A Dangerous Man ht-3

by Charlie Huston

  She breathes.

  She looks at my face, the face I was not born with.

  She breathes.

  The barrel of the gun is deep in the hollow beneath my chin, shivering.

  She breathes.

  Her mouth opens wide, mirroring my own, and a sound, a ragged wail like the one that escaped mine, comes from hers.

  She slumps, the gun falls from her hand and thumps on the carpet. Spiky touches her shoulder.

  – Tetka?

  She looks at me, closes her eyes.

  Whispers.

  – No. It is all right. Everything is all right.

  But it’s not. How could it be?

  – How do you kill?

  She speaks English beautifully, just the trace of an accent to let you know it is not her native tongue, so I know there is no misunderstanding. I know it’s not what she means, but still, I think of all the many ways I have killed.

  – How?

  And she is not speaking to me in any case.

  – How can you kill another human being?

  She is speaking to the wall-to-wall carpet.

  – And a boy?

  She gestures to the carpet, trying to eke an answer from it.

  – How do you kill a boy?

  She shakes her head.

  – A simple boy. A beautiful boy.

  She looks at the ceiling now.

  – You. You have killed so many people. A boy, more or less, what was he to you?

  She puts her hand to her chest.

  – But he was everything to me.

  She clutches a handful of material at her breast.

  – Everything.

  Her eyes fall back to the carpet.

  – You have killed so many.

  Her hand goes to her forehead.

  – And I cannot kill even one.

  And now she looks at me.

  – Not even if that one is you.

  She spits on my face.

  – A murderer. A killer of boys.

  She stands, gets up from the floor where she has been sitting right next to me.

  – I cannot kill you.

  She is straightening her dress, her hands scuttling over her body, tugging at wrinkles.

  – But I know who you are.

  She steps to the ottoman and picks up the small black handbag sitting next to it.

  – I know who you are.

  She opens the bag, takes out two pieces of paper and unfolds them.

  – I know who you are.

  The papers have been handled much, and she smooths them against her thigh.

  – See, I know who you are.

  She separates the papers, holds them one in each hand, and sticks them in my face.

  – This is who you are.

  The paper in her left hand is a photocopy of various pieces of ID: my driver’s license, a library card, a credit card, a gym card. They are mine, really mine. They say Henry Thompson. These are the pieces of identification I left with a forger named Billy.

  The paper in her right hand was torn from today’s Post. It’s a fragment of Page Six, a photo of Miguel, half-naked Jay tossed over his shoulder. But that’s not the best part, the best part is me, right behind them, pushing them out the door of Hogs & Heifers.

  She drops the papers on the floor and wipes her hands on her thighs, cleaning away any trace of me that might have clung to them.

  – They told me.

  She points at the two young men.

  – They told me you were alive. And that David knew. They told me, Go to David, go see your brother-in-law. Ask him. But I did not believe them. It was too much. Too much.

  She brings her hands to her forehead and turns her back to me. She stands like that, hands pressed to her forehead, holding something terrible inside. The blond walks to her, starts to whisper in Russian, but she takes one of the hands from her head and holds it out, silencing him. He shrugs, bends, picks up the gun she dropped next to the couch, puts it in his pocket and goes to stand behind the chair.

  The guy with the widow’s peak just sits there watching, chaining cigarette after cigarette.

  Mickey’s mother drops her hands to her sides. She is still now, only her eyes move, skipping around the room, occasionally touching on me, but never looking into my own.

  – I went to see him yesterday. To apologize to my brother-in-law. To my son’s godfather. To tell him that things had gone too far. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Since my son died, since he was murdered, I have not been able to think clearly. I.

  She’s starting to lose it again. She stops for a moment, gets it back.

  – And I walked past a man in the hall. Then I looked. And, you were looking at me. And I. Something. But. How could I think? Impossible. I talked to David, but I told him nothing. Nothing. And when I came home, I looked at this again.

  She’s pointing at the photocopy.

  – And I looked and I looked. But I couldn’t see it. And I can’t sleep. I can never sleep. I want to. When Mickey…I would dream about him. And it was. He was with me. I could feel him. It was the only time he was with me anymore. But I can’t sleep now. I have to take pills and they won’t let me sleep. And I take other pills and I sleep, but they don’t let me dream. And I want to sleep. I want to dream about my son. I. I. I.

  Tears again. She is furious at them. She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes and whisks the tears away.

  – But last night. I slept. And I dreamt. But it was about you. You son of a bitch. I can’t dream about my son, but I dream about you. You. And this morning. I see that.

  She points at the page of torn newsprint.

  – I sit with my tea and I flip the pages of the newspaper. I see nothing. Flip, flip, flip. Nothing. Until I see this. And I looked. I looked at that picture. And I looked at the other pictures of you. And I.

  She presses her hands flat together and holds them in front of her chest.

  – I knew.

  She squeezes her eyes shut. Muscles on her forearms flex as she pushes her hands one against the other.

  – I knew.

  She opens her eyes and drops her hands. Air sighs from her mouth.

  – I knew.

  She bites her lower lip.

