I
rolled down the window of my unremarkable rented Taurus outside Elvis’s
Lounge. The residual fumes from the half pack I’d chained
rose into the darkness like some urban smoke signal. Even though I
was parked in a nondescript spot behind a van, the young idiot should
have seen me from his position. For him, the entire world was
focused down to a pinpoint onto the painted red door.
Not
that it was important to me one way or the other that particular night,
but my habits always led me to attempt conspicuousness. I was good
enough. Others were better. Cardinal sin number two was
being seen when you didn’t have to. Or didn’t want to
be. The kid pacing nervously under the awning next to Elvis’s
might as well have been dressed up in a gorilla suit and blowing an air
horn, he was being so obvious.
I
was testing him, giving him every chance in the world to go about his
business without me sticking my nose in.
He
failed. He was clearly letting emotion make him stupid.
Stupid
gets you killed in these matters.
I
had no intention of somebody else’s idiocy having me killed.
He
was dressed in an oversized cream-colored jacket and a bright red
Yankees cap that practically glowed under the light. It made no
sense to me whatsoever, since the regular team color was dark blue.
This kid could be one of, if not the first person killed for making a
poor fashion choice. He was all boiling hot piss and vinegar.
The readout on my dashboard said it was 17 degrees out. Even if it
was a hundred and ten, he should have had gloves on. At least if
he intended to use the gun that he had in his right hand.
I
sighed and crawled across the front seat of the car to exit on the
passenger side. The side away from the street, where I wouldn’t
be seen. I stuck to the shadows, taking the long route inside the
glow of the streetlights. My soft-soled shoes made no sound as I
worked my way up behind the kid. The last three feet behind him
were well lit under the awning. I took those three feet fast as I
pressed the muzzle of my revolver under his ear. The kid froze,
arms by his side. The light gleamed off of the chrome piece in his
hand. Even his gun conspired to give him away.
“You
turn your head and the last thing you see will be your own face lying on
the sidewalk. Say yes if you understand me.”
”Y-Yes.”
His frightened breaths froze in the air.
“Good.
Now hand me the gun slowly and walk backwards with me until we’re out
of these goddamn spotlights.” Not too bad a gun; a Smith &
Wesson Short .40. The serial numbers had been filed off.
Point one for the kid doing at least one thing right. We backed
into the darkness and I stuck his gun into the back of my black
jeans. “Now, you see the Taurus behind the van?”
“Yeah”
“Walk
to it. Go around to the rear passenger side and get in.”
Dutifully,
he did as he was told. His gait was defiant. Not at all the walk
of somebody with a gun at his back. Had to give the boy some
credit. Mighty big stones on a kid that couldn’t be any older
than sixteen.
I
climbed in behind him, pushing him along the seat with light pressure
into his ribs with my gun. I would have preferred not to kill him
in a rental car if I didn’t have to. Rather not have to kill him
at all. Too many bodies make for a messy night. Making
messes was cardinal sin number three. That, and a longer than
usual explanation to my rental agent.
“You
gonna smoke me?” The kid asked, as though reading my mind.
It wasn’t a hard read, the gun and all.
“That’s
all up to you, Sean.”
“My
name’s not Sean.”
“Then
why the hell do you have Sean John written all over your jacket?”
The
kid clucked his tongue. “That’s the brand name, man.”
Well,
at least the kid wasn’t going to pull a trigger with his own name
stamped on his clothes. Another point for him. That still
left him stupid, just not retarded. “So what’s your name?”
“Alex.”
I
might have believed him, if we weren’t facing a billboard with A-Rod
hawking some sugary sports drink. “You know, I can just as
easily go into the back of those stupid jeans hanging off your ass and
check your wallet.”
The
kid clucked his tongue again and muttered a low curse. “Carlos.”
“Thank
you. Now, you mind telling me what you’re doing marching back
and forth next to Elvis Maxwell’s joint with a gun?” I knew
the answer; I just wanted to hear him speak it.
“I-
I wasn’t…”
“Wasn’t
what? Trying to get yourself killed? Making a mess of my
night? Guess what, buddy? Until I stepped in there, you were
preparing to do both with blazing success.”
“How
am I making a mess of your night?” Anger edged his words.
“I
have business here.”
“What
business?”
“None
of yours. But it’s business that would best be conducted without
your dumb ass raining gunfire and stupidity all over the place.”
I rapped him on the back of his head hard enough to just hurt him and
knock that stupid Yankees cap off.
