Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007

by Barbara Callahan

  “You carry it loaded?”

  Mr. Burke slips it into his other pocket. “I just told a story. Your turn.”

  JJ looks away, reaches for his drink. “I don’t have a story.”

  “Everybody’s got a story.”

  “Don’t kid yourself.” Drinks, rattles the ice. “Do I look like her? You’d think I would. ’Cause I sure don’t look like you.”

  Mr. Burke studies him. “First I don’t see it, then I do, then I don’t.”

  JJ turns his empty glass between his big fingers. “Why’d you wait this long to find me?”

  As he’s practiced, Mr. Burke says, “At that time I had no rights.”

  “My grandparents lied to you,” JJ says. “When you came back from Basic? No one adopted me. I was bouncing around in foster homes till I was eighteen. After that I was on the street. Finally came back here. Nobody leaves this place.”

  “In those days I had no rights,” Mr. Burke says. “I had no rights. I searched for you but I had no rights.”

  JJ’s eyes narrow. “Why look again now?”

  “You get to a certain age,” Mr. Burke recites. “And now this Internet… people can find each other. If they want to.” Thinks, nobody leaves this place. Thinks of her.

  JJ studies him. Then relaxes.

  “Which we did,” he says.

  The sun through the closed curtains is a little lower. Mr. Burke takes the lace tablecloth from his suitcase.

  JJ gapes.

  “No,” Mr. Burke says. “It’s not the same one. I bought it in Hong Kong, long after I found out she was gone.”

  JJ raises the nearly empty bottle and Mr. Burke drapes the folded tablecloth on the little table, watches JJ put the bottle down.

  Pain shivs up inside his chest. His vision blurs, but he doesn’t wince. He sits. “It makes me feel like she’s been here. It’s something I would never do, so she must’ve been here. In this room. She must be in the next room.”

  Across the lace tablecloth, JJ’s blue eyes fix him. JJ’s hand reaches across with the bottle. Sound of the scotch pouring.

  It’s so like his dream that Mr. Burke gasps. Rattled, he blurts, “You’re in trouble.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mr. Burke slides his day planner from his inside coat pocket, uses his thumb to point at the photo of two thugs taking JJ’s money at PIZZA D-LITE.

  JJ stares at it.

  “I’ve been here three days,” Mr. Burke says. “I got here early. I saw you with those men.”

  “You took pictures.”

  “At a certain age they’re more reliable than your memory.”

  JJ holds the day planner, his eyes flicking from photo to photo too fast to comprehend anything. “I don’t…”

  “I’m old. Old people die. In my case, it’s a bad liver. Doctors won’t say anything you could sue them for. I asked him if he was me and wanted to take a trip, would he wait a year or take it in two months. He said he wouldn’t wait two months.” He takes the day planner from JJ’s hand.

  JJ’s looking at him, at the day planner…

  “So you want…”

  “Just to know you. Nothing else.”

  “You’ve been watching me for three days.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have time to get to know you slow.”

  JJ nods, eyes still panicked. Says distractedly, “So why don’t you just get a transplant or something?”

  “They won’t let you on the organ-donor lists if you like your scotch.” Another hot stab of pain. Bad one. Knows he’s gone pale. “I’ll never know you as well as I’d wish to. But I know you’re out of your league with these men.”

  JJ’s mouth opens. He closes it.

  “Maybe I can help,” says Mr. Burke. “How much?”

  JJ abruptly scratches his ear. Starts to reply, stops.

  “Quarter mil,” he says.

  “Qua—” A low whistle. “You have a story after all.”

  JJ’s not looking at him. “I’m not gonna finally meet my dad and drag him into my problems.”

  “What family’s for,” Mr. Burke says. “So I hear.”

  “Got a quarter mil?” JJ looks at him, lets the silence answer the question. Rubs his knuckles. “I’m not comfortable with those pictures being out there.”

  “They’re not out there. They’re in my pocket.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m an old man with two months to live. You think I’m gonna spend that time getting my son in trouble?”

  A jarring electric buzz. JJ rises and presses the door button on an intercom near the kitchen. They wait for the diner deliveryman to make his way to JJ’s apartment. JJ folds and unfolds his arms, clears his throat. Mr. Burke feels it as a rising pressure.