  – But I can’t kill you. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. And I want to. So badly I want to. I. But I can’t. But you.

  She points at me.

  – You can kill David.

  – She’s our aunt.

  She left without saying another word. Picked up her bag, went to the door, waited while Spiky opened it, and went out with him following. She never looked at me again, and I never had a chance to tell her what me trying to kill David would mean to my parents.

  Then Widow’s Peak gets up and starts pacing back and forth in front of the couch. A pair of legs in very blue jeans, bleached nearly white down the fronts of the thighs, scissoring past me. As he paces and talks, he smokes, flicking ashes, letting them drift onto the carpet.

  – Tetka Anna. Our mother’s sister. A beautiful woman. Even now.

  His hand dips in his pocket and comes out with a flick-knife. The blade pops open. He bends over my back and there’s a snap as he cuts the plastic bindings on my wrists. I sit up slowly, a rush of blood making my hands tingle and my head throb even worse. I sit and massage the deep red welts on my wrists.

  – She brought us over last year.

  He takes a seat in the flowered armchair.

  – We had to leave Russia.

  He takes another Marlboro Light from the box on the table next to him, sticks it in his mouth and lights it from the butt of his last one.

  – Trouble.

  He stubs the butt in a glass dish full of glass marbles.

  – Our father. Our mother. Do you know what a Shakhidki is?

  I shake my head.

  – It is a Russian word for a word in Arabic. It is a female word.

  He has one of those thin beards that trace the line of the jaw, a moustache just a
s thin arches from it to cross his upper lip. He traces it with a fingertip.

  – You know anything about Chechnya?

  I shake my head, still massaging my wrists.

  – But you know what it is? A country? Part of the old USSR?

  I nod. I press my hand to my forehead and find a residue of saliva. I wipe it off.

  – You know there are rebels?

  I nod.

  – Yes. It is like the Middle East for Russia. Shit. It is a great pile of shit.

  I gently run my hand over my face. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it eases the pain. Not this time.

  Widow’s Peak points at the door Mickey’s mother and Spiky went through.

  – My brother, his name is Martin. I am Adam. Those are our American names. In Russia, we would be called something different. But here, these are our names. Tetka Anna thought of them for us.

  He blows a smoke ring, watches it dissolve, thinking of his real name maybe. He stops thinking about it and looks back at me.

  – Our father. My brother Martin and me, our father. He was an intelligence officer. In Chechnya. Very high up. Very important. He. Everybody must serve in Russia. Not like here. Everybody. My brother and me, we did not wait to be drafted. We served. Volunteers. In Chechnya. With our father. Intelligence.

  He picks up the box of cigarettes. Holds it out to me. I shake my head. It hurts.

  He shrugs and chains another.

  – Intelligence. Interrogation. An interrogation unit we worked in. Our father put us there. To keep us out of combat. But it was.

  He smokes.

  – It was hard work. I think sometimes. Sometimes I think we would rather have fought. Martin would rather have fought. I know this.

  He pulls the knife from his pocket and his thumb snaps it open and shut. Open and shut.

  – OK. So. Yes. It was hard work. But it was over. Like all things. It was over.

  Open and shut.

  – I know English. I was almost. I could have taken another post. In Moscow. Somewhere. A city. I could have stayed in intelligence. But no. When we had served, we were done. Our father. He understood. Chechnya.

  Open.

  – He stayed. His duty. And our mother.

  And shut.

  – She stayed. Of course. And. There are people there. These women. They have lost husbands. Sons. So.

  Open.

  – So one of these women. She has a bag. A knapsack. She walks into a cafe. She sits at a table. She takes off her knapsack. She reaches inside of it. And the bomb inside goes off. And the intelligence officer sitting at the next table is blown up. And his wife he is having lunch with is blown up.

  And shut.

  – And this woman had lost men. Her husband and her boys. And so she became a Shakhidki. A holy warrior. The newspapers, they call them also black widows.

  He slips the knife back in his pocket.

  – And now you know what this is. And you know also.

  He draws the last cigarette from the box and lights it.

  – You know also, I think, that she is one, too.

  He points at the closed door.

  – Tetka Anna. A Shakhidki.

  THERE’S MORE.

  – Martin wanted to stay. To fight. He wanted to reenlist and fight in Chechnya. No interrogation this time. Guns. Battle. But he would have died. We both would have died. They knew who we were. The rebels. They knew our father. We would have been assassinated as soon as we returned. Anywhere in Russia we would be assassinated. And family. We still had family. Here. Tetka Anna.

  Out of cigarettes, he has begun pacing again.

  – After Mikhail was killed, she was calling all the time. To talk to our mother. She was so sad. When our mother was killed, she was more sad. And I told my brother, If we stay here we will be killed. He did not care. But I did. I told him, We can still do something. We have family. We can take care of Tetka Anna. For mother. For mother. He likes this. Taking care of someone else, it makes him. He does not forget, but it makes him better. We came here. And she is. There is only one thing she talks about. Yes? No. Two things. Her son. And you. We can do nothing about her son.

  He returns to the chair, sits, and pokes at the butts in the glass dish. He finds one not quite half smoked and lights it.

