A Blood of Killers

by Gerard Houarner

  It was going to be another one of those jobs.

  “Came out of myself after awhile. Married. Moved to the city. Kept this place as our weekend cabin. Had kids. They grew up. The girl, she was the oldest, she left fast, got married, moved to California. Don’t really know if she’s alive, anymore. She stayed away. The boys, they helped fix the place up, got drafted, came back and fixed it up some more.

  “Their mother was gone, by then. I wasn’t much good without the kids. The boys dragged me out of my own little world after what happened to Eve.”

  Max circled behind the couch. The old man wasn’t watching him. He stared at the empty floor space between himself and the door. “They came back changed, too.”

  “Or true to what they were.”

  The old man’s shoulders slumped. “I’d already buried their mother under the house by the time they were home. They found out. Understood. We all knew each other a bit better, having gone through the same kinds of things in our battles.

  “They brought their women. Two even got married. But that didn’t last. The boys, they didn’t catch anyone much good. They took to the kind that didn’t have family. Like me, the ones they brought home wouldn’t be missed. They wound up down in the dirt, too.”

  “Where are your sons, now?”

  “With their mother. They keep her company. They’re quieter now. Not so quick to pick fights with each other. One big happy family. Even the exes are laying down right next to them, keeping them honest with each other.

  “The last boy I had to take care of, myself. Poison. You know, from the old days. A Russian cocktail. He would’ve buried me sooner or later. Hurt me, before he did that.

  “The boys don’t come out too often. Like tonight, she comes down mostly alone. Dancing by herself. That’s what she liked to do. Dance. Every Saturday night, we’d be at a different joint, dancing.” Cort pointed with a crooked finger at the empty space. “See? As young and spry as she ever was. Look a her feet stepping, crossing, gliding. It’s a wonder I could ever keep up.”

  Cort glanced back over his shoulder at Max. “That’s how she likes to come back. Like when she was happy.”

  Even the shadows were still. “You called in this job.”

  “Yes. Mr. Jung, he owes me. We’ve done business.”

  Business. The old man held secrets. His own. And much more dangerous, Mr. Jung’s. Usually, the old man’s type cleaned their own houses, took their precious poison or put a bullet through their own head when the time came.

  But this one was too old, too tired. Bound by the past, by sins and transgressions and regrets. Guilt.

  Max was grateful he never suffered from such demons.

  The Beast strained to fill him with its power, though it really didn’t hunger. All it wanted was its share of gratitude, and Max gave it, not to quiet the demon, but to acknowledge the truth. The Beast consumed the burdens of emotion in its terrible rage.

  “What do you expect me to do?” Max asked. The Beast, irritated by the talk of women without physical bodies to focus on, returned to snuggling with the sensations of their latest kill.

  “Put all the ghosts to rest,” Cort said. “None of us ever belonged on this earth. None of us.”

  Cores words startled Max. He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder, not knowing what he was about to do. “Is she the one?” he finally asked.

  “Yes. Can’t you see? I described her to Mr. Jung.”

  “The others, your sons, they’ll have to go, as well.”

  “Of course. I know how you operate. Clean sweep. Leave nothing behind.”

  Max sensed a trap. But the Beast remained nestled in its blood dreams.

  Perhaps this was only a test. Even a trick, a joke. Mr. Jung, or his superiors, had sent him to a madman to see what he would do.

  He might as well have been standing on a peak looking out on a cloud-shrouded landscape, map and binoculars in hand, assigned to pick out and identify specific landmarks.

  “Hello, Eve,” Cort said. “I’ve invited a guest. He’s going to take good care of us. Ah, and here are the rest of the girls. Yes, quite a lineup. Sometimes I can hear them, you know. They’re still arguing with my sons. Sometimes they scream. No wonder the boys hardly show up. But look, we’re in luck, they’re coming down, too. The house is filling up, all for you,” he said, glancing at Max.

  Cort babbled on for a little while, laughing, cursing, whining. He did thank the boys for not fighting with their mother so much. Gave him some peace, he said. Max didn’t have to wait long for the old man to fall over on the couch, asleep.

