“We had six years together. But she always thought that when Corrine went off to college, I would divorce Linda and marry her. I tried to explain it to her, but she wouldn’t listen.
“So Corrine went off to school and then Eve started refusing to see me. I actually considered drowning my wife in the tub.” He scratches his shiny head. A sick laugh that’s almost a cough escapes from his dry lips.
Mr. Luthor reaches into his desk again. He lifts a wallet-sized picture, holding it away from me. He taps it into his palm, relishing what is apparently his trump card.
“Eve decided to force my hand, make me jealous. She seduced this young guy at work, someone she knew I can’t stand.”
“Keith, I had no way—”
“She knew how jealous I am. She made sure I found out about it eventually. I went to see her. We fought. She went in the bathroom to wash her face. I started looking around her bedroom. She wouldn’t tell me who the guy was, and I had to know. I looked under her bed and found this.”
Keith tosses the tiny picture in my lap. First I see the writing on the back: FOREVER YOURS, RON. My empty stomach crumples. Tears blur my vision. I turn it over and see Ron’s ridiculous gigolo shirt and his matching smile.
I guess I dropped it while I was at Eve’s. It’s my fault that Ron died. That recurring dream I had was much more accurate than I thought. Life can be funny in a very unfunny way.
The detective in me tells me to get out of the room right now, because Keith is about to kill me. Keith wouldn’t tell me all this unless he was planning to kill me. He doesn’t care about getting caught because he’s killing himself right after me. He’s telling me all this so that when I die, I’m tortured by guilt.
I wipe my eyes and see the gun in Keith’s hand. For a moment I think it’s the gun he killed Ron with, but then I remember that he had to leave that one in the Jeep.
Pressing my palms into my eye sockets to relieve the pressure of my migraine, I picture Ron re-enacting his kiss with Helen, picture him alive and happy, and am overcome with rage. “You fucking idiot! You’re such a meticulous, anal-retentive cocksucker when you’re at work. Every little detail has to be perfect. But when you’re gonna—when you decide to—when you—when you’re gonna blow someone’s fucking head off, you don’t take the time to—you don’t make sure you have the right fucking head. Idiot!” I throw the picture in his face.
“I wasn’t in the right state of mind, Bobby. I took the picture. I left before she came out of the bathroom. I didn’t give her a chance to explain.”
I wonder if I can stall long enough for Capillo to bust in here and save me. Or if he’ll wait in the lobby for me until he hears gunshots. I remember Capillo in his office telling me “No one wanted to kill your friend. If it were you I found dead, I’m sure I could round up half a dozen suspects in a day.”
Keith taps the barrel of his gun against his desk. “I was at least meticulous in planning it out. It was perfect. But when I did it, the next time I saw Eve, she knew it was me. She looked at my face and just started to cry. She never talked to me again.”
Even if I run for the door, he can shoot me five times in the back before I open it.
“Funny thing is, I never would’ve known I killed the wrong guy if you didn’t come in here and tell me Ron was in love with a girl from college. But I didn’t know it was you until I saw you holding Eve in the river.”
“You’re gonna kill yourself, right? Nothing to live for without her. Kill me, then yourself, right?” Adrenaline heals my aching muscles. I feel like I’m at a race where the starting pistol is going to be fired directly into my face.
“Exactly.”
“What about your kids?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“You’re gonna ruin your family forever.”
“Shut up.”
“Probably ruin their lives. ‘Yeah, my dad cheated on my paralyzed mom. Killed an innocent guy, drove a woman to suicide, killed another guy, then killed himself.’”
“I don’t have a choice now, because of you. You poked around and dredged up things that were none of your business. I know you were talking to people here. Asking questions. Keeping Ron’s death fresh in their minds. I don’t know what you took from HR, but I knew sooner or later you would find me. And obviously, I was right.
“I go to jail, long trial, death row, that’s a decade of my kids’ lives. This way, it’s over before they have to get involved.” He points the gun at me for the first time.
I wonder how much it hurts when a bullet hits you. “Turn yourself in. Go to jail. Find Jesus. Accept the punishment like a man, and your kids will learn to cope. Plead guilty; you might just get life.” I think about how the Muslims think the Romans killed the wrong Jesus-Barabbas.
