THUGLIT Issue Nine

by Jen Conley

  "It was her idea," he says. His eyes flick to Fiona, but he's not talking about her. He's talking about Fiona's sister. My wife. "I never meant to do it. It was her idea. I didn't even know she was married. She wasn't wearing a ring. Or maybe she was, I don't know, God, I can't remember."

  It hurts him to breathe; I can see that in the way he holds himself. I don't feel guilty. He stares at me and licks the spit from his lips, and when I don't interrupt he keeps going.

  "Her profile didn't say she was married. I know that much. It said she wanted something fun, no-strings-attached. That's all. I didn't know…the scarf was her idea. I was never into any of that choking stuff. I didn't get it. But she wanted it. I swear to God, she wanted me to do it. And I didn't mean to…I didn't realize she'd stopped moving. Stopped breathing. I tried to save her, I did. I did CPR and everything. But she just kept getting greyer and greyer and…"

  His own sobbing interrupts the confession. Fiona crosses the shack and stomps on his bare foot with the heel of her shoe. The sobs become screams.

  "You wrapped her in a tarpaulin and drove her out of the city," Fiona says. "You cut off her fingers with bolt cutters and slashed up her face and buried her in the middle of nowhere." She grinds her heel into his flesh, then steps back and delivers a backhanded slap to his face. She puts her whole body into it. His head snaps around, blood mixed with spit hitting the wall.

  I put my hands on Fiona's shoulders and try to pull her back. She jerks away and lights up another cigarette. "Give him another round."

  "Fi—"

  "Did you love her or not?"

  I drag my palms across my face. What time is it? I don't know anymore. Dawn can't be too far off. An hour or two at most.

  "Please," Nathan says, slower and quieter now. "Please. It's the truth. I'm telling you the truth."

  I crouch in front of him and cup his chin with my hand, force his eyes to mine. His beard scratches my palm.

  "I know," I say.

  He blinks like I'm speaking Chinese. I've never said this to him before. For the longest time I didn't believe him. I didn't let myself believe him. He had to be a monster. After my wife went missing, the cops only spent a couple of months investigating. They would've thought I had something to do with it if I hadn't been out of town on a sales meeting the last time she was seen. But then the cops got wind of my wife's sexual proclivities, and the case was closed for them. She'd run off with some other guy, maybe a few guys. No foul play. Nothing but a waste of their time. I tried to convince them they were wrong. She would've told me. But they sneered and left and laughed at me as they drove away.

  Only Fiona believed me. The two were always close. My wife never would have left her sister. So Fiona believed me. Someone had done something to her.

  Fiona was always good with computers. She fished the deleted email out of the ether. My wife had scheduled a meeting with Nathan Rhodes for a couple of hours of casual sex on a Wednesday afternoon. The Wednesday afternoon she disappeared.

  Fi and I took Nathan for the first time two days later. Took him right from his home, dragged him screaming to this shack. When I started to hurt him, he confessed easily, told us where she was buried, as if that would make us stop. But that wasn't what he was suffering for. In time, he came to learn that. When we set him free only to capture him again a month later, make him hurt all over again. And again. And again.

  All those months I never let myself believe him. I told myself that he was lying about it being an accident. He was a murderer, saying anything he could to save himself from the pain. For a while, I could keep the truth from my thoughts.

  But not anymore.

  "I believe you," I say. I take a deep breath and pretend I can't feel Fiona's eyes on the back of my head. "I know what my wife was like. I wish I didn't, but I know. I know you didn't mean to kill her."

  The stress drains from his Nathan's face. "You believe me?"

  I nod.

  A noise, half-laugh and half-sob, escapes Nathan's throat. Now he looks at me like I'm Jesus himself. "You're not going to kill me."

  "No," I say. "I'm still going to kill you."

  He stares, the look of relief still etched into his features. Then his face goes slack and he starts screaming. "No! No! God, no, you can't, you can't, you can't!"

  "For Christ's sake, hit him again," Fiona says. I ignore her.

  "Nathan." I grab his chin and hold him still as he tries to flail. "Nathan, listen to me!"

  He tries to pull his face away, but he's got nowhere to go. I grip him tight.

