The Empty Heart: A Collection

by Derek Murphy

  "The damn, little bitch was fuckin’ with her cell phone an’ not watchin’ what she was doin’!"

  When they reached the car, Robert could see the girl, hanging suspended by her seatbelt and shoulder-belt. A trickle of blood had escaped her lips, to be joined by a like trickle from her nose and pool briefly over one eye before continuing its trek up her forehead. The air bag had deployed, which offered a possible cause of the bloody nose, but he wasn’t sure about the blood from her mouth. It was possible that she had bitten her lip. It was also possible that she had internal injuries.

  Reaching through the broken window, he pressed two fingers to her carotid artery and felt in vain for a pulse. Finding none, he shook his head and looked sickly at the other two men.

  The taller man said, "Can’t find one? Shit. That’s a damned shame. She was young, too. Too young to end up this way."

  Several other drivers had pulled to a stop near the accident scene and one of them ran up with a crowbar and fitted it into the gap between the door and the frame. The way the car had collapsed on itself made it evident that working the latch would be useless. The driver of the trash-truck joined Robert in helping to pull the door open and just as they got it far enough out from the wrecked car to extract the girl’s body, a fire-engine and ambulance swung into the intersection, followed by a pair of police cars. Robert and the others stepped back to let the professionals do their jobs and one of the policemen set about directing traffic while the other began taking statements from the witnesses.

  Robert heard the driver of the truck expostulate over and over that the girl was using her cell phone and been distracted instead of paying attention to her driving. When it came time for Robert to give his statement, he was just finishing and heard one of the EMTs exclaim loudly.

  "She’s alive! Mike! Bring me a blanket!"

  Robert turned to see the girl lift a hand to her face and mumble something. The EMTs worked on her for a while before lifting her onto their gurney and moving her to the ambulance. He was sure he saw her pale face turned toward him for a moment and felt a flare of recognition for just a second. There was something in the way she had looked at him that seemed familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Shrugging, he signed the statement the officer held out to him and turned back to his car, still idling at the other side of the intersection.

  * * *

  Stretching out in the tub, Robert lifted his beer and sipped at it as he let the hot water soak into his sore muscles. He had worked all day laying sandstone for the patio out back and the unwonted activity had taxed his arms, shoulders and back more than he had thought it would. The patio was finished and the mortar between the stones would be dry in a couple of days. Plenty of time before Labor Day weekend. He would grill burgers and dogs for the annual cookout and his kids would like having the patio to sit on. They had always complained about not having a patio at his cookouts and now there was nothing for them to complain about.

  He was at peace with himself. It had been a month since he had seen Alicia’s apparition and there had been no recurrence. Donald and his co-workers had given him a ration of shit about running out the way he had, but after a couple of weeks, had found other things to pique their interests. His behavior was forgotten and things had settled down at work. The F.E. had found nothing wrong with Drive 480 and work had progressed back to normal.

  Placing his beer on the side of the tub, he leaned his head back on the inflatable pillow and sank down into the water to let it lap over his shoulders. Feeling the heat soak into the sore muscles, he was nearly asleep when he heard the doorbell ring. Pushing himself up in the tub, he rose and threw a towel around himself. He was no longer wary of looking in mirrors and caught sight of himself, pausing a moment to appraise his appearance. Still young looking for nearly fifty, fit and well-muscled, he prided himself on having taken care of his body. He shook his head as he slipped his feet into a pair of thongs and padded toward the front door.

  Opening the door, he saw a girl standing on the front porch. She was dressed in a pair of shorts and a skimpy, cropped t-shirt, with sandals on her feet. Her dark hair foamed around her shoulders and Robert was sure there was something familiar about her. Her full lips widened into a smile as he looked at her and she lifted a hand to flip the hair from one side of her face.

  "Hello. I’m Ali…Lisa."

  She stumbled over her name and Robert wondered if she was pretending to be someone else.