Keith laughs. “You really think you’re going to talk me out of this? I’ve made my peace. We both die today.”
I picture the door behind me. I don’t turn to look, afraid he’ll shoot me if I do. I need to stall him. My head throbs, my pulse chugs in my ears.
“You ready, Bobby?” Keith cocks the gun.
“Let me ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“You learned how to angle the gun just right to make it look like Ron shot himself, correct?”
“I filmed myself pulling the trigger on my own temple, then practiced on a mannequin head.” So smart and so stupid. How could he not know that picture of Ron was a joke? Because he has no sense of humor, that’s how.
“And you fired a second shot for the powder burns. Fired it at yourself. You were wearing a bullet-proof vest.”
A look of astonishment on Keith’s smooth face. “How the hell did—”
I leap across the desk, arms forward, lunging for the gun.
Halfway there, I crash into an invisible brick wall. I fall backwards, toppling the chair behind me. I hear thunder.
Lying on the ground, dazed, I see blood bubbling out of my chest. I hear someone scream outside the office, hear people running. My ears vibrate with the horrible echo of the shot.
Keith steps around the desk and stands over me. I feel the excruciating pain in my chest and cover the bullet hole with my trembling hands. It feels like someone hit me with a hammer so hard the head went though my ribs and into my lungs.
He points the gun right between my eyes. The sun cutting through the blinds shines on his head and his white teeth. He looks huge from where I lie. As he cocks the gun again, I picture Capillo bursting in and shooting him in the chest three times. Keith tumbles over his desk, dead. Capillo helps me up and walks me to a waiting ambulance. My last fantasy.
“Anything you wanna say?” Keith moves the gun forward until my eyes cross looking at the barrel.
I lift my hand and give him the finger.
My breath comes out in wheezes, one of my lungs filling with blood. The feeling of drowning terrifies me, and I wait for the next bullet to end it.
My last thoughts:
It’s three days before my date with Nancy. Ten days before my big performance. If I was trying to be Ron, I succeeded.
My parents will never get over this. I’ve ruined the rest of their lives and I’m sorry.
If I’d had the guts to just kill myself the right way instead of trying to slowly destroy my life, only one person would be dead instead of four.
The old Bobby Pinker deserves this, but the new one is an innocent bystander. Who knows which version of me would’ve been in charge for the rest of my life.
I’m glad my brother will have enough money to pay my debts, pay for my funeral, and hopefully start a trust fund for the baby.
I’m glad Theo won’t get a chance to take a bat to my head.
I wish I could see how beautiful Nancy looks when she’s an old lady.
I wish I could sit and talk to the baby when he’s a grown man, find out what he thinks about the world.
Just before Keith pulls the trigger, I see Ron out of the corner of my eye. He stands beside Kei
th, dressed in his work khakis, picking his nose. When he realizes that I can see him, his eyes widen and he hides his booger-finger behind his back. I giggle and close my eyes.
Seriously, my boss kills me.
Read on for a preview of
David Terruso’s new
murder mystery:
LOST TOUCH
Coming April 2015
Chapter 1
The Old Man in the Rain
When God whispers a secret in my ear, He uses my voice.
If you’ve ever heard a recording of your voice—you know it’s you but it sounds like someone else—you know what this sounds like. It’s probably how a schizophrenic would describe the voice in her head, only my voice tells the truth. But it’s not that I hear Him; He’s like the voice in my head sounding out words when I read a book.
I hate the rain. I want it to be sunny and 68 degrees all year round, but any place with weather like that always has earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or tsunamis. These DC winters aren’t unbearable; they remind me a lot of Philly winters.
I walk up 25th Street on my way to Trader Joe’s. The wind blows the rain down at an angle and I tilt my umbrella over my eyes to keep dry. I watch the sidewalk to avoid walking into someone.
Three bony fingers tap my right hand like they’re rapping on a table. I don’t see them; I can barely feel them. My South Philly survival instinct tells me to whip around and slap this person in his nuts to buy me enough time to dig out my pepper spray. But then He whispers in my ear He needs your help.