  JJ breaks and says, “I—” and the knock comes.

  “You bought the booze,” Mr. Burke says. “I’ll get this.”

  To give JJ time to bleed off some of that building pressure, he asks for too much back from the slender Middle Eastern man, forces him to start the transaction over. Feels JJ’s pressure behind him, still building. Bleed it. Take longer. Messes up the tip amount, says wait, calls the guy back, gives him another dollar. Manufactures a comedy with the bag and the money, not enough hands.

  The pressure doesn’t bleed. The door closes. JJ’s got a look to him. “I need those photos.”

  “Smells good.” Mr. Burke smiles.

  JJ shakes his head, and Mr. Burke sees himself, an old man who’s played it wrong.

  “No need to get excited, son,” he says, and it detonates.

  Mr. Burke between the wall and JJ’s solid body. Bag of cheeseburgers spilled on the floor, JJ’s big hand taking the day planner from Mr. Burke’s coat. Perfume smell from JJ’s haircut, JJ’s forearm compressing his neck against the wall.

  JJ takes the pistol and the magazine, steps back, day planner between his teeth, eyes darting.

  Mr. Burke rubs his neck, breathing hard, sees how far the door is, sees the magazine not yet loaded into the pistol. Thinks about how far he’s come. Sees JJ panicking.

  “Okay, son.”

  JJ’s hand jerks up with the pistol, the magazine still in his other hand.

  “I’m just gonna sit down.”

  JJ tracks him with the unloaded pistol. His suit is five years out of date. The forty-year-old Tokarev is the wrong vintage in his hand.

  Mr. Burke drops into the chair. Odor of cheeseburgers. Realizes he hasn’t heard the lawnmower in a while. The lawn outside is cut, maybe edged. “Give both of us time to think,” he says.

  JJ notices the magazine, slides it into the grip. Examines the gun, racks the top back. Takes the day planner from his teeth, puts it inside his jacket, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “Son, I don’t know what you’re into—”

  “Yeah.”

  “—but I know the look of a man in over his head.”

  “Yeah.” JJ backs into the kitchen, takes the phone down from the wall.

  Softly, “That’s a mistake, son. Let me—”

  JJ raises the pistol. Mr. Burke falls silent, and JJ crosses the living room, stretches the telephone cord, puts the chain on the door. Back in the kitchen he dials, turns away. Top of the phone handset visible at his ear. Line of pale, damp skin at the back of the new haircut.

  Soft murmuring, a glance back.

  Hangs up, comes back, sits in the other chair. Eyes darting.

  “Son—”

  JJ stands, aims the pistol straight down onto the top of Mr. Burke’s head.

  The Long Island Rail Road rumbles. Nearby, the creak and slam of a screen door.

  “I’m dead in two months, boy. You got nothing to scare me with.”

  JJ’s breath shallow.

  “Who’d you call, son?”

  “Shut up.”

  “You called those men. From the pizza place. You think you’re in business with them. Those men are going to kill you.”

  JJ makes a sound that’s
supposed to be a laugh.

  “The envelope you gave them had two in it. Two grand, two hundred. Whatever. Two wasn’t enough. They made a call, asked for permission to kill you. Take out my day planner, I’ll show you.”

  JJ stares at him.

  “I’m half your size, I’m unarmed, and I’m old.”

  JJ steps back warily. Takes out the day planner.

  “See them calling? See the guy making guns with his fingers?”

  “ ‘If the new one doesn’t work out’?”

  “If the new one doesn’t work out, they kill you.”

  JJ goes white.

  “What’s the new one?”

  Nothing.

  “How long till they said they’d be here?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “How do you want to spend your last nineteen minutes?”

  Nothing.

  “I know what a grave smells like, son. Either we both leave—”

  JJ drops the day planner on the little table. The gun comes up again.

  “—or you start talking, or you die.” Mr. Burke sits back.

  “Why would you help me?”

  “You’re stupid, but you’re my son. Eighteen minutes.”

  JJ studies him.

  “Maybe less.”