His
breaths were becoming ragged. “You gonna kill me, then kill me.”
His voice was becoming thick, but not with fear.
“Then
don’t make me-“
“He
raped my sister!” The words tore open the floodgates.
Huge sobs wracked his body. He trembled with righteous rage at the
injustice.
I
just sat there, allowing him his anger. “I know,” I said
softly. I had read about the incident in the papers. Heard
more detail on whispered lips in dark places.
“What
do you know. What do you know?” He cried as he
started to turn towards me.
I
pushed his face hard against the window with the muzzle under his eye as
I slid to my left, keeping out of his sight line. I didn’t need
any accidents that a panicking overemotional kid could easily
cause. “Uh-uh-uh. You just face out, boy.” His
tears rolled down the gunmetal.
“He’s
gotta pay, man. He’s gotta pay…” he mumbled more to himself
than me as he stared at a point far beyond the window.
“He
is, but let the courts do their thing.” The statement felt more
than ludicrous coming out of my mouth, considering I had a gun to his
face.
“You
can’t be serious. A man as mobbed up as Elvis Maxwell?”
“That’s
exactly what I’m saying. The Feds have been itching for
something to put him away for.”
“And
you think that they’re gonna care about some spic stripper he
raped? He’s killed people. I ain’t stupid.”
“You
are if you think he’s gonna let you get within fifty feet of him
without killing you first.”
“Then
what? He’s just going to get away with it?”
I
thought about myself. All of my sins. My history. “Nobody
gets away with it in the end.”
“That’s
bullshit, man. And you know it.”
I
didn’t know if it was or it wasn’t, but I said, “What isn’t
bullshit is that cab coming down the street. That’s the cab that
you’re going to hail and get home with. Your sister needs
you. She’s got enough to deal with without her brother dead.”
I stuffed a twenty into his coat pocket. “If you turn around, I
put bullets in your spine. Got it?”
He
sniffed and nodded his head low. “Got it.”
He
opened the door and stuck his hand out. The yellow cab pulled up
and he climbed in, never looking back. I waited until the
taillights cornered Broadway before I got out of the car and strolled
over to Elvis’s. The club wouldn’t be open yet, so I buzzed
the bell by the huge metal door.
A
huge Spanish guy with a shaved head opened the door. His other
hand slid to his side, just out of vision, but at the ready. Very
professional. “Hey T.C., Elvis expecting you?”
“Yeah.”
I said. I looked at Jesus straight. “Benji called
me. Said Elvis needed to see me.”
“Gotcha.”
Jesus did some freelance for Benji, just like I did. Benji
probably assigned him the bodyguard detail just like I’d gotten my
call for the meet. He turned his huge neck, looking up and down
the street. “That dummy in the Yanks cap split?”
“Yup.
I saw him too. Must have got tired of waiting. Saw him hop in a
taxi.”
Jesus
was good. He would have killed the kid quick, before he’d even
had a chance to exact his vengeance.
We
eyeballed each other for a second. Professional respect and
challenge in both our eyes. Two Alpha dogs who would forever
wonder which one was Beta until such time they met in a pit. “We
cool?” I asked.
Jesus
shrugged his huge shoulders. It looked like boulders shifting
under Armani. “Ain’t no thang. Benji gave me the 411.”
I
walked past him, down the crimson velvet covered walls. Thumping
techno music reverberated down the corridor. I turned left at the
end and saw Elvis Maxwell sitting alone in a leather booth. He had
on a dark wool suit and a white shirt, open at the collar. All he
needed was a gold medallion and he would have looked like a disco
lizard, time-warped from 1979.
He
saw me and lifted a remote. The techno music cut off abruptly.
The annoying bass line echoed in my ears for a couple seconds.
“Tee-SEE!”
He yelled my name in the empty club. For a man who cherishes
anonymity as much as I do, hearing my name not only yelled, but echoing,
made the hair on my neck rise. He opened his arms wide, a brandy
snifter in his hand, amber liquid sloshing at his gesture.
“Elvis,”
I said, considerably softer.
Elvis
slicked his oily hair back with his fingers before he offered his
handshake. Despite my disgust, I took it. The grease rolled
around my fingers, making my stomach churn.
He
popped a thin brown cigarette between his thin lips directly from the
pack, then offered the pack to me.
“No
thanks.” I did want one, but couldn’t stomach the thought of
his lips touching one of the filters that might touch mine.