  Mr. Jung never told him how to get the job done.

  Max left Cort sleeping with his ghosts while he set a fire. He watched the house burn to the ground. The truck with the drunken men passed on the road, again, but didn’t stop. They drove hard and fast, as if needing to cover a lot of ground. No neighbors came to investigate. The nearest volunteer fire department never showed up. Max’s work had lately been taking him to cities so often, he’d forgotten how simple life and death could be in rural areas. People respected each other’s privacy out here.

  A pair of helicopters came in, engines hushed, the wind from their rotors tearing through the trees and setting off a storm of leaves while a team of cleaners descended like angels made of night. He didn’t stay to count the bodies they took out.

  Trap, test, experiment or favor, cloud-shrouded landscape or clear sky, he’d done the one thing he was good for.

  It didn’t matter what had to be killed.

  He was still the one for the job.

  DEAD MAN’S PARK

  At three-thirty on Thursday afternoon, Mickey heard that Jason was coming after him.

  The boy from apartment 3G, thin and frail from his brief lifetime with sickle cell anemia, told him. As soon as the boy had finished talking about what he had heard in the streets on his way home from school, Mickey felt the impact of a ghostly bullet against his chest. He shuddered from the blow of a machete across his neck. He smelled gasoline, felt its oily dampness through his clothes, heard the explosive eruption of flame and the crackling of fire feeding on his flesh. He knew these were only the things he could imagine, and that probably the reality would be much worse.

  Mickey walked the boy back up to 3G and, when he saw that his parents were not home, decided to help the boy with his homework. Then he watched cartoons with him, cooked and served the macaroni and cheese dinner he found in the kitchen cupboard, and became involved in TV game shows until the boy’s mother and father came home from work. They were both surprised by the building superintendent’s presence, and the father studied Mickey’s soiled clothes as he thanked him. The mother, after whispering to the boy, smiled weakly at Mickey and told him not to trouble himself over the boy again.

  Mickey did not tell her that Jason was coming after him, and that his few hours with the boy and away from his own apartment might have doubled his expected life span. Had she known the neighborhood’s most feared assassin, who had earned his street name through killing feats not yet imagined by the screen writers, was after Mickey, she and her husband might have performed the job themselves for putting their child in danger. Or they might have done it, he mused as the door to 3G closed behind him, simply to avoid Jason’s indiscriminate handiwork in the building.

  Mickey glanced at the entry hall as he went back to his ground floor apartment. The doorway and hall were both deserted, as was his apartment when he finally entered it after standing at the door for five minutes and listening for any movement within. Numbed and uncertain about what to do, he fell into his normal evening routine and boiled a pair of franks. As he chased them with a fork to put on buns, someone knocked on the door. He froze. The knock came again, harder than a tenant’s who might be looking for a package left by the mailman.

  He took a knife and tiptoed to the peep hole. He expected to see Jason’s leering face. Instead, Mama Aponte and her sidekicks, Ruiz and Carlos, greeted him with smiles. He threw the kn
ife back into the kitchen, where it clattered into the sink, and opened the door.

  Carlos came in first, brushing Mickey back with a broad football-player’s shoulder. Ruiz stood by the entrance like the doorman at a Park Avenue building as Mama Aponte walked in, then closed the door after her with a flourish. Mama Aponte made herself comfortable at Mickey’s dining room table. Ruiz solicitously moved the toolbox and pipes from in front of her and dumped them on the floor. The scar that seared his face from temple to jaw brightened as he looked over his shoulder at Mickey. Carlos rifled through the refrigerator.

  “What’s the matter, you don’t got no beers for Mama Aponte?” Carlos said, his voice muffled by the refrigerator door.

  “Leave it,” Mama Aponte said over her shoulder. Her voice was like the sound of a needle scratching a record. “We didn’t come here for no social call, no how.” She turned her attention to Mickey. Her big, black eyes looked up at him from under bushy brows. “I got to get that front door fixed,” Mickey said, as slow and lazy as he could manage. He stepped towards the bedroom. Carlos closed the refrigerator, grabbed the last frank from the pot, then jogged across the dining area. Mickey was almost knocked over as Carlos passed him to check the bedroom.