  Still holding the towel about his waist with one hand, he frowned and asked, "Is there something I can do for you, Lisa?"

  Her eyes flickered to the interior of the house behind him before they dropped to the towel and she said, "Can I come in for a minute?"

  "I’m sorry. Are you selling something? As you can see, I’m a little busy and not prepared for visitors."

  Smirking a little, she said, "It’ll just take a little while. Please?"

  Unsure why he was doing it, Robert swung the door wide to let the girl in and excused himself to dress. When he returned, the girl sat in the middle of the couch and was twining her fingers together in a worried manner. Sighing, he sat in a chair across from her and leaned forward.

  "Can I get you a drink? Some tea, maybe?"

  Her dark eyes came to rest on his and he was struck by the sense of familiarity that had come to him from the moment he saw her at the door.

  She said, "I was in a car wreck a month ago and I’m told that you were one of the witnesses."

  Then he thought he knew why she looked familiar; she wasn’t hanging upside down now, but the pretty face was the same one he had seen that night. She was tanned and the light was better than the night of the accident and he knew who she was now. He absently appraised her appearance and approved of what he saw.

  The girl was no more than five-two, maybe a hundred and five pounds, pleasantly distributed, and dressed for the summer weather. The cropped t-shirt was filled to capacity and he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra; she seemed damned glad to see him. The way the material of the t-shirt puckered between her breasts would have gotten his attention on anyone, much less on a girl sitting in his living room. The shorts she wore were the kind that girls wore jogging; very tight and very short. They lacked a couple of inches of reaching her navel and he wondered if she had dressed this way especially for him or if she dressed this way all the time. A heart-shaped face with slightly bulbous cheeks gave her a baby-fat appearance, but he was sure she was old enough to have passed that phase of development.

  "Okay. I remember you now. The last time I saw you, you were hanging upside down. I never knew your name."

  Leaning forward, she said, "I know you, Robert. I’m here to make you a proposition."

  Frowning at her use of his name, he asked, "What kind of proposition?"

  Leaning back on the couch, suddenly at ease and feeling in control of the situation, the girl said, "I want to be your girlfriend. It would be something special for a guy your age to have an eighteen-year-old girlfriend."

  Believing she was joking, Robert said, "Your parents might have something to say about it. I’m sure they would like you to find a guy your own age. I know when my daughter was your age; I was scared to death that she would date some guy old enough to be her father. And, I’m nearly old enough to be your grandfather."

  She flipped a hand dismissively, saying, "Lisa’s Dad is an alcoholic and her Mom is a tramp. They are sending her to college here in town, but they don’t have any other interest in her."

  Wondering why the girl was speaking of herself in the third person, Robert shook his head as a half-smile came to his face.

  "And, Lisa’s parents might feel differently about it than Lisa thinks they will."

  Heaving a sigh, she said, "This isn’t as easy as I thought it would be."

  Sliding forward, she dropped to her knees in front of him and stared into his eyes.

  "Rob, look at me. Really look. Don’t you recognize me? It’s me; Alicia."

 
Sliding as far back from the girl as he could get, Robert said, "I don’t know who you are, but I don’t think this is very funny."

  A shake of her head set her hair swirling about her shoulders and she said, "Lisa was dead, Rob. I saw that the only way I would ever have you, ever be in your life was if I was alive. With a body just lying there, waiting for me to fill it, there wasn’t anything else I could do. Please understand, Rob."

  He felt his mind slip the track for just a moment. Assuming that she was telling the truth, that she really was Alicia; was this his opportunity to make amends? The age difference alone would present problems for them. Shaken that he was actually considering this, he shuddered a little as the girl before him pushed herself up onto his lap and wound her arms around his neck.

  "Now, we’ll be together forever."

  Back to Table of Contents

  Cold Feet

  Snow blanketed the city, hiding the dirty streets and the even dirtier people who usually reclined over the subway grates, catching the heat that billowed up from the underground. True, most of them had taken refuge in the various homeless shelters scattered about the city, but a few still clung to their castoff, cardboard boxes previously used to contain new refrigerators, dishwashers, washers and dryers.