  "I need you to understand why I'm going to kill you," I say. "Please. I listened to you, now you have to listen to me."

  Fiona's heels click once. I feel her behind me. "You're not going to kill him. You know what he did. He's not getting off that easy."

  "I'm not hurting him anymore," I say without taking my eyes off Nathan. "He's had enough."

  "He'll never have enough!" she screams in my ear. "Never. If he runs again we'll find him again and we'll hurt him again. If he tries to go to the police we'll take him and keep him here permanently. We'll keep him alive and we'll hurt him every day until his body finally gives up and even that will be less pain than he deserves."

  I spin around and give her one in the teeth. My knuckles sting. She stumbles back until she hits the wall of the shack. She steadies herself and blinks at me in disbelief. Then her hand comes up and touches her lip. There's a drop of blood on her finger.

  I'm breathing hard. I didn't mean to do that. "Fi…" I say.

  She sneers at me, rips open the shack door, and disappears out into the night. I take a step after her before I change my mind. I'm not finished here yet. Nathan has watched the whole spectacle in silence, mouth dangling loosely. Now his eyes snap back to me and he starts struggling again. I stand in front of him, trying to get my breathing under control. I have to make him understand.

  "Forget her," I say. "This is just between you and me. I know you didn't mean to kill her, Nathan. But you did. I know you were scared when you did those things to her body, cutting her fingers off and all that. I know you were only trying to protect yourself. I understand that, truly I do. I know she came to you willingly. But she was my wife, Nathan. As fucked up as she was, she was my wife. And you killed her. I wish I could let that go. But that's not the way the world works."

  Nathan starts to sob again. I crouch in front of him.

  "You must feel it," I say. "You must know this was the way it always had to be. It's not about what you and I want. This…" I hold my arms out to encompass the shack. "…this game of ours, it's a part of us. It's who we have to be. It's not fate, exactly, but it's…it's something. We never had a choice. Fiona and I, we had to do this. You know that, don't you?" I'm struggling to explain myself. I can't give voice to the feelings that have driven me this past year. Does he understand? I can't tell by studying his face. Tears roll down his cheeks and get caught in his beard.

  I put my hand around the back of his neck and pull him close so our foreheads are touching. I can feel his sobs vibrate through me.

  "It'll be easier now," I say. "When it's over, I'll be able to forgive you. You'll be able to forgive yourself."

  He groans and shakes his head. "Please. Please don't."

  I stand up and go to the corner of the shack. An old rusty toolbox that belonged to my grandfather is one of the few things in here the rats haven't touched. It takes most of my strength just to crack the rust on the hinges and get the damn thing open. While Nathan continues to sob, I rummage through the tools. There's nothing there that would make this easy. No hammer. Not even a decent knife. My mallet's back in the car, and anyway it would make a mess of it. I didn't plan for this to happen tonight. But I've lost my taste for suffering. I want this to be done with while Fiona's gone and I can think clearly.

  I settle on a flat-head screwdriver. It won't be clean. But I think I can make it fast.

  I turn back to Nathan. He's finally stopped crying. He stares at
the wall of the shack, at nothing. He doesn't flinch as I come back to him.

  "I'm sorry," he says, but this time there's no pleading whine in his voice. "I'm truly sorry."

  I nod. "Are you ready?"

  He closes his eyes. The electric lantern makes the tears on his cheeks glisten. I take his silence as acceptance. Nothing more to say. I pull open his shirt. He's become so thin I can easily make out the pattern of ribs pressing against his skin. It's easy to find the right spot. I bend down to embrace him as I shove the screwdriver into his chest.

  It takes a while. Three minutes, five, maybe ten. He's silent, but he shudders as he dies. All the tension that's been keeping me awake and moving the last year is draining out of me. My legs are about to go out from under me. I have to grip Nathan's shoulder to stay upright. I cry and tell him I forgive him. But he doesn't reply, because he's gone.

  There's a creak of the door and a click-clack of heels behind me. I stand up, but I don't turn around. I keep my eyes on Nathan as I say, "It's over, Fi. It's—"

  The mallet connects with the back of my head and everything goes fuzzy. I don't even get my hands up before I hit the ground.

