Tom Piccirilli: The Cold Spot

The old man had finished packing the van.

He got to the door and said, “You know how to get in touch with me if you need to.”

Same thing he’d said ten years ago when they’d split up.

And then his grandfather pulled out of the garage and drove off past the Nicholsons’ house and was just as gone.

The Jonah inside Chase’s head said, Don’t ever trust me. I’m going to kill you one day.

The weakness overpowered him for the next two days, but the next morning he felt much stronger. He got out of bed and cleaned up the blood in the Chevelle. He took more of the pills the doc had given him. Throughout the day he had freezing fits where he shook uncontrollably. His heart slugged against his ribs. The lung would work fine for a while and then his breathing would grow ragged and come in bites and gasps where he couldn’t get enough air.

He should’ve cut the car loose of it by now. The businessman and the hooker had seen it at the motel, but it was a long shot anyone had grabbed the license. The car owed him and he owed the car. You don’t soup this kind of muscle and not use it. The dark energy inside it still wanted out. He knew he’d have use of it farther on down the line.

He called a real estate agent to put the house up for sale. She showed up the next day and walked around the property, took measurements of the rooms and made lots of notes on her clipboard. They settled on a starting price, which was higher than Chase had expected.

Somebody finally got worried about Mrs. Nicholson and went over there and called the cops. It blew wide. The prowl cars stacked up in the road and the police canvassed the area. They came to his door and asked him questions about the Nicholsons. Animal control came along later that day with just as many vehicles as the cops had. It took four guys twenty minutes to round up all the cats.

The police wouldn’t be able to cross all the T’s but they’d have enough to satisfy them. They’d find out what Timmy Rosso’s real name was and discover he was just a bartender posing as a criminal. They’d figure correctly he was double-crossed by wiser minds. There wouldn’t be a high premium on the old lady and her retarded son.

In the morning, Morgan showed up at Chase’s front door. He stared into Chase’s eyes for a while and noted the bandages and the cast and said, “You look like shit.”

“Feel that way too.”

Staring some more, the hard-ass cop in Morgan wanted the entire truth, but didn’t want it that badly. He’d already figured most of it out anyhow. How could he not? It was more or less a straight line from his own desk to the motel.

Morgan nodded at the FOR SALE sign on the lawn. “You leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Get the fuck out of here. Go far away. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“You won’t,” Chase said.

You moved into the night and the night moved into you.

Chase showed up at the Deuce’s chop shop. “That don’s son. He still need someone who can drive?”

“Yeah,” Deucie said, “but things are really ugly over there. I was an asshole to mention it to you in the first place. Infighting, mob-war bullshit. Between different families, in the same family, between New York and Jersey and Chicago, and the feds up everybody’s ass with a microscope. A lot of bodies are turning up in the East River, or not at all. They’re icing each other in restaurants, on street corners, wiping out girlfriends and kids like in the bad old days.”

“Make the call.”

Chewing the end of his cigar, Deucie frowned and stood there for a minute studying Chase. Then he let out a sigh of defeat and ran off to do it. Chase climbed back into the Chevelle and shut his eyes, the engine humming, crooning a love song to him.

The house was gone. Lila was buried twelve hundred miles away. He thought of Jonah out there, maybe with his baby girl and maybe not. The thought of the girl growing up in the life, following Jonah’s lead, as bent as him, made Chase’s stomach tighten. Sweat swarmed his back, but he was still too weak.

He figured there couldn’t be that many professional surfers in Sarasota with wives named Milagro, who they called Milly. He could find the kid one way or another, his two-year-old aunt Kylie. He’d track her eventually, when he had a choice to offer her. Jonah had been right about one thing. Blood was important.

Chase had questions. He wanted to know why his father had said that he’d asked to make an appeal to the killer, when the truth was the cops had backed him into doing it. Chase wanted to know why his mother had cried so much right before she died.

The dream returned in full force. His unborn sibling tugging at his hand, Chase listening intently to the child, who knew the answers. A couple lines repeating themselves.

Angie had said, Everyone else he destroys. More than you know.

Jonah had said someone else had tried to kill him over a kid.

Another foolish woman.

Chase couldn’t shake those words. They hummed and buzzed and bit at him.

He thought, Did Jonah murder my pregnant mother?

Waving a scrap of paper, Deuce returned and tried once more to talk Chase out of the job. Chase checked the name and address and said good-bye.

He cruised out of the shop and hit the street. He didn’t feel any fear or hope or excitement. Just a nagging curiosity about his own past that would sharpen within him and drive him forward into another, perhaps a more decisive, confrontation with Jonah. Chase had shifted gears again, and now his life was on a different road. He still had things to do. Soothing music on the radio promised escape and intimacy as he drove on into the darkness thinking, Here it is. Here I am.

TOM PICCIRILLI lives in Colorado, where, besides writing, he spends an inordinate amount of time watching trash cult films and reading Gold Medal classic noir and hardboiled novels. He’s a fan of Asian cinema, especially horror movies, bullet ballet, pinky violence, and samurai flicks. He also likes walking his dogs around the neighborhood. Are you starting to get the hint that he doesn’t have a particularly active social life? Well, to heck with you, buddy, yours isn’t much better. Give him any static and he’ll smack you in the mush, dig? Tom also enjoys making new friends. He’s the author of twenty novels, including The Midnight Road, The Dead Letters , Headstone City , November Mourns , and A Choir of Ill Children . He’s a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award, the International Thriller Writers Award, and Le Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire. To learn more, check out his official website, Epitaphs, at www.tompiccirilli.com.