The words come not as sounds and not as images, just as knowledge. A radio transmission from outer space with layers of coded messages buried in the static. Electric blips. Random bits of cryptic information.
The frail fingers belong to an old man.
He was feeling around to keep from walking into people.
He can’t see.
He dropped his glasses in the rain and the woman behind him stepped on them. In his mind, he heard Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone say “It’s not fair.”
His world has become a dripping blur. His heart pounds. He has no idea if he’s walking in the right direction anymore. He won’t ask for help. If he admits he can’t see, some punk will mug him and leave him on the sidewalk.
He couldn’t find his umbrella before he left the house. Roberta had always known where his things were. Now he’ll probably catch pneumonia and die. This is how it is at his age. You fall down and die. You catch pneumonia and die. You have a heart attack and die. You get cancer and die. It’s fine, really. He misses Roberta, and his kids and grandkids don’t make time for him anymore.
Aw, this is someone’s pop-pop.
I turn around and pull back my umbrella to see the old man. Rain gushes into my face like I’m standing under a frigging gutter. He’s moving so slowly he’s barely an inch past where he was when he touched me. He sways like a newspaper sailboat.
I glide up beside him and slide my arm around his waist. He gasps, but then my touch calms him. He’s got such a tiny frame. I would kill to have a waist like this. His whole body weighs as much as one of my fat thighs.
“I can help you get home, Frank. I’m a friend. What’s your address?” My voice in his ear is probably like God’s voice in mine. I can see his street and his front door in my mind but I don’t know where it is.
“Thank you.” He grips my arm, tells me his address.
When we turn right on L Street, he asks if I know his son Michael.
“No. I’m just here to help.”
“What’s your name?” His breath smells like hot tea with honey.
“Lina.”
At his front door, he offers me twenty dollars.
“I’m good, Frank. Get inside and get warm, buddy.”
He smiles with crinkly eyes, his hand patting my cheek. I miss my pop-pop, which makes me miss my dad, a feeling I haven’t allowed myself to have in years.
“You’re my angel.”
I smile. “Not even close. But thanks.” I back down the steps as he shakes his keys out of his coat pocket. “Your spare glasses are in the drawer under the microwave.”
Frank nods in disbelief, giggling. “Definitely an angel.”
Life as a psychic is like walking through a museum tour listening to a guide through headphones—except no one around you has those headphones. Every new place is vaguely familiar. Every person I meet seems like someone I saw in a picture a long time ago. Maybe in the night my mind dreams of everything that will happen the next day, and when it happens I’m living it and remembering it simultaneously.
I walk away from Frank’s house with a rare sense of relief. I thank God for that little gift of being able to help him so I could feel happy. So much of my work involves death and violence that any happy ending is a welcome change. God, thank you for this stupid smile. I’ve missed the sensation.
Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. I’m completely fulfilled in life. So few people can say that. I’ve saved lives, rescued children, brought closure to grieving families so they could move on. But I spend my days up to my forehead in other people’s pain. I haven’t forgotten why I do what I do, but there’s no joy anymore. It’s pure obligation now.
I need a vacation from my damn vocation.
About the Author
Dave Terruso is a novelist and screenwriter who lives in Philadelphia.
He is also a stand up comedian who has opened for Maria Bamford, Gilbert Gottfried, Dana Gould, Richard Lewis, and Charlie Murphy.
He is also-also a sketch comedian praised by TIME Magazine. His duo Animosity Pierre were official selections of the 2010 Chicago Sketchfest and the 2010 San Francisco Sketchfest.
He is also-also-also co-founder of Philly Sketchfest, an international sketch comedy festival.
You can find him online at:
www.daveterruso.com
Twitter: @DavidTerruso
Facebook: /DaveTWriter
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Full Fathom Five Digital is an imprint of Full Fathom Five
The In Between
Copyright © 2014 by Full Fathom Five, LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this text may be used or reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without written permission from the publisher.
For information visit Full Fathom Five Digital, a division of Full Fathom Five LLC, at
www.fullfathomfive.com
Cover design by Torborg Davern
ISBN 978-1-63370-029-1
First Edition
Cube Sleuth Page 24