  She has me sitting on the same chair Nathan was occupying a moment ago. The metal legs are cold against my calves. My arms are behind me. I test my range of movement. Zip ties hold me in place. Of course.

  My vision is all static. I taste vomit in the back of my throat; I've already thrown up at least once. Fiona is nothing but a silhouette as she stands between me and the electric lantern. Nathan's body is sprawled at her feet. I can't see her eyes, but I can feel them on me. Wind whistles through the cracks around the shack door. I shiver.

  "Don't do this," I say.

  Fiona says nothing. She takes a step towards me and I see the flat-head screwdriver in her hand. Nathan's blood still coats the steel.

  "Fi," I say, and my voice breaks. I'm not tired anymore.

  "I told you we weren't done with him," she says.

  My throat is dry. "Fi, please."

  "You never loved her. If you had, you wouldn't have left her alone and let her die like that. You wouldn't have let this fucker get away with it."

  "Fi, don't. You have to understand. I had to do it."

  But she doesn't say anything more. There's nothing left to say. I beg for a while. It doesn't help. She watches me for a minute or two. Then she goes to work on me.

  She's doesn't try to keep the bruises off my face. I don't suppose it matters. I figure I'll be here a long time.

  And after a while I realize this is right. This is what has to happen. Soon, I'll finally be able to forgive myself.

  Now that I'm right where I belong.

  She Died With Grace

  by Stuart Smith and Stephen Zippilli

  I've been driving us to the mountains for over three hours. The sun is making its first appearance over the skyline and mist is seeping from the long shadows of the tall pines. I have to pull to the side of this freaking winding country road. "Babe..." I whisper. "Babe, wake up." She wakes with a start, her hand plunging for the revolver in the purse open on her lap.

  "What?" she says louder than she intends as she bolts upright from her craned position in the front seat of our SUV. Now she's holding the snubby, barrel to the roof, next to her head. She rubs her eyes.

  Having navigated by memory to get this far, now I'm not sure where we are. I have never been to the cabin at this time of day, and the surroundings hold no familiarity. "What's the address of the cabin? I need to plug it into the GPS. I'm not sure where we are."

  "The address? Uh, there's no address, really. It's an RD."

  "A what?"

  "RD, Rural Delivery. What, you never heard of that?"

  I look at her, head cocked sideways, processing a retort, but finally think better of engaging her right now, since she has her gun.

  "Okay, that's good, that's good. If we can't find it then it'll be hard for anybody. So, what's the name of the street? I can plug that in."

  "Okay. Hold on. Gimme a minute. It's a bird name... Mockingbird, that's it. Mockingbird Lane."

  I give Babe a long glance, "You're shitting me, right?"

  "What? It's Mockingbird Lane. What's wrong?"

  "Never mind. Mockingbird it is. Let me enter that... Great, that's just a couple miles from here."

  A couple miles and a whole world away. This bullshit is eating me up. I've never been on the run before. Not ever. Not from the cops, the mob, nobody. And here I am running from my own fucking cousin. Son of a bitch! That punk's got no right. But I shoulda seen this coming. I've known since we were kids that he's not right in the head. Since before our first heist even, I've known, but that heist sealed it.

  Me, Benny, and Sal—at 16, we were tight. One day we ran out of pot and money at the same time, so we devised a grand plan to knock off old man Schwartz' corner store. We'd been shoplifting from him for years and he knew it. He'd chase us once in a while. But we never hit the register before, 'til this day.

  I had lookout, Sal had distraction at the back of the store and Benny was gonna hit the register. Foolproof, right? But Schwartz didn't bite. He saw Benny heading to the register and turned away from Sal. He caught Benny with his hand in the till, grabbed his shoulder and spun him away from the register. Benny grabbed a can off the shelf, peas I think, and clocked old man Schwartz on the side of the head. Sal and I moved in, but he got Schwartz a couple more times good.

  After a minute of calming Benny down we grabbed the cash and split.

