Do Not Call

by Julian Folk

  One of the signs reads “Gallery.”

  For his graduate studies, the university assigned Connor housing on Broome Street, in NoLita. To get to class, he navigated SoHo. Many times, he encountered homeless dudes who, relatively speaking, had their shit together. He dispersed change morning, noon and night and treated one homeless man, Judd, to coffee at a café on Mercer.

  This is a promising neighborhood.

  Where would Connor sleep if he needed to? The alley between the gallery and a high-end café looks ideal.

  Nice.

  Beside the dumpster he spots a heap of blankets and sleeping bags and pieces of cardboard boxes. He hears jack. No words, no snores, no farts. But he suspects the heap shelters a human being.

  “Hey.”

  He nudges the heap.

  “Hey, sir.”

  He claps once or twice.

  “Sir, may we talk?”

  Wait.

  Judd from Mercer Street confessed that private school kids harassed him ’round the clock. The city of Boston crawls with young people. Harassment must be a fact of this cat’s life.

  Time to switch tactics.

  “I’m new on the street, brother,” Connor says. “I got nothing. I’m freezing. The clothes on my back are wet. Where do I find a good Samaritan?”

  The heap moves.

  “Scratch my back,” Connor says. “I’ll scratch yours.”

  “Firehouse,” the man in the heap says.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Connor memorizes the cross streets: Beacon and Emerson.

  But where is the firehouse?

  He looks up the block, past where the cobblestone ends. He would hate to rouse the homeless man again. He stares straight ahead at a red brick building.

  The firehouse.

  He pushes the doorbell.

  An Italian man answers. Short, young and jacked. Three days’ stubble. A monogrammed name on his polo: Joey. Something in Connor’s presentation captivates Joey.

  “I’m down on my luck,” Connor says.

  “You got fucked up pretty good, man,” Joey says. “You look like the evil twin of that professor that killed hisself. I just seen it on the news.”

  Good. Now he knows. Connor Yard is dead.

  “That’s my claim to fame,” Connor says. “Listen, a very kind homeless man told me you could give me a change of clothes and maybe a coat, a hat, gloves, boots, uh, coffee, breakfast. Good will-type stuff.”

  “Holy shit,” Joey says. Connor’s busted mug casts a spell on this firefighter. “Looks like you got a fucking battering ram to each eye, man. You’re asymmetrical and shit. I wouldn’t fuck wit the guy that fucked you up.”

  “I’m alive,” Connor says. “That’s the name of the game.”

  What an apt choice of cliché…

  Connor’s confidence in his ability to defeat adversity surges. He learned self-defense from Nikki, executed a basic technique to retire Officer Rice and used a principle Nikki taught in order to fake his death and escape Bud. These actions eliminated him from Vincent’s radar. So far.

  Here he asks for help, the second time in five minutes.

  Before this morning, Connor’s never asked a stranger for help.

  “Show me your arms,” Joey says.

  Connor tugs his sleeves to his elbow. Joey takes in the deathly blue color of these hypothermic forearms. Seeing the color induces Connor’s heart to pump faster.

  If his arms look like this, what the fuck does his face look like?

  Joey manhandles Connor’s arms and leaves fingerprints.

  Joey’s hands feel so hot against his skin.

  “Good. No track marks. You passed the test.”

  “Thank you so much, sir.”

  “I tell ya what. Deadly storm’s coming in. Artic Vortex Polar El Nino Blast. Or some shit. Go bring me Sal, the guy that told you to come here, and I’ll hook you up.”

  “Cool,” Connor says.

  “If Sal stays in the alley, he freezes. Tell him he’s welcome to ride out the storm in the firehouse. One time.”

  Connor runs. Name-checking Joey wins Sal’s cooperation. Still, an anarchist regime governs/doesn’t govern the homeless man’s mind.

  Connor holds his breath.

  Sal smells the way a human should never smell, cesspoolish. He wears the face of John the Baptist—mad eyes, wild hair. His speech contains random mishmashes of words. But he understands Joey’s name and good intentions.

  Sal takes a dive in the firehouse alley.

  Connor rings the doorbell. Joey wasn’t ready. Sal resists Joey’s inducements of food and a toilet. So the firefighter carries out a portable heater, the kind a bouncer uses at a club, and positions it facing Sal.