  “Yeah, you never know what’s gonna get in,” said Ruiz. He sat down next to Mama Aponte. His pants bulged grotesquely at the crotch, and a holstered 9mm swung into view from under his suit jacket.

  “That’s what we’re here to talk to you about,” Mama said. “We hear you turned down Horse, pissed his project posse off something bad. We’re glad you did. We don’t want those project niggers down here. This is our spot. So we’re not here to kill you, Mickey. We’re here to offer you protection. You know, Horse put Jason on to you.”

  All three of his guests stared at him intently, as if eager to feed on his reaction. Mickey went over to the stove and put the remaining frank on one of the buns he had laid out. He took a bite.

  “Shit, he’s half-dead already,” Ruiz jibed, mugging to Carlos.

  “Don’t want no protection,” Mickey said after he had swallowed his mouthful. “Landlord don’t want you people in the building. That’s my job, keep the building clean, keep it safe. We got kids here. Old folks.”

  “You got an empty apartment,” Mama Aponte replied, leaning forward in the chair and raising her voice. “You got a spot, we got the shit. We keep the hall clean, keep regular hours, post spotters at the door and the roof, steerers in the street. Twice, maybe three times a day, we do business. This place gets to be safer than the President’s shitting hole. We give you some good blow, or maybe you like money? We hook you up, Mickey. Jason ain’t gonna touch you, if you with us.”

  “Are you going to give me a bodyguard for when I go out in the street?”

  “Who says you gotta go out?” she answered, her shoulders dropping slightly as she relaxed and placed an elbow on the table.

  Ruiz snickered. Carlos stood directly behind Mickey. His crotch brushed up against Mickey’s ass.

  “We take care of everything,” Ruiz said. “Everything you need, we got.”

  “No.” Mickey’s throat was dry, and the word barely had a chance to escape. But it was loud enough for Carlos to hear.

  Mickey shook his head, trying to shake the surprise from his mind as he lay on the floor in the kitchen, his back a fiery mass of pain where Carlos had punched him, driving him across room into the tiny kitchen. He thought about the knife in the sink. Carlos, standing in front of him, glanced at the sink and smiled.

  Mama Aponte waddled up behind Carlos. “You got no place to go, nigger. You don’t do business with Horse, you got to do it with us. Or you die.”

  “Why can’t you find another building?” Mickey asked, passing a hand over his eyes, trying to think, trying to reason.

  “Cause we like your fucking building!” Ruiz shouted. The smile had evaporated from his face, replaced by another expression Mickey had once seen on a crack addict knifing an old woman for her purse.

  “Can’t,” Mickey said as he fumbled for a hand hold on the kitchen counter to haul himself up. “It’s my job. Landlord gave it to me, knowing my record. He trusts me. Won’t—”

  “That white boy’s dicking your ass,” Mama Aponte said in a low whisper. She stepped around Carlos and stooped to face Mickey. “He just using you, Mickey. Fuck him. We your friends, Mickey. We the ones can keep Jason from getting to you.”

  “Won’t give the building up. Too many decent folks. Too many kids. They all counting on me.”

  “They’d piss on your grave, you dumb nigger,” Mama Aponte said. “Just like me, when Jason gets you.” She stood and spat on him.

  “He’s just another one of them southern Nig-ger-oes, Mama,” said Ruiz, taking Mama Aponte by the elbow. “Don’t know how the Klan never got around to lynching his sorry ass.”

  All three laughed, then withdrew. Carlos ducked into Mickey’s bedroom, and came out with his portable TV.

  “I’m taking it on account,” the big man said.

  “On account of you ain’t gonna have no fucking use for it,” Ruiz added. They didn’t bother closing the door behind them.

  Mickey hauled himself up, staggered to the door and shut it, securing the locks and bar. Then, with the room spinning around him and his stomach a greasy pit slowly working its way up his throat, he went to the bathroom. He threw up and shit for the next half hour, until his stomach and colon could only spasm uselessly trying to expel the fear and dread they could not touch.