  Here and there, a car or truck braved the snow and ice to move sluggishly through the streets. Even fewer were the police cars that Dag tried to avoid on his way to the meet. After parking his SUV beside the building, he walked toward the rear entrance of the warehouse and the backpack on his shoulders seemed to ride heavy. It held boxes of the pills he and his friend, Bill, had cooked up in bill’s basement. The pills were a new formulation that gave an ecstatic ‘high’ and tapered off without any ‘low’ at all. The only problem with it was that only one pill would hook anyone. Bill had used one of his neighbors, a high school kid with a taste for any drug he could find, as a ‘guinea pig’, and the kid had described the drug’s effects so seductively, that Dag was tempted to try it himself. Instead, he and Bill had watched the kid for a week, supplying the drug whenever the kid came around and quantifying the addictive qualities. They had also learned that use of the drug with any other drug led to soul-shattering hallucinations. Especially cocaine. But now, Bill had found a guy downtown that wanted to get in on the ground floor, and Dag was trudging through the snow to meet the guy now.

  The weight of the pistol in his waistband at the small of his back was comforting and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it. Dag had never fired a shot except at a target range, and targets don’t shoot back. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do if threatened, but he knew that with this much ‘product’, someone could take it from him, analyze it and cut him completely out of the equation. Getting cut out of the equation meant getting killed and Dag especially didn’t want that. He didn’t think that Bill would double-cross him, but you never knew about Bill; it had been Bill’s use of illicit drugs at work that had gotten them both fired; Bill for the use of drugs, and Dag for trying to cover for his friend. When Bill had offered the use of his basement for the production of the drug so that they could both make some money to support their families, Dag had hesitated, but with his nest egg evaporating so quickly, there had been no other choice.

  He paused at the corner of the building near the entrance of the warehouse where the meet was supposed to go down and the wind blew a handful of snow in his face. Ducking his head, he blinked his eyes to clear them and fumbled his cell phone from his pocket. He speed-dialed Bill’s number and waited for him to answer. The usual three rings stretched into an eternity until he heard a click and Bill’s voice.

  "Yeah."

  Dag’s throat felt tight as he asked, "Ready?"

  "Yeah. A guy will meet you at the door. Follow him."

  The line clicked and the phone went dead. Folding it, Dag slid it back into his pocket and walked across the snow-covered street to the door. The wind was horrendous and he nearly lost his footing on one slick spot, causing him to dance, slipping and sliding for several feet until he regained his footing and equilibrium.

  He pounded twice on the door, waited a couple of seconds and pounded a third time, at which, the door opened and a man in a dark overcoat held the door until he slipped inside. Dag looked at the man’s face and realized it was half-covered by a dark, woolen scarf. As cold as it was, Dag could understand that, but the guy was inside a warehouse and the temperature was marginally warmer here. He suspected the scarf was more to keep Dag from seeing the man’s whole face than anything. As a nod to the sentiment, Dag pulled the hood of his parka closer about his own face and followed the man as he turned away and walked toward the other side of the building. Weak lights hung from the beams that formed the base for the floors above and were spaced every twenty feet or so, creating small pools of dim light that they walked through. The light showed them their footing, but little more than that.

  On the other side of the building, Dag became aware of a small group of people and as he neared them, recognized Bill’s short figure in the middle, next to a tall, hulking man. The others likewise had scarves pulled over their mouths and noses, creating the effect of bandits from some old western movie. But this wasn’t a movie. It was real life and Dag felt that that life could become quite short if he wasn’t careful.