  “Once you get the heater on Sal,” Joey says, “he’ll never leave. Now let’s take care of you, man. You appear to be a highly competent bum, and I’d like to keep you that way.”

  Joey walks Connor to the firehouse kitchen. Firefighters eye Connor like they would a six foot possum squashed by a truck and still twitching. They brainstorm excuses and vacate the table, giving Joey a look. Connor fixes a twenty-four ounce coffee, which is contraindicated for hypothermia, he knows, and a continental breakfast.

  The breakfast burns a hole though him. As Connor pisses and shits, Joey fetches clothes and outerwear. Lays the ensemble in the shadow of a firetruck.

  Sweatpants, jeans, flannel boxers, socks, t-shirt, sweatshirt, winter coat, boots, gloves, skull cap.

  Connor’s gratitude arrests his speech.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the firefighter says. “Me and Mom slept on the street. People took care of us. They hooked us up.”

  Connor feels like he should cry but smiles instead.

  “And don’t forget the coffee cup,” Joey says. “That’s your moneymaker.”

  Joey names the top-earning intersection and writes directions to it. Connor embraces the job. After one good long red light, he learns that, for a beat up white prettyboy, panhandling in the right spot is far more lucrative than teaching sociology. His goal? Merely to fill the cup with nickels and dimes.

  But the morning commuters of Boston stuff it with quarters and bills.

  The bills are not just solitary singles but wadded-together singles; singles and fives; fives and tens; stray twenties; a twenty and some tens fives and singles; a stray fifty.

  Excellent money, but a logistical dilemma wracks him:

  Where am I supposed to stand?

  He settles on the divider, taking what’s offered from the eastbound right lane and the westbound left lane. He scores the big earnings on sprints to the middle lanes. Those drivers, sometimes the passengers, lower their windows and offer bills or bunches of quarters.

  Red lights trap generous commuters in place. With nothing to do but help him. They fill the cup quick.

  Connor’s endgame formulates.

  Reaching Ayelet at the hospital is impossible. No matter how much money he earns today. Connor can’t win Vincent’s game. Vincent must play Connor’s game. Just as Connor did against Officer Rice and Bud, he must use Vincent’s strength—his zeal—against him. Make it a weakness.

  Connor can stop panhandling now. The cup gets heavy and the paper sides feel week. He holds it with two hands. But he decides to top off.

  An SUV slows up in the westbound right lane. Print on its door. The mustachioed passenger is dressed in a uniform. He rolls the window down. My, what a dark uniform. Connor sticks his cup in. The man slaps a cuff on his wrist.

  Chapter 28

  Bud calls. Tells Vincent he led the target to a short strip of sand. Bud shot the sand in the target’s wake. The target shed his coat, wallet and wedding band. That’s symbolic. The target whisked his ass into the water. No reluctance. No regret. Bud shot the water behind the target, who walked in over his head. The target swam out to his death. His release from life. Enthusiastically.

  The news devastates Vincent.

  Connor’s forced suicide strips
Vincent of purpose. It was the plan, of course. But Vincent never thought Connor would comply. He always thought, in the end, he’d be forced to terminate his bully by traditional methods. Of course, he refrained from mentioning this to Maisie or Jasper.

  Now he gets the picture.

  No Touch Kill was the worst thing to use on Connor.

  The Program gave agency to a bully who abused his rights and privileges. Connor couldn’t fight to save himself, of course, but he adapted smoothly to challenges. Vincent ran the Program on Slow Mode. He designed an elaborate plan of psychological torture in which the North Berkshire community and the target’s family and even his wife came down on him like a million tons of brick. Slow, methodical and deadly in theory; plodding, disorganized and disastrous in practice.

  Vincent’s bully had multiple gears, made appropriate adjustments. In school, as a child, Connor snitched to teachers and principals. This time, as an adult, he used his FBI brother and attempted to use his wife’s wealthy parents.

  Vincent should’ve neutralized Robert and then run the Program.

  Connor didn’t even deserve to choose his harbor drowning. Justice mandated that he be stripped of agency. Denied the power to terminate his life in the manner he saw fit.

