Headcount: v5

by Frank Stein

  Chester pulled the man about a quarter of the way down the stairs.

  “Remember me?” said Chester.

  “No,” said the man. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I remember you.” Chester forced the man to turn around and lie down facing the stairs. Chester pushed the man’s shaved and tattooed head towards the top step.

  “Eat it,” said Chester.

  “What?”

  “You know what. Eat it, you piece of shit.”

  “Come on, man. Why are you doing this?”

  “You remember Tom Sullivan?”

  The man was quiet for several long moments. “We made a deal with the DA for that. The guy who did it is in prison. What more do you want?”

  Chester spoke quietly. “Tom was my husband. And you were there that night. And you know what I want. So eat it.”

  The man turned his head for an instant and looked up at Chester. “See you in hell,” he said. Then he bit down on the edge of the hard wooden top step.

  I didn’t stop Chester, but I couldn’t watch. The sound was awful, just awful. Chester brought his foot down several times, and there was a dull cracking sound each time.

  Then, after a pause, I heard another cracking sound. But this crack was different. It was the crack of a small caliber pistol, like one of the first guns I had used at the range. I turned in panic, and saw Chester frozen at the top of the stairs. He was facing me, his mouth wide open. He was in pain, but I couldn’t figure out why—I could see no living creature anywhere. Then I heard five more cracks followed by a clicking sound, and Chester fell forward into my arms. Only then did I realize why I hadn’t seen the shooter earlier.

  He couldn’t have been over four feet tall or more than eight years old. He was shaved bald, and if I hadn’t known this was a house of skinheads, I might have thought he was a victim of childhood cancer and suffering the effects of chemotherapy. His face was twisted into a grimace of anger, but it was still the face of a child. We had left our guns in the basement, but it didn’t matter. He was out of ammo, which was good, because I wouldn’t have attacked him.

  “Out,” said Chester. He was draped over my shoulder, and his voice was a gurgle near my right ear. “Leave me. Out now.”

  Simone had come back to the door, and she shouted and reached for Chester’s legs to help carry him.

  Chester kicked at her. “Now, goddamn it. Now!”

  Simone looked at me, and back at Chester. She touched his cheek. He tried to smile, but his jaw started to convulse and rattle. Then he went still, and his face relaxed. Simone nodded at me, and we lowered him to the ground.

  I left without looking at the kid again. But as I ran back to the car, I knew I would never forget his little white innocent dome. How many would he kill when he grew up? Did we turn him into a monster, or was he already well on his way? I almost smiled as we pulled away in Chester’s car. At least I was no longer asking those questions about myself.

  THIRTY-NINE

  We picked up Mo as planned. She heaved the gun case into the open trunk and then came around to the rear door. She flinched when she saw only two of us in the car, but she didn’t say a word. There wasn’t anything to be said. Even with all the possible deviations from plan and allowances for improvisation, there was only one situation that would cause us to leave someone behind.

  We drove in silence, that loud kind of silence where your ears feel like they might explode. Simone was at the wheel, and I was riding shotgun. After lighting a cigarette, I turned and offered one to Mo. She refused.

  “Hey,” I said, pointing at the red on the white car seat. “Is that you?”

  “Shit,” said Mo. She grabbed the corner of her thick black tee, and I could tell it was soaked in blood. “Shit. Shit.”

  There was a box of tissues in the glove box, and I handed it to Mo. She plucked out a fistful and mopped up the blood. It was a leather seat, and the tissues worked well. She leaned over onto her good side so that no more blood would drip. We all knew that the police would search this car before the day was over.

  We all went quiet again. Just a day ago we were a happy family. Chester’s death felt no less tragic than losing a brother or uncle or cousin.

  But the silence didn’t last long.

  “Why didn’t you take out that little Nazi bastard?” said Simone as she leaned to her right to get a look at Mo in the rearview mirror.

  “He was out of my line of sight,” said Mo. “Not that I would have shot a child. You know better than that, Simone.”

  “Where was the kid to begin with? If he came from the second floor, you would have seen him walk through the living room.” Simone’s voice was getting louder.

  “I saw him earlier, but he was alone, and I didn’t see a gun through my scope,” said Mo. “Besides, I told you. I wouldn’t have taken out a kid. You guys should have been backing up Chester.”

  I gulped. “That would be on me, I’m afraid.” As it hit me, I started to choke up. “Oh God.”

  “It’s not your fault, Frank.” Mo paused. “It’s hers. She knows you’re just a beginner.”

  “Screw you,” said Simone. “You had that murderer in your sights, and you let him go. You let him shoot Chester in the back.”

  Mo had calmed down now. She just smiled. “I can’t make the call to shoot a child when I’m half a mile away.”

  Simone stared at the road. “Don’t want to add to the list of dead children on your conscience? Why? What’s one more? And this one wasn’t even yours.”

  Mo let out a surprised laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “Okay, stop. Please.” I waved my hands. “Look, I’m not a beginner anymore, so that can’t be an excuse. You guys trusted me enough to put me in there. And now Chester is on my conscience.”

