Alarm showed in his eyes. “I’ll look into this,” he said. “Please wait here.”
Nothing had been taken out of my wallet, but I figured a hundred and fifty was more than a fair price for the ordeal they had put me through. Less than ten minutes later Captain Gormer returned handing me a new bottle of aspirin and a hundred and fifty dollars. All I could imagine was them sending out a squad car with the siren on to buy me the aspirin. I opened the bottle with my left hand, dumped a couple of tablets into my mouth, then asked Gormer whether the media was camped outside. He told me they were.
“Is there a back way out of here?” I asked.
He nodded, relief in his eyes. “I’ll have a patrolman show you the way,” he said.
I should’ve asked Gormer how they were able to corroborate my statement. I had assumed it was either Thomas Mueller fucking things up for him and his brother or a witness coming forward. It turned out it was something else entirely, and it creeped me out when I saw what it was.
I was sitting in a bar having a few Michelob drafts and trying to get my nerves under control when the news came on and a video was played that had been sent to them anonymously earlier in the day. The video showed it all; from when I stopped to watch the Mueller brothers outside the liquor store, to me running across the street and everything that followed until the police showed up. It would’ve been impossible for the police to have twisted that video to support Jason Mueller’s statement, and I should’ve been grateful that that video existed, but I couldn’t help feeling a queasiness in my gut realizing that someone had been following me without me realizing it. Not only following me, but videoing me.
Several of the other bar patrons had started staring at me as they recognized me from the video. When they showed my prison photo and talked about my recent release from prison and my violent history, more eyes turned my way. After the photo, they cut to a press conference where Captain Gormer talked about my heroism, all the while looking like he had a tooth that needed pulling. The bar became deathly quiet, the only sound coming from the TV set. No one spoke a word to me. The bartender stood off to the side looking increasingly uncomfortable as he tried to catch glimpses of me without meeting my eye. I sat silently drinking my draft, the tips of my ears burning hot. When I finished I got up and left, feeling all eyes in the bar following me out the door.
While I walked back to my apartment, more heads turned my way. This was what I didn’t want. I had started to fade from the news and become invisible, and now I was being put right back on the front page. Knowing that that would happen had frozen me earlier and almost had me turning a blind eye away from the two punks gearing themselves up outside the liquor store. As awkward as it was watching the news in that bar, it was also interesting seeing the confusion on the anchor’s face as she struggled with knocking my horns off and putting a halo on me. All in all, though, it left me unsettled.
I stopped off at a convenience store for a bag of ice. I wasn’t sure if it would do any good, but I thought I’d use the ice for my shoulder. When I got to my apartment door and saw the match I had forced between the door and the doorjamb lying on the floor, I knew someone had been inside. The lock hadn’t been tampered with, so that person had either been given a key or was good with locks. I went into the apartment and saw pretty quickly that the place had been searched. It wouldn’t have been obvious to the average person since clothes hadn’t been tossed on the floor and nothing appeared out of place, but to me it was as plain as day. I had done things to let me know if drawers had been opened or items moved. I made a quick search to see if anything was missing, and found that the money I had taped on the inside of the radiator cover was still there. After dusting myself off and chewing on a few aspirin, I went to the apartment building’s administrative office.
The same dull heavy woman from before was working, or at least she was supposed to be. She offered me an empty fish-eyed stare before turning back to the magazine she was reading.
“Someone was inside my apartment,” I said.
“Apartments were sprayed today for pests,” she said flatly and without looking at me. “Notices were sent last week.”
“I didn’t get a notice.”
“You should have.”
She went back to reading her magazine. I watched for a minute before telling her that I wanted the name of the pest-control service they used. “Whoever it was, they searched my apartment,” I added.
She put down her magazine and turned her fish-eyed stare back at me. “How do you know this? Your place trashed?”
“No, but whoever did this went through my drawers.”
“Anything missing?”
“No, nothing’s missing.”
“Then what’s your beef?” she asked, challenging me more with that ugly fish-eyed stare.
“Are you sure it wasn’t the police in my apartment?”
“I told you who it was.”
I couldn’t read whether she was lying or not. “Did someone pay you to get inside my apartment?” I asked.
Her mouth tightened as she stared at me. “I’ve had enough of your nonsense,” she said, her voice still flat and dull. “You don’t like our policies here, find yourself another address. Now get out of my office before I call the police.”
There was no point in trying to get anything out of her, at least not by talking, and I wasn’t about to resort to my old methods. I left her and went back to my apartment where I first looked around the kitchen for any chemicals that a pest-control person would’ve left, then put some ice in a plastic bag, sat down in my recliner and held the ice against my right shoulder. If a pest-control person had been in there, I couldn’t find any sign of chemicals being sprayed in the kitchen, nor could I smell much beyond the damp mildewy odor that my apartment always had.
When I showed up at work later the kid working security gave me the same sort of confused look that that TV anchor had showed earlier. “I saw that video,” he said.