  JJ scratches his ear. “I started my business on credit cards.”

  “Good.”

  “Hundred thou. Zero percent for the first year.”

  “First year runs out, you’re at what, nineteen percent?”

  “Thirty. I was right on the edge of breaking even.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “X-ray supplies and stuff. Health support services. You know. Tongue depressors, Q-Tips.”

  “How does that business work?”

  “We don’t have time.”

  “Talk fast. Or let us leave.”

  JJ looks at the curtains. Takes a breath. “There’s doctors. They own clinics. They give you an order, you give them a C-note. Everybody knows the kickback, it’s a C-note. These doctors start saying this other guy, he’ll give them two c’s. First I say no, but…”

  “Business dried up.”

  “I went two c’s. The other guy went two-fifty. I went three. My expenses went through the roof. I knew his expenses had to be going through the roof, too. I knew in my heart if I could just outlast him… Then the credit cards called in their loans. They were going to take everything. I went to this guy.”

  “How much did you borrow?”

  “Hundred K and change to wipe out the credit cards, another sixty ’cause if I wanted the edge, I needed to get more mobile.”

  “More mobile?”

  JJ peers through the break in the curtains.

  “Yeah. I bought a mobile unit.” He turns suddenly from the window. “I mean — you know, it was a van. It did give me the edge. I dropped the kickback down to one C, but the doctors still called me because they got their stuff faster.”

  “Seeing as we’re dead in fifteen minutes,” Mr. Burke says, “let me speed this up. The other guy got a van too. So you’ve got the same problem you started with, only now you owe a quarter mil. What was in the envelope you gave them?”

  “I put some aside out of what the guy loaned me. In case I needed it for payments.”

  “It used to be five dollars per hundred dollars per week and you never had to pay down the principal. Still?”

  “Yeah.” JJ’s gaze flickers toward the curtains.

  “Your calculator break? That’s two hundred and fifty percent annual. Twelve grand a week forever.”

  JJ leans in, intense. “I knew in my heart.”

  “So you owed them twelve grand, and you showed up with two. The last of what you’d put aside because you’re so smart. Was this week your first short payment?”

  No answer.

  “And now they want everything, not just the interest. You don’t have a choice. You have to liquidate.”

  “I did.” JJ changes gun hands long enough to wipe his right on his pants.

  “Yeah. ’Course you did. And I know who the buyer was. How many cents on the dollar?”

  JJ breathes deeply, looks out the window. “Five.”

  “So… seven grand and change. Which they keep. And they own the business, so you can’t use it to make money. JJ, you idiot.” He rises, paces. JJ lets him. “What’s a loan shark want with a company that can’t sell a Q-Tip without dropping three bills?”

  Something odd about JJ’s shrug. Mr. Burke frowns. “What was that?”

  JJ shakes his head, shrugs again, peers through the curtains.

  A tickle, a thread. Mr. Burke doesn’t know what it is yet.

  “Where’s the profit? Throwing C-notes at every order, plus now you’ve got a van to maintain.” Stops. “Why’d a delivery van cost sixty th—”

  The tickle widens to a white flash that blinds him, floods his limbs.

  …doesn’t order like a favorite customer. Doesn’t call the brunette waitress by name.

  Loses where he is. Cover, soldier! Can’t breathe. Snap out of it, old man! Get practical. Pull in some air.

  Steps to the chair. Lets himself down into it. JJ steps in, raises the pistol, holds it steady a foot from Mr. Burke’s forehead.

  “You didn’t buy a delivery van,” Mr. Burke says. An old man who’s been played. “You bought a mobile testing lab. ‘Our mobile testing lab comes to you.’ ”

  The gun steady.

  Mr. Burke passes a hand over his face, breathes tiredly. “So. How does this work? You put an ad on the Internet, someplace where people are trying to find each other. It says you do DNA tests — ‘Our mobile lab comes to you!’ Some sucker bites. You send somebody out in the mobile lab, swab my cheek, pretend to find a match for my DNA.”