  Simone sighed and went quiet. We drove for another ten minutes before pulling off the highway a few exits before Port Washington to dump the rifle. Then we got back on the road and drove in silence for the next twenty minutes.

  Finally Simone looked over at Mo. “I’m sorry, babe.”

  Mo smiled. She tapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll have that cigarette now.”

  FORTY

  Simone almost hit the front steps of Chester’s house as she screeched in. I raced inside and ran upstairs to gather my and Mo’s luggage. When I got back down, I heard Mo calling me out to the backyard.

  She was sitting on the grass a few feet away from the fountain. I could see some medical supplies near her, and I guessed she wanted me to patch her up outside so that any blood would drip into the ground. I ran over and took a look. The stitches hadn’t torn, and the blood had come from a small opening at one end of the wound. We taped her up tight, and I gathered the bloody swabs and placed them in a plastic bag to carry with us.

  We went out front and loaded up our rental car. I could see Simone’s rental, but there was no Simone. It was another twenty minutes before she came back down. She removed her rubber gloves as she walked up to us.

  “Trash, dishes, bathrooms, and I put all the bed linens in the washer,” she said. “I’m sure there’s some other trace of us here, but if I can’t think of it, it means it’ll take a while before the police figure it out. Hopefully they’ll see it as a one-man act of revenge.”

  “Until they find the three recently-fired AKs,” I said.

  Mo shook her head. “The place is littered with guns. And Chester could have used two of them, maybe even all three. Doesn't mean anything.”

  “What about the kid?” I said. “He definitely saw me.”

  “We can’t be certain what he saw. There was too much smoke and dust, and all the lights had been shot out. Even if he’s able to tell the police that someone besides Chester was involved, there’s a pretty low risk of him giving a sketch artist anything useful,” said Simone. “Maybe he’d recognize you if you’re caught by some other means and they put you in a line-up. But even then, a good lawyer can cast doubt on it, es
pecially if some time passes.”

  I looked at Mo. “So what now?”

  “Now we go home, back to New York.”

  I nodded. It was perfect. Our consulting project got done on Friday, we took the weekend to wrap up the paperwork, took Monday off for travel, and then we’re back in Manhattan by Tuesday. A completely normal, explainable, and verifiable weekend schedule.

  “What about you?” I looked at Simone. “Back to Texas? Walker-Midland?”

  “Probably. Maybe a vacation first.” She smiled at me. “I’ve taken a leave of absence from Walker. Personal reasons, I told them.” She shrugged. “Dealing with the repressed emotions related to the untimely death of my ex-husband.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Your last husband was killed. How did it happen again?”

  Simone came up to me and kissed me gently on the mouth. “Boating accident.”

  FORTY-ONE

  The steep approach into LaGuardia Airport usually results in a solid bounce during landing, but we must have had a good pilot, because I didn’t wake up until the stewardess shook me. I was startled, and stood up so fast that I hit my head on the baggage compartment above the seat. It didn’t hurt. Those surfaces are designed to give way, so although it doesn’t really hurt, it makes a loud sound, and everyone looks at you with shock and pity like you’ve just suffered a major head injury. I returned each and every look with a cold hard tough stare of my own. Don’t pity me, my expression said, I’m a goddamn killer. Fear me, and thank me for doing this for you.

  Mo had been upgraded to Business Class, and she was waiting for me in the terminal. We didn’t have any checked luggage, of course, and so we headed straight out to the street. Mo’s car service was waiting, and she gave me a nod and a smile before handing her luggage to the driver and disappearing into the black tinted Towncar.

  As usual, I had forgotten to schedule my pickup in advance. If I called now, it would take twenty minutes before they got a car out to me. I looked over at the taxi stand—the line snaked all the way through the layered waiting area and was now blocking the terminal exit. As I was doing the mental calculation of whether the taxi line would take more or less than twenty minutes, the M60 bus pulled up to the green bus stop in front of me. I lived on 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and the M60 ends at Broadway and 106th, so I was pretty much on the way. I checked for my Metrocard, and then jogged to the bus. It was empty, since LaGuardia is one of the terminals for the route. I slinked to the back and took one of the single seats that lined the left of the vehicle.

  I loved the view when coming back into Manhattan via the RFK-Triborough bridge. You got to see the majestic towers of midtown, and then you exited right onto 125th Street in Harlem. The M60 takes 125th Street clear across Manhattan, and the layers of double-parked cars and hordes of scurrying jaywalkers means it can take forty minutes to cross just two miles of street. But the crowds and the lights and the horns and the music and the other indescribable sounds of Harlem’s central artery usually made the trip go quick.

  Almost too quick this time, and before I knew it I was the last one on the bus. I pulled the cord so I could hop off at 110th and Broadway, just two blocks from my building. The walk was quick and nice.

  And she was waiting for me outside my apartment building.

  “Simone? What the hell?”

  She smiled. “Told you I might take a vacation first.”

  My shock wore off, and I laughed and kissed her. Within minutes we were inside my first-floor apartment and stumbling towards the bedroom.

  FORTY-TWO

  The sushi delivery guy got there just after midnight. It was his last run of the night, and I gave him a thirty percent tip. Simone was already in the kitchen when I closed the front door. She wore a long green shirt and nothing else. After stubbing out her cigarette, she grabbed the food parcel from my hands and gave me a smack on the lips in return.

