The Empty Heart: A Collection

by Derek Murphy

  With only the tatters of her dress for cover; her coat had disappeared while he was unconscious, there was no way for her to keep warm without some other kind of covering. His own parka was wool and though it had seemed to drag him down while in the water, it had begun to dry out once he was back onshore and he shucked it quickly, wrapping it around the unconscious woman. The cold wasn’t as intense inside the shack, but he knew he needed more warmth than the blow-torch was putting out. Rummaging around the shack, he found a stack of musty-smelling burlap bags and hauled them to the lean-to to make a nest of sorts. He pushed some under Chloe and around her. When he was finished, he found that he only had a couple left to cover himself with. He looked at the sleeping woman and decided that shared body warmth was the way to go; with only enough covering for one, it made sense to make it go as far as possible.

  Lifting the edge of the burlap bags, he slid in next to her and slid an arm around her as she began to shiver. Pulling her close, he pulled the burlap over their heads to capture their exhaled breaths; it wasn’t much, but it would add to the warmth. As he felt the chill leave his body, lassitude crept in and he began to drop off to sleep. His last conscious thought was that the mobsters thought they were dead and if he could only find a way to get Chloe out of the country, she could at least survive.

  * * *

  Dag awoke to find Chloe staring at him with lowered lids that gave her a sleepy, sexy look. The blood had crusted on her face and at some point while they slept, she had brushed it to one side, smearing it across her cheek. He decided that she looked like some old, barbarous goddess of Death and wondered if he wasn’t far wrong. It was then that he became aware of his ‘morning lumber’ and felt a hand brush across it, the nails dragging on the material of his jeans.

  "I knew you would be a good’un. How did you get us out of the water?"

  Shifting to break her contact with his body a little, he lifted a leg to get it between himself and her hand.

  He said, "I swam. You were out of it most of the time and we were lucky I found this shack."

  She brought her hand up and laid it on his chest and he felt its warmth through his shirt. He briefly wondered if she was as warm all over, then put the thought out of his head; their circumstances hadn’t changed. They still had to get someplace warm; warmer than this shack. And there was still the problem of money.

  As though reading his mind, she said, "I’ve been thinking about the money. That briefcase was Boris’ petty cash bank. He didn’t trust anyone and carried it around with him in case he needed a million or so. But, he also kept a lot more at a place he never let anyone into."

  Dag snorted. "Good luck getting into it. His goons have probably emptied it out by now. Or taken over the place."

  Her pink tongue flickered between her lips and he noticed that her eyes were blue; as blue as his own. A few silver strands of hair straggled out of their black brothers to fall across her forehead and he wondered how old she was. A few grey hairs didn’t mean much though; with the life she had led, she could be going prematurely grey.

  She cuddled closer to him and said, "Boris never let anyone go with him when he went there. No one but me. He thought it was a good joke on his people. They’ll be tearing his penthouse apart trying to find his stash of money, and it’s someplace else altogether."

  Suddenly interested, Dag said, "You know where it is."

  Then reality came back to bite his ass and he said, "It’s probably in a safe. And with him dead, there is no one that knows the combination. Unless he gave it to you, and I don’t think that’s something he would do."

  For answer, she took his hand and guided it to her groin. He resisted, but she was stronger than he thought she was and clamped down on his hand with both of hers, guiding it to a small ring that hung from a fold of her flesh. A small key depended from the ring and she smiled at him as an astonished look crossed his face; he had seen nearly everything she had on several occasions and had not noticed the ring or the key.

  She said, "Boris called it the key to my heart. He believed that I only hung around because of the money. That wasn’t the only reason; at first, there was the drugs, too, but I kind of liked having him around until I got clean."

  Once she had made the presence of the key known to him, she released his hand and he brought it from under the burlap bags, feeling self-conscious. Chloe unnerved him; she was so matter-of-fact about sexual things and while he was no prude, her demeanor threw him off-stride. He suddenly wanted a cigarette and, knowing better, removed his pack from his shirt pocket. Shoving a finger into the sodden pack, he verified that his cigarettes were beyond hope and tossed the pack behind him.

  "So? What do we do about the money?"

  "We need a car."

  "Good luck finding one. If the snowstorm kept up, any car you find won’t be able to get around in this stuff."

  Challengingly, she asked, "How did you get to the warehouse last night?"

  Seeing where she was going with the question, he said, "I drove an SUV. But it’s all the way back at the warehouse. You’ll never get there dressed the way you are. Don’t forget that you’re barefoot. Are you up to losing a few toes to frostbite?"

  Her smile indicated that she knew something that he didn’t and before he could ask her about it, she said, "The building we walked to after the wreck was the front entrance of the warehouse. All that driving we did only got us from the back to the front; it’s a big warehouse. And the river is only a block away from it. I’m sure they took the most direct route to the river; we weren’t on the road very long, remember."

  Dag said, "They’ll still be there, though, won’t they?"

  Shaking her head, she said, "They’ll be at Boris’ penthouse; tearing it apart to find his money."

  Sighing, he said, "Alright. I’ll go get my SUV and come back to pick you up. You’ll still need some clothes, though."

