Somewhat attractive didn’t do her justice. Even as skinny and unkempt as she was, there was real beauty in her. Someone like her wasn’t about to sit down at a table with a guy like me who was thirty years or so older than her, especially looking the way I did, unless she wanted something from me. After the stories broke about me six months ago I started receiving letters and photos from wack jobs who wanted to correspond with me in prison, a few even offering marriage proposals. Maybe it’s a sadomasochism thing, maybe some bizarre attraction to death, or maybe just plain mental illness, but I discovered first hand that there are plenty of sickos out there who are attracted to serial killers, and I guess some of these looked on a professional hit man as being even more of a prize. Maybe this woman was one of them, except she didn’t look it. With the prison letters I received, you could tell right away how insane these women were.
“Again, what do you want?”
Her lips pursing, she asked, “I have to want something?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” she said. Her eyes glistened several degrees brighter as she studied me. “What you went through in that diner yesterday was rough. I felt for you, but I also liked the way you handled yourself.” She looked away for a moment, a solemnness momentarily weighing on her features. “I guess I also felt empathy. I’ve done plenty of things in the past that I’m not proud of, things that weren’t so nice and that I wish I could take back. I wouldn’t be happy if complete strangers kept throwing them in my face. Fuck that guy yesterday, you know. From what you said, it sounds like you did the world a favor killing his scumbag rapist of an old man. Was what you said true? He really did that to that girl?”
I nodded.
“Well, good for you then.”
“I don’t have money stashed away, if that’s what you’re after.”
More of that throaty laugh, her eyes shining again. “You don’t trust people much, do you?”
“Not too much.” I gave her a long hard look, trying to figure out what she was after. “I’m not killing anyone else, if that’s what you’re here for.”
She didn’t say anything in response to that, but the amusement in her eyes and smile showed that wasn’t it either.
“You want to write a book about me, don’t you?” I asked.
She shook her head and told me that she wasn’t a writer, but there was a hesitation when she did so. So that was it. A wild stab in the dark, but I had figured her out. Another hopeful author who wanted to sell my life story for fame and fortune. At least this one was nice to look at, and more than that, had some personality. I felt comfortable with her.
She stood up, an impish smile still on her lips. She told me she had to get going, but that she lived in the area and she was sure she’d run into me now and again. She warned me if that happened for me not to get all paranoid and think she was following me. I had no doubt that I’d see her again. She’d make sure of it. She was smart enough where she’d give it some time before making her sales pitch about me writing a book with her, but I didn’t much mind the prospect of that.
I watched as she walked away, noticing how nice her curves looked with her dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. Although she probably weighed no more than ninety pounds, I realized her build was more athletic and slender than skinny. Usually I liked a woman with more meat on her bones, but she was still stunning enough to stop your heart, especially with the way she smiled. It was almost a shame watching her slip on a bulky cotton jacket, but it didn’t do much to hide how beautiful she was.
When she reached the door, she stopped to look back at me and give me a few more seconds of that shit-eating grin of hers. I almost called out to ask her her name, but I knew next time I saw her she would make sure to give it to me.
I felt an uneasiness after she left, and sat back and finished my muffin and coffee without really tasting much of either. When I was in prison I made sure to avoid other people and lived a mostly solitary existence. It wasn’t safe otherwise, and the fight to stay alive and survive my stretch so I could someday walk out of prison gave me enough to focus on to make it easy. Now that I was out I found myself needing some sort of human interaction, and was looking forward to when I’d see this dark-haired beauty again, even if she was nothing but a con artist. And that was really what she was. Her plan was to befriend me, even hold out the promise of sex – not that there was any real chance of that happening – and eventually wear me down so I would agree to writing a book with her. I’d been around more than enough con men to know how this was going to work, but what she didn’t understand was as much as she was trying to play a game on me, there actually was a connection between us. Not enough so that we’d ever end up romantically involved, but there was something there. Right now she was on too much of a high in working her game to get the book deal, but at some point she’d see it also.
My cell phone rang then. I stared at it, frowning, seeing that the caller ID was once again unavailable. I wasn’t in the mood for a vague threat from some wannabe tough guy, so I turned off the phone instead of answering it. I was still stopping by the cell-phone store each day, but so far my salesman hadn’t shown up again, and I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to, that for some reason he must’ve quit his job.
I put the call out of my mind, and instead thought more about the woman who had just left me, and found myself anxiously looking forward to when I’d see her again. I knew it would be soon – she wouldn’t let too much time go by, not with her just starting her game.
It turned out I was right. That Saturday I went to the same coffee shop and she was already camped out there with a dog-eared paperback in one hand and a large cup of coffee in the other. I’d done the same plenty of times when I was waiting for a target.
She glanced up shortly after I’d walked into the shop, and as she saw me her eyes grew exaggeratedly large. With a wicked grin, she accused me of stalking her. I shook my head, but that grin of hers was infectious enough to crack a smile from me, which doesn’t happen often. She waited until after I bought a coffee and slice of lemon pound cake and had been sitting alone for a few minutes before getting up from her table and asking if she could join me.