  The gun steady. Mr. Burke closes his eyes, tracks back through the weeks. “You send the lab out again to ‘verify.’ I get e-mail and a picture from you, pretending to be my son. I come out to meet you.” He closes his eyes. “You weren’t slacking and playing the ponies because you were despondent. You just weren’t scheduled to be in character yet.” Opens his eyes. JJ’s suit looks like a costume. The scotch glasses are props. “I’m not rich. Where’s your profit?”

  The gun steady, JJ’s eyes half-lidded. “You’re crazy, old man.”

  Mr. Burke studies him. “Old man. Might have an estate. Might be worth something. Find my son, change my will. All you have to do is wait for me to—”

  The gun wavers.

  Mr. Burke nods. “No reason to wait. Pretty soon I fall down some stairs.” Closes his eyes briefly. “The new one. I’m the new one. The new one doesn’t work out, they kill you.” He smiles without anything in it. “You thought they needed you to run the scam. But they don’t. And you just called and told them the new one didn’t work out. And where you are. And that you’ll wait here. With the new one that didn’t work out.”

  JJ’s breathing fast. A different thing occurs to Mr. Burke. He savors it, smiles for real. Wants to explain that he’s not smiling at JJ’s stupidity, but now he’s laughing, and JJ’s pulling him from the chair, raising the pistol high, face dark. The laughter is so violent he can’t force words out, can barely keep his eyes from squinting shut.

  The pistol crashes against his temple, and he’s on the floor, his vision red-black.

  (Her pretty hand.)

  JJ’s standing bent over him, a blur, white hairs stuck to the pistol as he roars. Mr. Burke gasps, thinks he’s going to vomit laughing so hard, tears stinging, head throbbing, funniest thing an old man near death has ever thought of.

  “Ah!” He hears his suffocated laugh. “Ah! Ah!” Between asthmatic wheezes he tries to speak. JJ raises the pistol again, whips it down against Mr. Burke’s face, splits his cheek open.

  (I’m sorry, my darling.)

  JJ hauls him up, roars what?! and Mr. Burke’s sucking air like a fish, pointing with a shaking finger at the little table. JJ drops him, spins, snaps up the day planner. “Th
is?”

  Gasping, eyesight blurred. “Back,” he croaks, makes an urgent flipping motion. Minutes left. If that.

  JJ pulls out a folded piece of yellow paper. Mr. Burke nods, points, sucks air.

  JJ unfolds it. Finds the word at the top. “Transplant.” Looks down at Mr. Burke. “You said you couldn’t have a transplant.”

  “Couldn’t be on the list. Still get one from imm—” A rogue upswell of laughter knocks away the end of the word. “Immediate relative,” he manages, and a shrill giggle hangs in the air, and then there’s silence and wheezing. His lungs and head are splitting; the pain shivs his chest again and he moans.

  JJ rereads it. Frowns at it.

  Shocked horror dawns. “You wanted my liver?” JJ looks up. “You wanted my liver?” Amazed pain in the voice.

  Seems like a long time goes by, JJ still just standing there. JJ’s going to kill him. No point lying. No point telling the truth.

  I just wanted to know my son.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he whispers.

  “You’re a dirty con man.” Yellow paper hanging from JJ’s hand. “You’re no better than me.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Neither of us has two months anymore.”

  JJ stares at him. Seems to click into something different and cold. Looks at his watch. Crouches.

  “This is the gun of your assassin.”

  Mr. Burke nods, watching him. The end of the barrel nestles in. “This about where your liver is, Dad?”

  A little fragment of fear, not too bad. “That’s it.”

  JJ shoots him.

  JJ lets the yellow paper go, and Mr. Burke watches it flutter down toward him, watches it flutter… then JJ in silhouette in the open door, pretty tablecloth in one hand, Tokarev in the other… and then just the empty doorway.

  A silent ballet of illusion and memory.

  Her pretty hand reaching out to him, and doctors look down into the gurney and move their heads in unison. Watery lights — nurses float like kelp around the room.

  (JJ shoots him.)

  An ocean of beeps and alarms.

  (Her pretty blue eyes.)

  (A child’s voice: Daddy!)

  (The type he used to like, crucifix necklace and a sweet smile.)

  There was never a time. There was just the one sweet woman.

  (Please don’t kill me.)