Tom Piccirilli - The Cold Spot

He’d been in this house for two days and had never really looked at the pictures on the walls. Photos of Freddy, of Mrs. Nicholson as a young girl, as an old lady, all the cats. Shelves and shelves full of framed photos of the cats. Crochet and knitting magazines on the coffee table. Balls of yarn and knitting needles in a wicker basket on the end of the couch. And yet when Chase looked in Rosso’s terrified eyes he saw the kid really believed all the idiotic shit he was saying.

Chase asked, “So what makes you think Gus is from Cleveland if they said they were from Sacramento?”

“That’s because of the guy with the scar. Please, my leg. It really hurts!”

“Forget your leg. Tell me about this guy with a scar.”

“One night Gus came in alone for a couple of beers. I hate him. I hate him so much I thought of putting ground glass in his beer. It’s a sin what he does to her. But I can’t do anything until after the deal goes down. So he was sitting there and…and a guy with a scar going across his forehead comes in and sits next to him. They pretended they didn’t know each other but I could tell. It’s in the body language. They made a big show of shaking hands and introducing themselves, but I knew.” Holding his chin up, trying to eke out the last of his courage, Rosso did a pretty good job of it. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I know,” Chase said. “Tell me about Cleveland.”

“The guy was whispering. He said imagine if they’d hung around in Cleveland like their fathers. They’d both have had heart attacks and hernias by now. Meanwhile, this guy, his forehead all disfigured like that, looks like he went through a windshield.”

Maybe the driver. Why a public meet? Because they were both getting antsy holed up for so long, waiting for the fence to get back to them?

“You did good, Timmy.” Chase held up the cell. “Now, what’s the stupid phone code you’re using?”

“No code, Mary just picks up.”

“What have you been telling her about me?”

“That you’re always in the garage tuning the car. And that your connection showed up this afternoon.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said she couldn’t wait to get the money. She couldn’t wait to be with me. We’re in love. Gus-”

“Yeah, I know, Gus is a piece of shit. When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“Around then, when he showed up with you in the van.”

“When are you supposed to contact her again?”

“About twenty minutes ago.”

Chase hit REDIAL and the phone rang once and immediately went to voice mail. Marisa Iverson’s voice came on the line and said, “You’re too late. I know who you are now. Sorry about the wife. See you on the road.”

Chase disconnected and said, “Shit. It could be too late already. They might’ve scored the merchant this afternoon. Put on the television.”

Jonah switched on the set, and it was all over the news. The diamond merchant had been robbed for a second time in less than two weeks. The manager was dead, shot right before the thieves left. James Lefferts’s nose was swaddled in bandages but he seemed comfortable in front of the cameras this time.

Lila’s photo appeared behind the cute newscaster and they brought the whole thing up again.

“They’re out,” Chase said. “All of this was a diversion.”

“You’re the one who gave her the edge,” Jonah said. “She was a step ahead. I’d like to meet this woman.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Chase told him.

They had Marisa Iverson’s face but they didn’t really have her face. They’d never track her from the employee photo or security tapes they had. She’d pitch the glasses and let her hair down, wipe off all the overdone makeup and let the strength and confidence cut loose again. No one would take her for the same woman.

Timmy Rosso stared at the TV but still didn’t make any connection. He said, “Look, I don’t want the money anymore. I just want to leave. Me and Mary, we’ll go, right now, tonight. You’ll never see either of us again.”

Jonah walked over to Rosso and tugged the blade out of his leg. A small spurt of blood came along with it, a dollop arcing onto the carpet, just missing the cats. The kid screamed and this time Jonah let him. Rosso fell out of the chair and gripped his leg, thrashing.

The old man started to raise his.38 and Chase gripped his wrist.

Jonah was still incredibly strong. Chase could only keep hold of him because Jonah allowed it. His grandfather stared hard into his eyes and said quietly, “We have to kill him.”

“No.”

“He was watching us.”

“He was watching me. And so what? He’s got nothing.”

“He can describe me to the cops.”

“And tell them what? That he was keeping my house under surveillance while he sat here with two dead bodies wrapped up in garbage bags? Nothing he could say to them will make any sense at all.”

“It’s still trouble we don’t need.”

“He was a sucker. He doesn’t have to die for that.”

“That’s how everybody dies.”

There was nothing else to say to that. Either the old man would make his move and Chase would be able to stop him, or he wouldn’t. If nothing else, his grandfather broke the complicated world down into a much simpler form. Every moment brought you right up to the edge. You could either win against him and live, or lose and die. Sometimes it was nice not having so many options to choose from.

Jonah watched Rosso another minute and finally turned away. “All right, but let’s wipe this place and leave now, before he stirs any more shit.”

Chase had planned on it anyway. He’d touched the back door, the cat food, the water bowl, what else? He looked around, seeing the photos again, thinking of Freddy staring at him in the garage, wondering how in the hell anyone could kill an old lady and a retarded man who never stopped smiling.

Had he touched the kitchen table? Had he brushed against the garbage bags? He couldn’t take any chances, he had to clean it all. The cats looked at him. He took a step toward the kitchen and caught a blur of motion from the corner of his eye.

Rosso said, “Oh God, no-” as Jonah took hold of the kid’s hair and eased his head back to expose the throat.

Chase moved and opened his mouth but nothing came out except Walcroft’s noise.

Fast, his hands always so fast, but now, for some reason, he was far too slow as he reached out and Jonah jabbed the guy called Timmy Rosso once under the left ear, severing the carotid.

Then the old man cleaned the blade on the dying kid’s pant leg, two smooth strokes back and forth as Rosso’s face contorted into a look of profound amazement, and his hand started to come up, reaching with some urgency for Jonah’s hand the way a helpless grandson might reach for him across a short distance of enduring darkness.

T hree A.M ., with only a glimmer of moonlight maneuvering between the slats of the blinds, Chase stood at the window staring at the house across the street thinking about the three corpses inside with all the hungry cats. How long before that became the stuff of urban legend and this town got put on the map by PETA’s newsletter? Images twisted at the back of his skull and he let out a soft grunt. He thought about dropping an anonymous tip, but then the cops would canvass the neighborhood and show up at his door asking if he’d seen anything suspicious, and that would just spook the shit out of Jonah.