  "We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it."

  Pushing himself from under the ragged burlap, he held out his hand for his parka and she pulled it from around her with a small smile. Her dress was in worse shape than he had thought and barely covered anything at all. She quickly gathered the burlap bags up and pressed them to her to recapture their residual heat. Snuggling down into them, she called out to him as he walked to the door.

  "A bite to eat would be nice; if you find the time."

  Closing the door behind him, Dag reflected that Chloe could prove to either be pretty high maintenance or she was only joking about the food. There were no fast-food joints in the area and with the weather; they probably wouldn’t be open anyway. He decided that she was only half-joking; food could become an issue after the night they had just had. He walked through the snow to the side of the pier where a stairway climbed to the top and gazed at it in trepidation. It was covered in inch-thick ice with a layer of snow piled on top of that and the wind was blowing at a sustained thirty or thirty-five miles an hour. It was so strong that he wasn’t sure if it was still snowing or if the snow that stung his face was blown from somewhere else. To make matters worse, though the sun had been up for an hour, the heavy cloud cover hid the sun to such an extent that it was nearly as dark as night.

  He mounted the stairs and hung onto the rail in case of a slip. A fall from even halfway up the stairs could be life-threatening. At the top, he trudged through the snow to the edge of the warehouse district and made his way toward the warehouse where this had all started. Reaching the corner of the warehouse, he paused and peeked around the corner to find that though there were a couple of other vehicles parked here and there besides his SUV, the snow seemed untracked and pristine. He moved toward his SUV midway down the side of the building and stopped beside it to shovel snow from the windshield with his hands before unlocking the door and climbing inside.

  He inserted the key into the ignition and turned it, gritting his teeth as the engine turned over slowly a couple of times before it caught and the engine roared to life. Reaching behind the se
at, he felt along the rear floorboard for his ice-scraper and exited the car to begin removing as much of the ice as he could. It would never do to have another wreck because he had neglected to clear the ice away.

  Shivering, he returned to his seat and kicked in the transaxle before shifting into ‘Drive’. The heavy vehicle spun a couple of its wheels as it bucked out of the piled snow, but kept its traction and moved out onto the road without any further trouble. Driving slowly to the pier, he parked at the top of the stairway and rummaged around in the back of the vehicle until he found what he wanted. Returning to the front seat, he opened the glove compartment and removed a lone sleeve of chocolate-covered donuts, slipping them into the pocket of his parka as he slogged through the snow to the top of the stairs. Going down was hairier than going up; looking down at all the snow and the impossibly slick steps made him dizzy and he clutched more and more at the rail until he reached the bottom.

  Though the shack was sheltered by the pier, and little snow had been blown under it, what little there was failed to show any other tracks going into or out of the shack and he hurried to the door, swinging it open and stepping inside. The blow-torch had gone out, but the little building seemed snug and almost warm after being outside. Chloe sat up and peered at him where he stood with the marginally lighter exterior backlighting him.

  Dag said, "I’m back."

  Relaxing enough to stretch lazily, Chloe said, "I knew you would be. You’re a loyal, dependable kind of guy. The kind I should have taken up with years ago."

  Walking to her, he removed his parka and held it for her to slide her arms into. With the difference in their sizes, it all but swallowed her, but she simply zipped it up and lifted one foot, looking at it critically.

  "I hope it’s not far to go. I feel as though they only just got warm."

  For answer, he leaned close and removed a pair of athletic shoes from the pockets of the parka. They were Mary’s, but she wasn’t here and Chloe’s need was greater at the moment.

  "They’re size seven. Probably too big, but they’ll keep the worst of the cold out."

  Taking them, Chloe dropped them before her and maneuvered her feet into them. As he had feared, they were too big, but she knelt and tied them as tight as she could, drawing the strings up so much that the eyelets nearly met in the middle. As she straightened, he slid his hand into another pocket and removed the sleeve of donuts. When she saw them, her eyes teared up and she lifted a hand to his neck, drawing him down to kiss him briefly on the cheek.

  "Thank you."

  As she tore the sleeve open, she looked up at him with respect and some sort of feeling that he couldn’t quite decipher.

  "What’s your name, anyway?"

  "Dag Egilsson."

  She paused in eating the donuts and curtseyed in front of him, saying, "Chloe Taylor."

  "I know. I recognized you last night."

  He was surprised to see her blush at that, as though she were ashamed of what she had become after being what she had been. It didn’t matter to him that she had been in the lower ranks of the supermodels ten years earlier; or that she had become little more than a Russian gangster’s drug-addled whore. She had helped him when he needed it, without knowing him or even knowing that he would be able to help her in return.

  He said, "You’re alright, Chloe. If you hadn’t helped me out, I’d be dead by now."

  Popping the next to last donut into her mouth, she offered him the last and said, "Right back at ya, Dag. I guess we both owe each other our lives."

  He took the proffered donut and took a bite of it, chewing quickly. "Okay. Now that we’ve founded the ‘Dag and Chloe Mutual Admiration Society’, let’s get the fuck out of here. If one of those gangsters goes by the warehouse and sees the tracks my truck left getting out of the snow, they might decide to follow them right to us."