  Then it went from bad to worse. Turns out Schwartz had been paying his protection money for a long, long time. He knew us, of course, so it wasn't long before we got tuned up by local racket guys, Joey Big Thumbs and Chickenshit Lou. We learned some new commandments that day. First of all, you don't steal from the protected without permission first. And if you do, then you gotta pay homage—literally pay a cut to the boss. We got marched to the hospital where we had to apologize to Mr. Schwartz and give back the money. We owed him for what we used to buy the pot.

  Anyway, Benny played along but he hated every minute of it. He took a worse beating cause he fought back. That just pissed him off more. The next week, Mr. Schwartz' store burned down. Everybody knew it was Benny, but nobody could ever prove it. That didn't stop Joey Big Thumbs. Benny took another beating for it on general principle.

  It just made Benny meaner. And all these years later, that meanness came to a head last night.

  In our home four hours ago, Babe scared the shit outta me.

  "Carlo! Waddaya doin' out there? It's 2 a.m. Come back to bed."

  My heart was still racing from the shrill interruption. "I can't sleep, Babe. You go on. I'm gonna finish this drink then I'll be in." I held my tumbler of whiskey up for her to see, then set it down on the end table next to where my cigarette idled.

  "Alright. Suit yourself. But remember, we gotta go see Angie in the morning."

  "Yeah, yeah. Be right in."

  Babe returned to the darkness and quiet of our South Philly row home where we'd lived since we got married 16 years before. I knew I wasn't going to sleep that night. In fact, I wondered if I would ever really sleep again. It was coming unraveled and I knew it. Everybody knew it. It's bad enough when the soldiers start turning. But when the lieutenants start turning, that's real bad. Standard Fed tactics. They light a fuse and the burn makes its way up the line. Not like the old days when, knowing his own family would be looked after, a guy would take a stretch for the organization. No. The honor's gone. It's every man for himself. The Feds are playing us all like puppets. It amounts to a frame-up. But who you gonna bitch to? They use information from one guy and make it look like it came from the next guy they wanna bring down. Turn us on ourselves. I'm next.

  I knew my boss thought I'd already turned. The Feds—in my case Extra Special Prick Worthington—made a point of being seen coming to our house, my work, or hauling me in. I gave them nothing but it didn't matter. My boss, Benny "The Bulld
og" Bocco, was feeling the pressure. He was plugging holes wherever his pea-brain thought they were, real or imagined. He thought he was keeping the organization 'together.' Idiot. What he was doing was gunning down the only guys who could fight his ongoing battle for control of the city from some New York backed punk named Ciriglio. It was bad on all fronts. There was blood everywhere. This was the shit keeping me awake.

  The front doorbell rang. It was like the bells of Notre Dame at that hour. For the second time in three minutes I jumped outta my skin. I grabbed my Beretta from the stash between the sofa cushions. Babe came out again from the darkness, still pulling her robe around her. "Who the hell is that at this hour? Carlo? What's the matter?" Startled by the gun in my hand, Babe's South Philly accent came on strong, until my name sounded like "Cah'lo" when she asked me what was the "matta."

  "I'm gonna check, Babe. You go in with Lisa. You hear anything bad, you hide in the attic, you hear me?"

  "What the hell is goin' on, Carlo?"

  "Babe. Not now. Go!"

  She hurried up the stairs to our daughter's room. I made my way to the window nearest the door. I moved the curtain as little as possible to get a look at the doorstep. Through the sculpted wrought iron bars covering the windows I was almost relieved to see that our Quasimodo turned out to be Connie—Constantine, my best friend and a senior member of my crew—but still, it was after 2 a.m.

  Last time this happened it was because he got stabbed trying to collect from some college boy who owed Benny four large when the Sixers didn't cover the spread. Connie was explaining things to the kid when his frat 'bro' jumped to the rescue and stuck Connie in the shoulder. Connie still managed to deck the kid and get out before the cops showed. Two nights later, me and a couple of the boys went old school on their asses. Followed hero-boy back to the frat house. Baseball bats and ski masks make for a pretty grand entrance and those kids were shitting themselves. We busted up hero-boy and the weasel pretty good, then dropped some flaming rags in the joint on the way out. Benny raised the vig on the kid for the trouble. I figure he had to tap the trust fund to make good.