This was the first time he had willingly spoken to me, and it stopped me. “Yeah?” I said. “You caught me on the news?”
He shook his head. “No, YouTube.”
I didn’t know what that was, but I felt some sort of encouragement that he was volunteering to have a conversation with me. More just to keep it going than out of any real curiosity, I asked him what he thought.
He handed me the office keys and had me sign the checkout sheet before telling me that I must’ve had some sort of angle for doing what I did. “You’re no hero, that’s for damn sure,” he said, his eyes hard as they met mine.
“Fuck you,” I told him, and I left him to go do my job.
I started off the night listening to music, but after twenty minutes or so curiosity got the better of me and I tuned into the same talk show that had been talking about me when I first got out of prison. They were talking about me again; this time the calls were all over the place with some callers claiming that what I did didn’t change the fact that I was a murderous scumbag and a rat to boot and that I was still going to get mine in the end, others thinking I had some ulterior motive for my heroism, while a few scattered callers talked about forgiveness and redemption and how I should be given credit for potentially saving lives inside that liquor store. I didn’t much enjoy listening to any of it, but I couldn’t turn it off, and after a while I admitted to myself the reason why – that I was hoping that Allison, or at least the woman who sounded like my daughter, would call back in. She didn’t.
The talk show discussed me for two hours before they moved on to a different topic. I went through the radio dial then, but couldn’t find any other shows talking about me. I turned the radio off, not much in the mood to listen to anything. As it was, because of my shoulder I was moving slower than usual and was behind schedule. I had been chewing aspirin all night, but it didn’t help much, and I was only able to lift my right arm up to my chest. When I tried lifting it higher, the pain brought tears to my eyes. I tried pushing myself harder to catch up,
but I didn’t finish cleaning the last office until two-thirty. When I checked the keys back in the kid working security made a comment about me being late.
“So what?”
“You’re supposed to finish by two o’clock,” he said peevishly. “Not spending a half-hour extra in those offices taking a nap or whatever else you were doing. That’s so what. I’ll have to report this.”
His new-found boldness was annoying and I decided I liked it better when he was too afraid to say much of anything. I leaned in closer to him and told him how he looked like a guy I once knew, and it was the truth.
“Duane Halvin,” I said. “Big roly-poly kid. Thirty years old and still had baby fat. Christ, the two of you could’ve been separated at birth.” I leaned in closer, added, “I had to put an ice pick through his eye, and the thing was, I used to see Duane all the time at the track and I liked the guy. He was fun to hang around. You, not so much.”
His hard grin fell slack once he registered what I was saying. I left him then, remembering how the same pretty much happened with Duane Halvin once he realized what I had the ice pick for.
I’ve never been a heavy drinker, usually limiting myself to a couple of beers or a shot now and again. When I got back to my apartment I poured six ounces of cheap whiskey into a glass. With how anxious I was, and with the way my mind was racing and my shoulder throbbing like hell, I knew without the whiskey I’d have no chance of sleeping. After I drank it, I sat in my recliner and held a bag of ice to my shoulder, waiting until my eyelids felt heavy before moving to the bed.
Mercifully, I was out after I closed my eyes.
chapter 19
1980
My mom’s waiting by the curb. While we talk on the phone every week for about a minute, this is the first time I’ve seen her in three years, even though we live only twenty minutes from each other. Our weekly conversation always goes the same way:
“How are you, mom?”
“Fine. And yourself?”
“Fine.”
“That’s good. Your children?”
“Fine.”
“Well, goodbye then.”
She never asks about Jenny, which is expected since the two of them don’t get along, to put it mildly. As far as I go, our weekly conversations are on a par with any we’ve ever had. Our relationship has always been an uneasy truce. I don’t think there was ever a time we felt comfortable together, and while she never said as much in words, she made it clear in actions and attitude that I should’ve been the son to die early, not my brothers, Tony and Jim.
She looks the same since I’ve seen her last. Plump, sturdy frame, gray hair in a bun and as tightly wound as steel wool. Her face round and placid, her legs like small tree stumps. The black dress she’s wearing is hanging off her like a canvas sack. If she were living in a remote village near some forest in Russia, she’d look like the type of woman who could outwrestle a wolf if she had to and make Sunday dinner out of it. In her wedding pictures she was beautiful. Slender, narrow, heart-shaped face, thick black hair that fell past delicate bare shoulders. Hard to believe it’s the same person. I don’t know when she changed. Outside of her gray hair, I can’t remember her ever looking much different than she does now.
I pull the car up next to her. She gets in, and up close I notice how much older she actually looks, her skin more faded and wrinkled, her eyes duller. Still, her face is locked in a dour frown, almost as if it’s been carved out of stone. She asks where her grandchildren are.
“They’re too young for this,” I say.
“I was hoping to see them,” she says, her German-Jewish accent as thick as ever.
“Some other time.”
We both know it won’t be any time soon. How many times have we seen each other in the last ten years? Three times is all I can remember, and I think we both prefer it this way. There’s a discomfort between us. I can feel it in my gut, and even though she’s sitting stoically with her hands folded in her lap, I know she feels it too. It’s funny how I always felt so at ease with my pop, and never with her.