  With a shock, he recognized one of the people in the group as a model who had been very popular a few years earlier but who had fallen on hard times because of drugs and bad choices in life. Of the group, she was the only one who hadn’t covered her face. Though still beautiful, that face was beginning to age prematurely. He knew the woman was no older than thirty, but the lines and bags under her eyes gave the impression of a greater age. She was still dressed very well; her coat, which reached her knees, hung open and the dress she wore looked like a designer creation. Despite the weather, she wore high heels and the dress was cut so high that he was sure that she couldn’t bend over for fear of showing everything she had. Tight and low-cut, it looked like something a high-class hooker would wear anyway. There had been rumors in the tabloids about the woman having an eating disorder, but she appeared to have gained twenty pounds. While she looked healthy, her muscle tone left something to be desired. Just now, the expression on her face gave the impression that she had done something that she really didn’t want to do and she was angry at everyone in the group.

  The hulking man next to Bill spoke with an accent that sounded vaguely Eastern European as he said, "You got the goods?"

  Nodding, Dag shifted the pack from his shoulders at which the men on either side of the group reached inside their coats. He was sure they had their hands on guns and he stopped the movement and began moving much more slowly. When he had the pack in front of him, he held it close as the man extended a hand.

  "You have the money?"

  Bill held up a briefcase and nodded. His friend’s usually bluff personality seemed muted and he wondered if something was wrong. Bill would normally have been loud and exuberant during something like this. Dag had never seen his friend involved in anything like this, but knew how he would behave in almost any situation.

  Suddenly impatient, Bill fumbled the case open and turned it for Dag to see inside. Dag frowned.

  "That doesn’t look like two-hundred K."

  The big man said, "It’s an unproven product. I’ve got to know it’s good before I risk that much cash."

  "You agreed to the price sight unseen. Why change the deal now?"

  "I told you. The risk."

  Still holding the backpack, Dag asked, "What would it take to prove the worth of the goods to you?"

  The big man shrugged inside his expensive coat and said, "For me to see how it affects someone."

  "Do you have a guinea pig in mind?"

  The man turned his head to look at the model.

  "Chloe. You wanta try some new stuff?"

  The woman’s Aussie accent was ragged as she said, "Come on, Boris. I just got clean. If I start using again, I can kiss m
y career goodbye."

  Boris jerked his head at the man standing next to her and the man grabbed her roughly by the arm. As he jerked her forward, she fell to her knees, crying out. Her leg suddenly lashed out and kicked the man, who fell, clutching at his crotch. The man standing at the other side of the group moved to grasp her by the hair as Bill ducked backwards, closing the case he held. With the flurry of confusion, Dag reached under his parka for his pistol and brought it out. The big man’s eyes rounded when he saw it and as he cried out, Dag pulled the trigger three times. The big man fell and Dag turned the pistol on the other two men. The third man was turning, his hand going back inside his coat as Dag shot him down. The man on the ground, still clutching his privates, struggled to clear his own gun until Dag put another two shots into him.

  Chloe’s eyes goggled at the men lying on the ground and she scrambled up, grabbing the backpack and tossing it into the darkness. She clutched at Dag’s hand and dragged him in the direction Bill had taken. In a few feet, they almost tripped over his friend who knelt over something. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Dag recognized it as another briefcase and surmised that it held more money.

  The woman kicked Bill at the base of the spine, sending him forward over the case, crying out in agony.

  "That’s for asking Boris to make me give you a blowjob!"

  Turning to Dag, she said, "Your friend sold you out! They were going to kill you and he was going to take all the money!"

  Dag’s sudden anger turned him cold and he put two shots into Bill’s back as he tried to rise from the floor. He stopped dead in his tracks as he realized what he had done until Chloe dragged the briefcase from under Bill’s body, dumped the contents of the case that Bill had carried into it and grasped him by the hand, jerking him into motion. Running across the warehouse in her heels, she made an awful racket and stopped after a few steps to kick them off. Picking them up, she grabbed Dag’s hand again and started off on a roundabout route for the back of the building. Back near the entrance, Dag heard shouts and the clatter of running feet. They reached the door at the back of the building quicker than he thought they would and plunged out into the snow.