He
shrugged. “Your choice. For me it’s become decadent to
smoke in my own bar. You believe that? I can’t even smoke
in my own place? You have any idea how much money I put into this
mother? Next thing you know, they’ll say you can’t drink in a
bar.” He poured himself another healthy dollop of Frapin cognac
from the bottle on the table. He chased the seven hundred-dollar bottle
of liquor with a can of Red Bull. Class guy all the way.
I
sat down opposite him at the table. “So, what happened?”
He
dismissed my question with a wave. “That’s not
important. What is-“
I
interrupted him. “Actually, it is.”
He
glared hard at me. He wasn’t used to being interrupted.
“You’re kidding me, right?” His tone indicated that I might
be.
I
wasn’t. I went on. “Do you know how money much the
Gayden sisters have in The Blue Ruby?”
“C’mon,
T.C., that run down little nudie bar?”
“Exactly.
It’s run down for a reason. The Yuens move a sizeable amount
through there too.”
“I
know.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “So imagine my
surprise when that little spic whore calls the cops.”
“She
said you raped her.”
“That’s
not the point.”
“What
is then?”
“I
need you to take care of her. That’s why I called Benji.
Benji calls you. You getting my drift?” His attitude was
shifting from appreciative to smarmy. A little man with a little
power.
“Nobody
needed police attention at The Ruby. You should have known better.”
He
stood up sharply, red impatience creeping up his neck. “You
listen to me, and you listen to me right now. If I wanted to hear
from an asshole, I’d have farted. You got me?” Two
fingers curled around the snifter, stabbing his anger at the air in
front of me.
I
placed my hands on my lap, listening.
“You
get paid to take care of this shit, and nothing more.” He took a
manila envelope, held together by a thick rubber band, from his inside
jacket pocket. “You’re a tool. An employee, at best. If
I hand you money and say ‘kiss my ass’, you ask where and whether or
not I want tongue.” He slapped the envelope on the table in
front of me. “Now you been paid, do your damned job.”
I
shot him five times in the chest, ruining his nice, nice suit. The
reports thundered down the corridors of the empty club, echoing into the
air.
“I
did get paid. And I am doing my job. Prick.”
The
snifter shattered in his hands as his body clenched around the gaps that
the many pieces of lead had so rudely pressed through him. Smoke
wisped from the holes in the wool jacket just as it curled from his
cigarette, still miraculously clutched between his fingers. He
looked down incredulously at his condition. The light was fading
from his eyes fast.
“Nguuuuhhhhhhh,”
he said as he plopped back down onto the leather banquette. It was
the smartest thing to come out of his mouth all night.
I
picked up the envelope, put it in my own pocket. “Thanks for the
tip.” With the edge of the tablecloth, I wiped Carlos’s prints
off the gun and dropped it on the floor. I figured it was only
right that I used it. It felt like justice that I did. “You
never even tried to deny raping the girl, either. That plain
ticked me off, just so you know.”
And
with that, Elvis shuddered once and left the building.
I
went to take a leak before I left the club. It was a long drive
back to Brooklyn. As I wiggled myself dry, I looked at myself in the
mirror. I didn’t look too bad, but I felt older than dust.
The three white hairs at my left temple bugged me more than they should
have.
Carlos
was at an age that I couldn’t remember being anymore. I was glad
that I got him gone. He didn’t need to- BOOM!
Another gunshot cracked the air. I instinctively hit the deck,
praying that the janitor had done a good job on the bathroom floor.
Silence.
My
heart was pounding as I stood and pulled my own gun. With my free
hand, I slowly opened the bathroom door. The club was just as I
left it. Elvis was considerate enough to stay dead. Carlos’s
gun was still on the floor. That meant there was another gun in
play other than one in my hand.
“Jesus?”
I yelled down the dark hallway.
Nothing
“Jesus,
if you’re here, give me a heads-up!” I wasn’t worried about
giving my presence or my position away to the shooter. If whoever
it was headed up the corridor, I had him dead bang.
Still
nothing.
Then
a pained wail, too high-pitched to be the meaty Dominican.
I
pressed myself against the velvet-covered wall and moved slowly towards
the cries, gun leading the way. In the dim light over the door, I
could make out Jesus, flat on his back in a pool of blood, still
clutching his huge revolver. A sizeable piece of his head was
squashed in and had split over the ear, a spike of bone jutting out. I
assumed that the piece of rebar that lay at his feet had done the job.
I
picked up his gun. It must have looked impressive in Jesus’
massive paws. Unfortunately for him, all that bulky muscle
combined with a handgun too heavy for its own use enabled a high-schooler
to get the drop on him with a piece of iron.