As I’m pulling the car away from the curb I tell her she didn’t have to wait for me outside, that she could’ve waited inside her apartment and I would’ve come and got her. She only hesitates for a second before telling me that she didn’t want me to have to find a parking space, especially given how difficult it can be finding free parking around there. It’s a bald-faced lie. There are a half dozen empty spots in plain view. We both know the reason is because she doesn’t want me in her apartment, and she certainly doesn’t want to have to explain me to any of her friends or neighbors we might bump into. As far as she’s concerned her two sons are dead, and I’ve always been something else entirely.
We drive in silence to the cemetery with neither of us bothering to make small talk. I notice her looking at the Rolex watch Sal Lombard gave me. It was stupid of me wearing it, not that it much matters. I could give her some bullshit explanation about winning it in a poker game or having a good week at the track, but she’ll know I’m lying. She has no reason to think that I do anything other than work in a liquor store, but it’s always been like she knows I make my money other ways than the job I’m supposed to have. I don’t bother explaining the Rolex to her, there’s no point.
On the way to the cemetery I stop off to buy flowers. While I do this, my mom sits silently in the car. When I return I hand her the dozen white roses I bought. Her mouth crumbles for a moment before she gets her emotion under control.
“What about for your brothers,” she says. “You can’t be bothered to buy flowers for them?”
We’re going to the cemetery for the twentieth anniversary of my pop’s death. If she wanted me to buy flowers for Tony and Jim she should’ve said something instead of stewing in all her regret. I feel a vein pulsing along my temple, and I swallow back what I want to say, instead tell her that we can split the roses among all three graves. I know she’s not happy with that, but I’m not about to go back into that store because of some fucking whim of hers, especially with the way she’d been staring earlier at my Rolex.
When we get to the cemetery I have to ask workmen for directions to Pop’s gravesite since this is the first time I’ve been there since the funeral. By this time I’ve calmed down; my mom, though, is still stewing in her resentment, an icy frigidness coming off her in waves, all over some fucking flowers. About what I should’ve expected. Anyway, I don’t care.
I find Pop’s grave. I wait by it while my mom plods along behind me. Pop’s buried in a family plot, Tony and Jim are buried there also, although with Tony the casket’s empty since the army was never able to locate his remains. There are two empty graves there waiting for my mom and me.
When my mom catches up, I hand her the roses to place on the graves. She puts six roses on Pop’s, three each on my brothers’. All three gravestones are modest. With my pop’s, just his name and the years marking his birth and death. Both Tony and Jim’s have them being loving sons, and in Tony’s case, that he died in service of his country. While we stand there, I see a wetness around my mom’s eyes, then a few tears crawling down her cheek. It’s a struggle but she keeps her mouth from crumbling.
We stand at the gravesite for around fifteen minutes, neither of us saying anything. My mom turns first to leave.
While we’re walking to the car I spot a name on a gravestone that I recognize. It’s a guy I hit for Lombard. The gravestone talks about what a wonderful person he was, a loving father and devoted husband. I remembered him as a cocaine-snorting asshole who fucked every whore he could get his dick into. He sold drugs for Lombard, and when DiGrassi found that this scumbag had been ripping Lombard off for five years I was brought into the picture. This loving father offered me his thirteen-year-old daughter to do whatever I wanted with as a way to try to save his ass. I didn’t mind icing him one fucking bit.
I realize my mom’s watching me. From the glimmer in her eyes, she knows that I had something to do with this fucker�
��s death, probably even knows then what I do to make my money.
Christ, she’s perceptive. Always has been able to look inside me, which pretty much explains why we don’t like to be around each other.
chapter 20
present
I woke up with my head splitting. Squeezing my eyes hard against the sunlight drenching the room, I lay immobilized for a long minute before I sat up slowly, making sure to move at a glacier’s pace to keep those tiny silver daggers from ripping into my brain any more than they were. Once I maneuvered myself into a sitting position, I cradled my head in my hands until I thought I could move. I realized then my cell phone was ringing but there wasn’t a chance I’d be able to reach for it. Instead, each ring sent those daggers ripping deeper into my brain. When I could finally get off the bed, I stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on to my face. I was still doing that when my cell phone rang again. Grabbing a towel to dry off my face, I went back to get the phone.
My eyes weren’t functioning well enough for me to read the caller ID and I croaked into the phone instead, asking what the fuck the person wanted.
“Dad, is that you?”
It was my son, Michael. I sat on the edge of the bed and carefully massaged my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. I apologized to him for the way I answered the call.
“This guy keeps calling and making vague, tough-guy threats,” I explained. “I thought it was him calling again.”
“Are you okay?” Michael asked. “You don’t sound good.”
“I’m okay. I just get these headaches. Today it’s worse than usual.”
“How long have you been getting them?”
“A long time. Years. It’s nothing to worry about.”
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