer he’s going to have to keep the bar open, but he knows who we work for so he doesn’t say anything. While we’re drinking I notice for the first time how swollen and cut up my knuckles are. None of us talk much, it’s almost as if we’re at a wake. It’s not as if the fucker didn’t deserve a beating, but I don’t think he’s what any of us are thinking about – at least he’s not who I’m thinking about. When we’re done with our drinks, I drive Charlie and Hank back to Revere where we hooked up earlier, then I drive across the bridge to Chelsea and to my apartment.

  It’s not until three days later that I meet with Vincent DiGrassi again. It’s in the backroom of a club in Revere. I feel some relief over where we’re meeting. If he’d been planning to make an example of me and have me taken out in a bag, we would’ve been meeting someplace else, someplace more private, like that house in Winthrop where I’d had my initiation.

  When I walk into the backroom, DiGrassi’s waiting alone, which is another good sign. He gives me the evil eye and keeps it fixed on me while I take a chair across from him.

  “You fucked up,” he accuses me, his tenor’s voice shaking with anger. “’Cause of you I got a dead business partner and five grand pissed out the window. What the fuck you have to say about that?”

  I took the three hundred dollars that I had gotten off the corpse and toss it on the table. “You’re better off without him,” I say. “And this three hundred dollars is more than you were ever going to get willingly from that cocksucker. The other forty-seven hundred I’ll make up on my end, which won’t be all that hard once the other deadbeats out there hear about this.”

  I meet his stare. After a minute or so of this, there’s a shift in his expression. A cautiousness. A consideration. He wets his lips, leans back in his chair. “You get off on beating this guy to death?” he asks.

  “Hank and Charlie tell you that?”

  “They just told me what happened.”

  I smile one of my rare smiles. “I didn’t get off on it,” I say. “I knew the guy was dead before they did. Everything I did afterwards was for their benefit.”

  DiGrassi’s staring at me intently, maybe even a little concern showing in his eyes. “So how do you feel now?” he asks. “Anything bothering you?”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I was just doing my job.”

  Again, with that intense stare as if he’s trying to look into my soul. “You sleeping okay?” he asks.

  “No different than usual. Eating okay, too.”

  “So this doesn’t bother you at all?”

  I shake my head. “Other than I got to kick in forty-seven hundred to make good, no.”

  “Nothing troubling your conscience?”

  “What fucking conscience is this supposed to be?”

  He’s considering this. His eyes darken, almost as if a veil has lowered over them. “You’re right, Lenny,” he says at last. “The guy was a cheap sonofabitch chiseler, and fuck him now that he’s worm food. Forget that forty-seven hundred also. Go out of town for a few weeks, make it a vacation. When you come back, we’ll be changing how we use you.”

  I stand up and start towards the door. I have a good idea how he’s going to be using me. At some subconscious level, maybe I’d known all along. I’d spent four years on the fringes for DiGrassi doing collections and other diddly shit, so maybe in a way I was auditioning, trying to show them I was more important than how they were wasting me. It had to’ve been something like that ’cause it made no sense for me to have accidentally killed the guy. I’m not that careless. Before leaving, I nod to DiGrassi.

  chapter 6

  present

  The room was dark when I woke up. I lay blinking for a few seconds, disoriented, then I remembered where I was and how I had to be at work at eight o’clock. I thought about the list I had made earlier of what I needed to buy, and mentally added an alarm clock to it.

  I pushed myself off the bed, my body stiff and an awful taste in my mouth. That taste must’ve come from the mattress; at some point I must’ve rolled off my back and had my face pressed against the damn thing. It took a moment or two to straighten my back, then I hobbled in the direction of the bathroom – or at least where I thought it was. I wanted to splash some water on my face and rinse my mouth to get that taste out of it. My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness and my sense of bearing was all off and it took me several minutes of fumbling around the apartment walls before I found the bathroom door. The light switch for the bathroom was on the wall inside the door. I flipped it, turning on what must’ve been a thirty-watt bulb that had been left in the fixture above the sink. It barely lit the small closet-sized room.

  There were no mirrors in the prisons I had been in for obvious reasons – you don’t want inmates getting their hands on broken glass. The last ten years or so I avoided looking at anything where I could’ve caught a reflection of myself, so it was a shock when I looked in the small, cracked mirror above the sink. The dim light provided by the single bulb kept my face mostly buried in shadows, which probably added even more years to my appearance. Logically I knew I had aged a lot over my time in prison, but still, I wasn’t expecting that old man staring back at me. My face had gotten so much thinner, narrower, and my ears and nose so much bigger and looking like something carved out of wood. I’d had my head shaved several months back by the prison barber, and my hair was now growing back white, not even gray. Of everything, though, it was my eyes and cheeks that seemed the most foreign to me – my cheeks hollowed out like those of a corpse, and my eyes sunk deep into the flesh. Fuck, I looked at least fifteen years older than I should’ve, and so much frailer than I imagined myself. I forced myself to look away, and cupped my hand under the faucet so I could rinse out my mouth. The water had a rusty, sour taste, and it didn’t help at all. I splashed some of it on my face which didn’t make me feel any cleaner. Since that was the only working light in the apartment, when I left the bathroom I kept the door open and the light on so I’d have some light in the room. I brought my papers back to the bathroom and squinted hard at each one until I found the form that had my work address, then grabbed my jacket and left the apartment.

  It had gotten colder since I’d been out earlier. I found myself shivering as I made my way up several side streets to Moody Street. Once I reached Moody Street, I passed a coffee shop with a clock out front. It was twenty to eight; at least I’d woken up early enough that I�
��d be able to get to my job on time. I stopped in the coffee shop, bought a few jelly-filled doughnuts and a large coffee, and got directions for the street where I was going to be working. The young Hispanic girl working behind the cash register had a bright, infectious smile, and told me it shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to get there. She was being too polite and cheerful to have recognized me, but I still dropped thirty cents change into her tip jar.

  While I walked, I ate my doughnuts and drank my coffee, and no more than ten minutes later, as the girl had promised me, I approached a small three-story brick office building where I was supposed to report to work.

  Inside I could see a lone security guard sitting at a desk. I walked up to the glass door and knocked on it. He looked up and gave me an empty stare before pushing himself to his feet and walking slowly to the door so he could get a better look at me. He was no older than thirty. A big awkward-looking kid with a buzz cut and a large round face that made his small dark eyes appear even smaller. He knew who I was. I could tell from how much trouble he was having making eye contact with me. Still, he pretended he didn’t and asked through the intercom who I was and why I was there. I told him and he opened the door for me, mumbling that I should take a seat while he called for the building manager.