  Then he sat on the toilet for another ten minutes, letting the bathroom settle into a slow, regular orbit around his head. When his arms finally stopped trembling, he got up and went to the phone.

  “Hello?” asked the high, lilting voice on the other end of the line. The connection was good, the sound crystal clear and vibrating in his head. Mickey could almost smell his uncle’s special barbecue sauce simmering in the kitchen, the hickory and magnolia standing outside his aunt’s parlor window, the old horse left to graze and grow old in the field who tolerated a little boy’s petting and conversation.

  “Hiya, Tee,” Mickey said. He was trying to sound friendly and relaxed, but his voice sounded tinny.

  “Mickey? Is that you?” his cousin asked. Concern mixed with pleasure in her voice, and Mickey felt the old bond between them, like a brother and sister, well up from his gut and soothe the cold, shivering parts of his insides.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Tee. How you been?”

  “How I been? You call me up for the first time in six months to ask me how I been?” He could hear his cousin Theresa shift in her seat, like an old frigate coming around to fire a broadside. “Michael Campbell, you know a sight better than to do that to me. What’s wrong? What happened? You started drinking again? You’re not in jail, are you?”

  Mickey sighed and let his head hang down. “No, Tee. I made the promise. I wouldn’t back down from it. Not for no reason.”

  “I should hope not, after all the years you spent in that New York jail. You never should have left us, Mickey. You know that. The north’s been nothing but trouble for you. That city got its hooks in you, and you ain’t hardly put a fight up against it.”

  “I’m fighting it now, Tee. It’s got its hooks in me real deep, but I’m fighting it.”

  The line was silent for a heartbeat. Then his cousin spoke, softly this time, worry dripping from her words like syrup over pancakes. “What have you done now, Mickey?”

  “Told these dealers, these drug dealers, no. They wanted to get into the building, sell drugs from an apartment. I told them no. Now, they sent this killer after me. He’s real bad. He’s gonna get me.”

  Theresa said nothing for a long while. Mickey heard his own breath against the speaker. A sparrow chirped at his cousin’s end of the line, and Mickey closed his eyes and imagined the big hickory tree standing up tall and proud next to his aunt’s house.

  “Come on back,” Tee said at last. “Get back where you belong, Mickey. Get back whe
re your folks are buried, where your family is. I’ll wire you the money, if that’s what you need. We’ll take care of you. No one’ll find you down here.”

  “Can’t.” His voice was small once more, as it had been when he had told Mama Aponte no.

  “Why?”

  “Folks in the building. Kids. Old people. They got lives, too. They got no place to run to. I’m here, I’m supposed to take care of the building.”

  “A little late in life to start feeling responsible, Mickey.” The lilt in her voice was gone.

  “Learned a little bit of it in jail. They gave me enough years to think on it.”

  “You should of stayed with us, Mickey.”

  “Why? Same thing would have happened, sooner or later. The drink would have gotten to me. I would have killed somebody down there. Done time in a southern jail. I’d still be in one if it had happened down there. Or dead, if I’d killed a white boy.”

  “So why’d you call,” his cousin said. Her voice was flat, all emotion and life drained. “To say good-bye?”

  Mickey squeezed his eyes shut. They burned inside the sockets. The side of his fist scrapped against a roughly finished plaster wall. “Maybe so. Maybe I called for help. Maybe I just want something to do, something right to do, for a change.”

  This time, the silence went on for so long that Mickey thought his cousin had hung up on him. “Tee?” he said at last.

  The woman cleared her throat in his ear. She said, in a broken voice, “You got anybody up there who knows the Way?”

  A spurt of laughter bubbled up through Mickey’s chest, and he had to hold the telephone away as it burst out and filled the apartment. Tears came to his eyes, and his chest heaved as he tried to suck in air between runs of laughter. He doubled over, and finally sat on the floor with the telephone wire stretched taut and the receiver held as far as he could away from him. It was no good, he knew. Tee could hear his laughter, and was perhaps thinking he had played a joke on her. This last idea drained the vitality from his humor. He gasped for air, wheezed, and at last sobered enough so that the raw hysteria within him no longer fed his giddiness.