“It looks like you could use the company,” she said, her grin even more wicked.
“Yes, sure, I’d like that.”
I felt a pang of guilt knowing that I wasn’t going to be agreeing to write a book with her. I should’ve told her point blank there wasn’t any chance of it happening and let her drop her game, but I couldn’t. Like the other day, she was strikingly beautiful, but also unkempt. Her hair was the same tangled hornet’s nest and her clothes were badly worn and tattered. She probably bought them from a similar thrift store to the one I had shopped at earlier, except in her case she had worn them to near threads. She was clearly in the midst of a bad stretch, and had latched on to this book idea as a way to pull herself out. As beautiful as she was she could’ve made a nice income as a stripper, and an even nicer one as a high-class hooker, but I guess no matter how hard up she was for money she wasn’t about to resort to either of those, and that just made me like her all the more.
She took the seat across from me and showed me the paperback she had been reading, The Godfather by Mario Puzo. “I bought it for twenty-five cents at a garage sale,” she told me. Either she was doing research or she was trying to send me some sort of subtle message that I wasn’t getting.
“What do you do for work?” I asked.
“Wow, a bit abrupt, aren’t we?” she said, her voice light, amused. “But to answer your question, a little bit of this and that, but right now I’m in between jobs.” Her eyes lowered as she took a sip of her coffee. When she looked up and met my eyes again, her smile had turned wistful. “I’d heard about you in the news before, but really didn’t pay much attention. After we met the other day, I went to the library and dug up some of the stories about you. I was so sorry to read that your wife died while you were in prison. That must’v
e been hard.”
I nodded, didn’t say anything.
“Those people you killed, let me guess, they weren’t quite as innocent and pure as the driven snow as the papers made them out to be?”
“No, they weren’t,” I said with only a slight hesitation. The two men I had killed with Behrle turned out to be friends of his, and they both turned out to be even worse scumbags than he ever was. I had looked into it after the hit, and they were involved in a string of home invasions, one of which left a teenage girl paralyzed. I had no remorse for those two.
“Fucking newspapers,” she said. “They can make the worst scum out to be a fucking saint.” A hardness momentarily tightened her smile, and I had this sense about her then that she had blood on her hands also. Maybe an abusive partner, maybe some incestuous relative. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had done a stretch in prison too, but I didn’t ask her about any of that.
She was still absorbed in her thoughts, and had absently pulled a pack of Newports from her jacket pocket. She tapped a cigarette out, slid it in her mouth, and was about to light up before she remembered where she was.
“Think they’d throw me in jail if I lit up in here?” she asked, the cig now out of her mouth and held lightly between her index and middle fingers.
“No doubt,” I said.
Her gaze wandered past me, and she stuck out her tongue at a coffee shop employee who had been glaring openly at her. Smiling to herself, she put the cig behind her ear.
“I need this badly right now,” she told me, referring to the cig. She gestured with her eyes that I was welcome to join her outside while she lit up, but I stayed in my seat. She opened her eyes wider in mock surprise over the fact that I wasn’t jumping at the chance to join her, and before she turned to leave, told me she was sure we’d bump into each other again. I was sure of that also.
I was a little surprised she hadn’t given me her name yet. I would’ve thought that would’ve happened after our second “chance” meeting. It turned out she didn’t disappoint me. She was halfway to the door when she turned on her heels and walked back to my table, offering me her hand.
“By the way, my name’s Sophie Duval,” she said.
“Leonard March,” I said.
“As if you’re telling me something I don’t already know,” she said with a wink. I watched the way her slender hips moved as she headed back to the front door. Christ, she was gorgeous. At least thirty years younger than me and absolutely gorgeous. When she reached the door, she stopped to snap off a quick army-type salute in my direction, then left. I wondered briefly when I’d be bumping into her again. I knew it wouldn’t be long.
It was Tuesday when I saw her next. At around seven-thirty in the evening I was walking along Moody Street to my job when I heard footsteps racing behind me. Next thing I knew an arm was hooking mine and a small hand resting on my leather jacket sleeve below the elbow. It was Sophie. Her face was flushed. In a breathless whisper she told me that it looked like a car was following me.
It was a cold late October night with the wind whipping up, and I’d been walking with my head bowed and hadn’t been paying much attention to the street. I turned and saw that she was right. A light blue Chevrolet sedan was creeping along keeping pace with me. There were two men in the car. Both looked hardened. The driver slid his glance sideways and noticed me looking his way. His eyes were cold and empty, his face scarred and with a toughness to it. Without any change of expression, he stared straight ahead and sped away.
Sophie recited some random numbers. I stared at her, confused.
“The license plate,” she said. “Damn, Leonard, you have to pay more attention to what’s going on around you. There are obviously people out there holding grudges.”
“I was hoping I had already slipped into yesterday’s news.”