  But Vincent’s hands should’ve stopped Connor’s breath.

  No Touch Kill lets bad people off easy.

  The target suffers a brief torrent of abuse, harassment and stalking. His mind buckles under the emotional weight. He self-eliminates. This is Jasper’s weapon, the weapon of cowards, the weapon of those who gobble steaks and fall to pieces at the fact of a slaughterhouse’s existence.

  Still, if Vincent had let the Labor Day Molotov cocktail attack proceed, it might’ve worked. No, it would’ve worked. Connor would’ve died. Vincent would’ve run in and rescued Ayelet.

  Now Vincent’s ashamed to have created No Touch Kill.

  “I’m gonna kill the next person who talks to me,” he whispers to Maisie.

  Afraid of him now, she reverts to a Shrinking Violet.

  Vincent seeks refuge in the bathroom, where he punches his gut and forehead. The violence shakes loose memories. High school ones. He recalls Connor’s humble brags about swim team. Yeah, the kid swam. Won first place ribbons. That was the extent of his athletic prowess. And then it clicks.

  Connor didn’t kill himself.

  Motherfucker swam away from Bud.

  Swam ashore elsewhere.

  Yeah, that’s right. The target lives.

  So, the same four pieces remain on the board: Ayelet, Connor, Val and Jeff. Nikki pledged to remove Ayelet. He trusts that chick. Connor’s a mess, wherever he is, vulnerable to law enforcement and bound to show up on Jasper’s radar.

  Vincent speed-dials Jasper.

  Three shrill electronic notes sound:

  “We’re sorry; you have reached a number that is disconnected or no longer in service.”

  So, Jasper’s changing phones. He’ll call soon with the new number.

  That leaves Val and Jeff.

  Vincent flushes the toilet and exits the bathroom. Val and Jeff wait feet from the door. How long have they been here? These new grandparents emit peevish vibes.

  Bud comes up behind them. Vincent gives him a thumb up. Bud’s job is to kill. Connor legitimately fooled him. Had Vincent run the Program competently, the target would’ve been dead and buried two months ago. Bud’s forgiven.

  Vincent nods his way, above Val and Jeff’s heads, to indicate the task at hand.

  “Vincent, dear, the news said the warrant for Connor’s arrest was fraudulent,” Val says.

  “Let’s talk,” Vincent says.

  He guides them, with Bud, toward a pre-selected conference room.

  “Cops say the target’s a dead fish,” Bud whispers. “They’re cocky about it. Water temp’s forty-seven, unseasonably cold. Exhaustion or unconsciousness set in within thirty-to-sixty minutes. I stood there two hours, dude. If he came ashore anywhere, the air temp dropped to thirty-four by then. It’s thirty-one now. You can feel the storm coming. The target would be in wet clothes. No dry outfit, no cash, nobody to call. I’m telling you, he’s gone. If you want, I’ll canvas the shelters and soup kitchens—”

  Vincent’s so angry he could eat his own face:

  “I fucked up from the beginning. No Touch Kill is wrong. People who deserve to die should be killed face-to-face.”

  Bud’s eyebrows rocket toward his hairline.

  “My boys held Connor down on the table in the high school locker room,” Vincent says. “I took the scalpel to his balls. I thought I was doing right by him. Castration was intended to send a message. But a message like that can’t penetrate the mind of a narcissist like Yard. Taking his balls was half-assed. I should’ve gone full-assed. To do right by Connor, I should’ve taken his head, Isis-like. I should’ve taken his head and held it up high. At a pep rally. Showed Carey High School how our time on earth is limited. Why we need to make positive changes in our lives. Nobody should be on their death bed saying ‘I shoulda been this’, ‘I coulda been that.’ ”

  Bud’s utter shock subsides in a second, his features resuming beatified normalcy:

  “I’ll decapitate anybody you need, bro.”

  The conference room is located beyond the neo-natal unit.

  Vincent wanted the grandparents to get a last look at his baby.

  The unit swelters. Bud’s forehead rains sweat. His parka oppresses him.

  Val and Jeff stop and snap iPhone photos of Vincent Jr. Such proud grandparents. Val hugs and kisses Vincent, her lipstick smearing his cheek, and tells him what a fantastic father he’ll be.