  Tossing the empty donut sleeve behind her, she said, "Lead on, Dag!"

  * * *

  Flipping the light switch in the kitchen as they walked into the house from the garage, Dag looked around and saw that everything was as he had left it; the kids’ cereal bowls still on the table with soggy cereal in them, and two laundry baskets full of clothes next to the washer. The laundry had been folded once, but when Mary dug through them, removing the things that she wanted before leaving with the kids, she hadn’t cared that the clothes became rumpled. He walked to the baskets and shuffled things around until he found a pair of stretchy, jogging pants that Mary had gotten too big for and pulled them free of the other stuff. He knew that Mary’s old bras wouldn’t fit Chloe; the former model was very well endowed and Mary, even after gaining weight, was built like something put together from Lincoln Logs; flat and angular. He pulled one of Mary’s old t-shirts and a bulky sweater from the baskets with a thick pair of socks and laid the collection on top of the washer.

  "These might fit you. I’m sorry; it’s the best I can do. Mary is taller than you, and…slimmer."

  Picking up the pile of clothes, the woman studied them with her bottom lip caught between her teeth for a moment. She abruptly slid her arms from the parka and looked around the kitchen/dining room.

  "Where can I shower? I’d like to get the smell of the river off me. It wouldn’t hurt you to get a hot shower either." Wrinkling her nose, she continued, "You smell like dead fish. Or, is that me?" Cocking her head to one side, she smiled to let him know she was poking fun at herself.

  He pointed toward the bedrooms and moved to the fridge for a beer. Cracking it open, he upended it and drank off half. When he lowered his head, he saw that Chloe hadn’t moved.

  She said, "You get a shower first. You look like Hell."

  Too tired to argue with her, he started to walk past her and paused as she grabbed the beer from his hand.

  "You won’t need this in the shower."

  He continued on to the bathroom as she took a drink and cocked an eyebrow approvingly at his taste in beer.

  Once in the bathroom, he locked the door behind him; her constant remarks about the size of his penis and her desire to take him to Australia bugged him. He found her mildly attractive, but still loved Mary and wanted to put his marriage back together. He didn’t put it past Chloe to slide into the shower with him in an attempt to suborn his loyalty to his wife. He piled his soggy clothes beside the shower and wondered when he would find the time to wash them. He had been prepared for the cold weather and the wool t-shirt, under a wool shirt and sweater had really helped in their dunking in the river. Even the wool, whipcord jeans had come in handy. It was a pity that he didn’t have more of any of it; Mary had gotten them for him over the years as gifts for cold weather. But that was before she decided she didn’t love him anymore.

  After he had been in the shower for a couple of minutes; long enough to get soaped up, he heard the doorknob rattle a little and thought he heard a muttered curse from outside. He smiled grimly at his accuracy in predicting Chloe’s behavior and ducked his head under the stream of water.

  Having finished his shower quickly, he dried off and padded from the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. Entering his bedroom, he saw Chloe’s butt sticking out of the bottom of the closet as she knelt there dragging something from the floor under the few clothes Mary had left there. Her ragged skirt had hiked up nearly to her waist and he had to admit that even with the extra weight she had put on since her modeling days, she still had a shapely derriere.

  With an excited cry, she straightened, backing out of the closet and held up a pair of knee-high boots that Mary had worn when she was younger. He remembered them well; a budding horsewoman, Mary had bought them to ride in just before they were married and while she had lost her interest in riding horseback, she had kept them for their role-playing games and only given them up when her feet had grown too large for them. He thought that with a pair of thick, knee-high socks, Chloe might find them a better fit. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her using something that he had come to think sentimentally about, but mentally sh
rugging, he decided that it didn’t really make any difference.

  Tossing the boots onto the floor beside the bed where she had placed the clothes he had found for her, Chloe stepped closer to him, invading his ‘personal space’, and placed a hand on his still-damp chest, running her fingers through the thick hair that grew there. He could smell the river on her and wrinkled his nose.

  "You better get a shower. I didn’t notice the smell when I was covered with it myself, but now that I’m clean, you reek."

  Slapping his chest lightly with her open hand, she smiled wryly at him and said accusingly, "You locked the door!"

  He shrugged. "I don’t like to be surprised."

  Her eyebrows arched as she walked past him, saying, "We’ll see about that!"

  After she stepped into the bathroom, he dropped the towel and walked to the dresser, pulling out a drawer to get remove fresh underwear when the bathroom door opened suddenly and Chloe, undressed, stepped back into the room. She posed prettily beside the door, one arm stretched upward.

  A smile crossed her face as she said, "Even allowing for the shrinkage, you’re better setup than I thought. Are you sure you won’t go to Sidney with me?"

  Making no move to cover himself, he leaned a hand on the dresser, still clutching a pair of underwear and said, "You’re too preoccupied with sex, Chloe. I think you have more screws loose than just the ones that led you into a druggie lifestyle. Spending time with you could be problematic."

  First, she frowned, but then her face softened and he saw a vulnerable, little girl hidden underneath her brash character and he felt sorry for having said what he did.