“Obviously not.” Her face had flushed to a deep red. There was so much excitement in her eyes. “You know, I might’ve saved your life tonight. I might have to think of a way for you to repay me.”
It was possible she was right. Those two in the blue Chevrolet could’ve been Lombard’s boys. They had the look of it. But it could also be part of the game Sophie was running. An awful big coincidence her being there at the right time to warn me about that car, but not if she had arranged it in the first place.
“Any idea how I’ll be able to do that?” I asked.
“I’ll think of something.”
I had thrown it out there, and she decided to play me the right way and not be too anxious for her pitch. If she had asked me then about writing a book with her, she’d be tipping her hand that it was all a con and that she already had her payoff in mind. I wondered which it was with that car. It could just as likely have been Lombard’s boys as an arrangement by Sophie, but the more I thought about it the more I was leaning towards Lombard. Sophie probably knew my routine by now, and was most likely out there looking for me when she happened to see me and the car, then realized quickly how she could use it.
We walked another two blocks without either of us saying a word. The feel of her hand on my arm and the occasional touch of her hip against mine damn near took my breath away, and she knew the effect she was having on me. We were a block away from the side street I needed to take for my job when she told me that this was where she was getting off and that she’d see me around. She let go of my arm and I watched mesmerized as she walked into a small Hispanic grocery store. For a few seconds all I could think of was the feel of her hand on my arm. After the door had closed behind her and she was out of sight, I felt a heavy sigh rumble out of me, and I trudged off to work.
Chapter 17
1979
Vincent DiGrassi opens an eye as I approach him. He’s lying propped up on his bed. Both his eyes are now open. As yellowish and bloody as they are, there’s still an alertness to them. He knows full well why I’m there. I pull a chair up next to him and sit so I’m resting the forty-five and its attached silencer on my thigh. What used to be such a robust bull of a man is now only skin and bones. He’s probably dropped eighty pounds in the past year.
“Sal send you?” he asks, his voice not much more than a croak.
“Yeah.”
He digests that, puckers up his mouth, and says in an aggrieved tone, “So you’re dealing with Sal directly now.”
“Yeah, ever since it’s been clear how sick you are.”
The little that’s left of his face folds into an ugly frown. At first I think he’s going to start bawling, but he turns his eyes towards me and stares with utter fury.
“This is bullshit,” he insists.
I shrug. What is there for me to say?
“I’m not talking to no cops. There’s no reason for Sal wanting this.”
I scratch behind an ear, smile at him sadly. “What if you end up hopped up on drugs? Who knows what you say then.
Vincent, you know this has to be done.”
“You little punk, you calling me Vincent now? What the fuck happened to Mr DiGrassi?”
I don’t say anything. His color’s not much better than gray now. He looks away, the fury fades from his eyes leaving them glassy.
“You can tell Sal I’m not going to any hospital,” he says. “I plan on dying in my own bed.”
My smile grows more genuine thinking how right he is. I realize this and force a somber look. “Your wife or kids might think differently. Mr Lombard can’t take the chance. You have to know that.”
“Don’t you fucking patronize me,” he spits out. Then, showing his self pity, he adds, “Fuck you. After everything I’ve done for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes slide sideways to look at me. “That business last year with that skirt you were supposed to hit. The one you claimed was tipped off and made a run for it.”
He was referring to Joey Lando’s inside person. The one I let get away. “Yeah, what about it?” I say.
“Sal and some of his boys thought it sounded funny. They thoug
ht maybe you’d gone soft and couldn’t hit a skirt. I went out on a limb for you and convinced them you were on the level. I hadn’t done that you’d be buried in a landfill now.”
He’s staring hard at me, trying to read inside me. He sees what he’s looking for and turns away. “What the fuck do you know,” he mutters. “They were right.”
His thick lips curl to show the contempt he feels for me.
“She was just a kid,” I explain. “It wouldn’t have been right.”
“Who the fuck are you to make that decision? A bank guard died in those robberies your rat punk buddy did and she was as responsible as the other two of them.”
He realizes then the irony in chastising me for being sentimental and not killing one of my targets while at the same time trying to talk me into doing the same now. I can see the confusion clouding up his eyes.
“You don’t have to use the forty-five,” he says after a while. “You can use the pillow instead. That way Angie and my kids can have an open casket.”
He’s bracing himself waiting. I don’t move. There’s been something I’ve been wanting to ask him for a long time.
“That hit I did right before my wedding. Who the fuck was that guy?”
His eyes come alive once he remembers the hit. He starts laughing. It’s a weak, broken-down type laugh, and before too long he starts choking on it, then breaks into a coughing fit. After he settles down, he nods and tells me, “You.”
I’m confused. I ask him what he means.
“The guy you hit was the same as you. Another hit man for Sal.”
“Why’d I hit him?”
DiGrassi makes a face showing his disgust. “’Cause he got soft. Claimed one of his targets skipped town to parts unknown without him tipping the target off. Sal didn’t believe him. Neither did I. So are you going to use the fucking pillow or what?”
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