  – But maybe we can do something about you.

  He takes a drag from the stale butt and makes a face, but he keeps smoking it.

  – She told us that David believed you were dead. OK. We investigate. There are books. There are old TV programs. There is the Internet. And we find that there is no body. Something is wrong. In Chechnya, if a rebel is not there when the soldiers go to capture him, often the family says he has died. The soldiers say, Where is the body? And if there is no body, or if it is the wrong body, they bring us the family and we ask them questions. But your family, where are they? We do not know. We need. We need someone to ask questions. No. Someone we can ask questions. There are these things.

  He points at the papers at my feet, at the photocopy of my ID. I pick up both papers.

  – This was bought from a forger. He heard of Tetka Anna. Brought her these and sold them to her. She thought they could help. How? I do not know. But, the man who sold them. That is a man my brother and I must talk to.

  I look at the photocopy and think about Billy. A young guy. A freelancer. A guy with a talent for computers and pieces of plastic.

  I put the papers together and fold them between my hands.

  Adam sucks a last bit of smoke from his butt, crushes it and begins digging for another.

  – We went to him. Martin and I. The things. The things he knew. We had no idea.

  He finds a suitable remnant, straightens and lights it.

  – He does work for everyone. His work is valued. He does work for David. Not just forgery. But information. He has a gift for this. Like us. But different. His is with machines. Ours, not so. But we can learn what he knows.

  He makes a noise, like a cat quietly coughing up a hairball, and drops the butt back in the dish. He sniffs at his fingertips and makes the sound again.

  – And we do. We learn.

  He closes his eyes.

  – Too much.

  He opens them.

  – David. He is our uncle. By marriage only. But he is our uncle. But this man. He is shit.

  He stands and paces once more.

  – The forger tells us he has done a job for David. Identification for a man in Las Vegas. He showed us the pictures. He showed us the changes. He told us what he thinks. But we do not need him to tell us. We can see it. But there is more. If you wait, if you are patient, there is always more. He has met our cousin. Mikhail. And he knows something.

  He stops pacing.

  – Mikhail had lost his passport. He was to travel soon and he had lost his Russian passport. This is not a easy thing to replace. But it is something David could help with. He was a artist, our cousin. You know this? A filmmaker. A student.

  I nod.

  – Yes. He wanted to make a film. For school. NYU. I remember when my mother received the letter from Tetka Anna. She was so proud. She told us what it was, NYU. One of the best. And expensive. They do not give you the money to make your films. He wanted money for this film. He went to his uncle. He had plans. He would go to Europe. Take time from school and travel Europe. Russia. See family. Then back and start this film. But David, he thinks a man should work. He offered the money, but Mikhail must work for it. Do not go to Europe, David said to him, go to Mexico. Have fun in Mexico. Relax. But look for this man.

  He points at me.

  – You. David told his nephew to go to Mexico and look for you. Do not do anything, he said. Just look. David promised the money whether Mikhail saw you or not. Ten thousand dollars to go to Mexico on vacation and to look. Why not?

  He stops pacing.

  – And the forger can tell us this story because Mikhail had lost his passport. So David had sent him to the forger. And he had bragged to the
forger. About his uncle. About the job he would do. And how he would be paid. Paid by his uncle to go to a foreign country and look for a killer.

  He makes the hairball sound. But this time he is not smoking.

  – So now we know. We know you are alive. We know you are in Las Vegas. We know David is protecting you. And we know how little he cares for his family. Is there need for more?

  He waits.

  I shake my head.

  He nods.

  – But there is more. We cannot make Tetka believe. She will not believe this is David. That he would do these things. She thinks we are wrong. Until she sees you at his office. And the picture in the paper. And we show her the forger’s pictures again. And she believes. So then. She wants you. And we know where to find you. Because in the news article there, it says the man you are with is a baseball player. And people at newspapers are weak and make little money. For a little more, they will tell you where someone is. They told us where the baseball player was. And so we found you.

  He sits. Picks at the cigarette butts again, but finds them wanting.

  – And now. You are here. And Tetka Anna wants David to die. And she wants you to die. So you will do the first.

  He scratches his beard.

  – And we will do the second.

  I look at the papers in my hands. I fold them over again and tuck them inside my jacket.

  – If I try to kill David he’ll have my parents murdered.

  He nods.

  – Yes. He will. He knows where they are. They are in a small town in Oregon. On the coast. This is something the forger found out for him. He found out from the Internet, from all of the men who talk about you. The forger told us this last. Told us where your parents are. Before we killed him. Because he was so broken. He wanted to die. That is what will happen if we go to Oregon. To them. You see?

  – David. It’s me.

  He makes a sound, the kind you might make if your favorite player did something unbelievably boneheaded on the field.

  – I need to see you, David.

  – Yes. You do. But I, I have seen you already this morning. Do you know where? In the paper, yes? In the newspaper I saw you.

  He will be making a fist and bouncing it lightly against his forehead. What have I done to deserve this?

  – Yeah, I know. I need to see you.

  – Yes. Yes, you must see me. How is the boy?