Carlos
was curled against the wall, his wrist tucked under his arm. Blood
gushed from his ruined hand. Two of his fingers lay scattered next
to Jesus. The shot I heard must have been the one pull of the
trigger Jesus got off before his skull collapsed.
Carlos
rocked back and forth in pain, not all of it physical. “I killed
him. I killed him,” he wept, tears and snot running down his
face.
I
was at least ten years older than him when I ended my first life.
I thought I’d never stop vomiting. It got better. Part of
me wanted to tell him that. Part of me… didn’t.
I
knelt down next to him and placed my hand on his back, right between his
bony shoulders. “You had to. He would have killed you,”
I whispered gently. The words were for God to hear as much as they
were for him.
“I
had to. He would have killed me. He would have killed me,”
he repeated. He said the words over and over as though trying to
convince himself that they were true. He looked at me. His
terrified eyes seeking further consolation in my face, my words.
I
shot him once behind the ear. The red Yankees hat flipped off his
head as the bullet passed through. Carlos sighed peacefully, then
slumped prone on the carpet.
I
put the gun back into Jesus’ hand and walked out.
It
had started to snow.
I
let the heavy knob fall again on the oak door at St. Barbara’s
Church. I was freezing, the cold of the brass knocker penetrating
my leather gloves, but knew Father Ken was inside. He was a grumpy
bastard when disturbed after ten p.m., but I knew he would answer
eventually.
A
scowling face under a Celtics hat peered through the door crack as I
waved the half bottle. The scowl remained even as he asked, “What’s
this?” His Galway lilt was dripping with suspicion.
“Frapin.
It’s cognac.” I knew he preferred a good Irish whiskey, but I
used what was at hand.
“Any
good?”
“Seven
hundred-dollars a bottle. Retail.”
“Only
about two hundred left, but I’ll take it.” He took the bottle
from me and I followed him inside. The warm church air was heavy
with the ghosts of old incense. The snow was melting into my hair,
chilling me deeply. I followed him into the sacristy where he
pulled two Dixie cups with blue flowers on them from the dispenser next
to the water cooler. “Will yeh be joining me?”
“No
thanks.”
“Still
dry, eh?”
“Still
dry.” I’d stopped drinking when I realized that it didn’t
make my thoughts any cleaner, my demons any quieter. It just got
them drunk too. And they were mean drunks.
Father
Ken sighed at the injustice of drinking alone. He poured a double
and sipped it gently, rolling it around his tongue. “It’s no
Jameson’s, but it’ll do. How many?”
“Four.”
Father
Ken raised a white eyebrow at me. “Busy night?”
“Bad
night.”
He
opened a drawer and took out four tea candles. “Yeh know where
she is. Yeh can let yerself out.” He tucked the bottle
under his arm and walked back to the dormitory.
I
went into the church and made the sign as I passed the cross on my way
to her statue.
St.
Barbara.
The
Saint of Gunners.
She
was the closest I could find, saint-wise for what I did.
I
lit the first candle at St. Barbara’s feet for Elvis. As a man, he
wasn’t worth the match, but his soul needed the candle. I prayed
silently. Underneath my prayer, a voice told me that I had to do
what I did. The kid’s life was over, one way or the other.
There was no way he was going to get away from that point. His
blood was everywhere. For Christ’s sake (sorry), his fingers
were on the floor. Cardinal sin number one was getting caught.
The
second candle was for Jesus. The wrong man at the wrong place at
the wrong time, even though he was a bad man. I prayed some more.
The
voice came back. I saved the kid from an eternity in jail, it
said. It said what life remained in him, The State would have ripped out
by the time he breathed free air again. It was better this way.
For him. For his family.
It
said.
It
said.
The
third candle was for Carlos. In my prayer, I apologized to him as
a fist of guilt filled my throat. I prayed for his
forgiveness. The voice told me that I didn’t kill him because
they’d catch him. Because he could then point his remaining fingers at
me.
Cardinal
sin number one.
The
voice said the words over and over as though trying to convince me that
they were true. It said that my act, in the end, was a merciful
act.
I
lit the last candle for myself.
And
prayed as hard as I could.
Copyright 2006 by
Todd Robinson
Todd Robinson's short stories have
been published in DANGER CITY (Contemporary Press, 2005 anthology)
and Writer's Digest's THE YEARS BEST WRITING 2003. Most recently,
he was nominated for a 2006 Derringer Award. He also edits the noir zine
THUG LIT.