  “I love that you can order fresh sushi to be delivered at midnight on a Monday,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just move up here.”

  I smiled.

  She laughed at my expression. “Just kidding. Don’t look so terrified.”

  “I’m not.” I reached around her waist and put my face close to hers. “I just don’t believe you. There’s no way you’re leaving your Texas ranch to move into a Manhattan shoebox.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be a shoebox. I’m pretty loaded, you know.” She moved away from me and reached into the kitchen cabinet for two plates and a couple of bowls. “You have chopsticks? I hate these cheap wooden ones that come with the sushi.”

  I pointed at a drawer. “You know it’s a million dollars per bedroom for a condo in the city, right?”

  Simone didn’t flinch. “Two bedrooms should be enough, I think. One for guests, one for us.” She turned to me and smiled. “Unless you’re thinking kids. Which is possible, I guess. But I’m not sure I want to go down that path again.”

  I laughed. I wasn’t sure if she was kidding, but I got the sense that she wasn’t sure either. It was a playful conversation, and it felt good after the seriousness of the past day, not to mention the intensity of the past hour on my bedroom floor.

  “So you’re going to sell the ranch, buy a two million dollar apartment in Manhattan, and keep me as your boy-toy?” I shrugged. “I’ve heard of worse ideas. When can we move on this?”

  Simone laughed as she emptied out the last of the edamame into a white ceramic bowl. I grabbed the plates of sushi, and we moved to the two-person table in the small dining alcove nestled between the living room and the kitchen.

  We ate in silence for a little while, not because of any awkwardness, but because the salty soy sauce and fresh fish and pungent wasabi monopolized our attention. It was still Monday night, and it was hard to imagine how much energy we must have burned over the course of our very full day. The juxtaposition of geography and setting and mood from a neo-Nazi cave in Janesville, Wisconsin, to my cozy pad in Uptown Manhattan felt so natural that I became worried that it didn’t seem surreal enough. In fact, the lack of surrealism itself was surreal. Maybe this was what psychiatrists call “compartmentalization”? But no, I wasn’t blocking out what we had done earlier that day. In fact, I could think about it quite calmly. There was no trauma, no guilt, no regret—at least not in the usual sense of those terms. Sure, thinking about Chester caused a little flutter in me. I knew I was partially responsible for his death. I couldn’t deny there was a part of me that felt some guilt about that.

  But there was also another part of me, a part of me that had looked into Chester’s eyes as he died in my arms, a part of me that understood that Chester didn’t blame me. In some way, I knew that Chester had never planned to leave that house. I understood that he blamed himself for Tom’s death, and I was suddenly certain that Chester would have taken his own life had the entire crew of murderers been put away to begin with. I had no doubt that if the kid hadn’t finished it, we’d now be reading a news article about how a local plastic surgeon did the murders and then committed suicide in his Port Washington mansion. Of course, I had no way of knowing any of this, and in all likelihood it was just a defensive reaction to my own mistake. But still, it’s hard to explain how certain I felt about it.

  I snapped out of it when I felt Simone’s hand on mine.

  “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”

  I smiled and nodded and looked down at my empty plate.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said Simone. “Even if you had seen the kid, neither of you would have killed him. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but maybe we could have stopped him. Taken the gun away.”

  “He was too far away. You wouldn’t have gotten to him in time. And both of you could have been shot.” She shook her head. “Mo should have taken the shot when she had the chance.”

  “What? How can you say that? Especially after you just conceded that neither Chester nor I would have killed a child. Would you have taken the shot?”

  Simone laughed and
looked away. “You don’t want to know the answer to that.”

  I leaned forward on the table. “I do.”

  She looked at me. “Yes.”

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  “Why don’t you believe me?”

  “Because.” I reached for my pack of cigarettes and lit one.

  “Because I’m a woman?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Simone sighed. “I know I shouldn’t make a big deal out of this, especially since it makes life easier for me.” She lit her own cigarette. “But most people don’t realize that women are better equipped than men to handle the psychological repercussions of murder. Especially when it comes to a random murder, or the murder of a child.”

  I burst out laughing. “Come on. I’ll go so far as to grant women equal rights to that trauma. But you can’t convince me that women are better suited to be wanton killers.”

  “I don’t care about convincing anyone. The prevailing belief structure favors killers like me.” She leaned back in her chair and blew a puff of smoke into the hanging paper lantern. “You know, there are a ton of unsolved serial-murders—and I’m talking every country in the world—which are unsolved precisely because no one would seriously consider the possibility that a female may have been the killer.”

  “Fine, maybe. But that’s still different from the murder of a child. I mean, what about the whole maternal instinct thing? Wouldn’t that make it much harder for a woman to kill a kid?”

  Simone shook her head. “First of all, you obviously don’t know what postpartum depression is. Many women fantasize about killing their children soon after birth.” She took another drag from her cigarette and was quiet as the smoke rolled out into the dimly lit room. “But that usually passes quickly, of course. And my argument isn’t really connected to postpartum.”