  That’s why he chose to become a father.

  To bang an inferior man’s wife is gratifying. When the wife has your baby, it’s transcendent. For the moment, though, Vincent Jr. is the spitting image of Connor. But time will transform the kid. Even a Sicilian bull like Vincent had fair features as a baby.

  Gazing on his newborn son, Vincent peeps the faint yellow tint to the infant’s skin. Nikki’s begun the process. Her competence is beyond question.

  A nervous nurse, whom Vincent hasn’t met yet, indicates the baby’s skin tone and says, “We’re taking him for tests. Your son might have a tiny infection. He should be fine. See you shortly.”

  The grandparents barely hear. Vincent explains on the trip to the conference room. Bud shuts the door and sits nearest to it.

  “I’ve always wanted to be a grandparent,” Val says.

  “This is the happiest day of our lives,” Jeff says.

  “That’s fitting,” Vincent says.

  “But the bogus warrant hurts our credibility with our daughter,” Jeff says.

  Vincent cracks up.

  Bafflement seeps into Jeff and Val’s smiles.

  “Let’s take a short trip back in time,” Vincent says. “Your daughter, Ayelet, a successful author, invites you to her wedding. You snub her. Happily married and seven months pregnant, she invites you to the housewarming party. Again, you snub her.”

  “The marriage is a sham,” Val interjects, cocksure. “Ayelet is a lesbian. She came out to us in high school. The Connor thing was just a fling. His abuse sucked her in. But Connor kept our daughter with him, against her will. We told you—”

  “But how do you—” Vincent starts.

  Jeff cuts him off:

  “Vincent, please, we’ve covered this terrain. Why’re you going wobbly on us?—”

  “Shut the fuck up when Vincent’s talking,” Bud growls.

  The hate in that growl gives Vincent visceral gratification.

  “Let’s get back to the facts,” he says. “Beginning of September, your daughter and her husband are subjected to an unprecedented digital Siege. The neighbor throws a brick through the window, striking an innocent woman in the neck. The woman breaks her fall on glass, cutting her hands badly. That night, as I stand in the backyard watching your fat pig of a daughter sleep, four asshole kids from the neighbor
hood, looking to avenge a bullying incident, which is actually a hoax of my own creation, hop the fence into her yard intending to light Molotov cocktails and toss them in the house, jeopardizing the life of your daughter and my unborn baby. Next day, Maisie hacks Ayelet’s car computer and drives it Grand Theft Auto-style. Alright? She drives your daughter’s car, with your daughter locked inside it, in reverse, at speeds reaching 104 miles per hour. One wrong movement could’ve killed scores of people, including, again, your daughter and my unborn baby. The incident takes the lives of four innocent dumbasses and innumerable geese.

  “Then we get to the swatting. My 911 prank kills how many people, all family men, with wives and kids at home, and injures a woman TV producer. SWAT cops nearly shoot up your daughter and my unborn son. A ricochet could’ve killed or maimed them. Then Bud here gets interrupted in his attempted murder of an innocent FBI agent, Robert Yard, who should be a model to public servants everywhere.

  “I’ve never heard a bad word about Robert. Students at Quantico study his work. By all accounts, Robert was a good man, a family man, whose cock-and-balls I severed from his body, stuffed down his throat and choked him to death on.”

  Bud nods and opens the photo on his phone for the grandparents to eyeball.

  Neither reacts.

  “Vincent, I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” Jeff says.

  “Don’t misrepresent yourself to the Boss,” Bud says. “You know exactly where he’s going with this, you piece of shit.”

  “So I come to you two guys,” Vincent says, “and I tell you a story that is contrary to what is publicly known. I tell you Connor is abusive—which is true generally-speaking but not to his wife—”

  Bud lunges forward in his chair:

  “Connor held Ayelet back from attaining true greatness. He was a wet blanket on a Phoenix. That’s it.”

  “And I tell you straight-up lies,” Vincent continues. “That Connor kidnapped Ayelet for seven weeks. That she has Stockholm syndrome.”

  “Dr. Noon says Ayelet is ill,” Val says.

  “I manipulated him right in front of you,” Vincent says.