Frank Zafiro - And Every Man Has to Die

Krueger rubbed his cheek and nodded grudgingly.

“Shall we be friends again?” Sergey asked.

Krueger nodded, then stood and held out his hand. “For that twenty percent,” he said, “you keep any of these niggers or spics from moving in on downtown where I sling my shit.”

“Of course,” Sergey said.

“Partners then,” Krueger added, still shaking Sergey’s hand. Then he turned and fired a hard glance at Mikhail. The bodyguard remained unfazed. Krueger strode out of the building, his combat boots thudding on the concrete.

Once they were alone, Sergey turned to Val and smiled. “I think, my friend,” he said, “this went very well.”

“I agree,” Val said. Very well indeed.

0908 hours

B.J. Carson lifted the shot glass to her lips. For a moment she was struck by the absurdity of the situation. She’d done her fair share of drinking in high school and college, but she couldn’t remember a time where she had hoisted a shot at seven-thirty in the morning. If anyone had told her just six months ago that she’d be doing so, she’d have laughed at them.

Across the table, Anthony Battaglia paused before downing his shot. He met her eye, smiled slightly, shrugged, and threw the shot back expertly. Carson closed her eyes and followed suit.

The whiskey stung and burned her throat on the way down, then settled into her belly with a comfortable warming glow. She reached for her glass and chased the shot with a swallow of beer.

The two of them had gone directly to the Happy Time Tavern as soon as the shift ended. The entire discussion lasted all of three sentences. The suicide’s ghastly stare of nothingness filled Carson’s mind’s eye. The stark reality of death was something she had been unprepared for, despite all of the training at the academy and all the warnings from instructors and other cops. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to throw off the image of Anne Carew sprawled on the toilet, her head askew over the top of the white porcelain sink. Instead of dissipating, the image crystallized once her eyes were closed. Carson let out a breath and opened them again.

Battaglia watched her carefully. Then he rose and moved to her side of the table. Carson slid over in the booth. Battaglia sat beside her and rested his forearms on the table, grazing her elbow. She savored the comfort of his closeness.

“That’s not the first dead body you’ve ever seen, is it?” he asked.

Carson shook her head. “No. I had a few DOAs while I was in the training car.”

“Naturals?” Battaglia asked.

Carson nodded. All three had been elderly people who died unattended deaths. There’d been nothing suspicious about any of the cases, and by the third one she was comfortable with that kind of call.

“Those don’t seem quite as immediate, do they?” Battaglia asked.

“No,” Carson answered quietly. The only other dead person she’d seen had been in a fatal collision that she’d helped investigate, but she hadn’t gotten close enough to the driver to really experience any emotional connection.

“This one was a little different,” Battaglia stated.

“Yes,” Carson whispered.

“You got there pretty fast.”

Carson nodded. “Maybe fifteen, twenty seconds.”

“Quick response.”

Carson blushed at his compliment. “Just dumb luck, really. I was close when they put the call out.”

She recalled the almost vibrant, pleading gaze in Anne’s dying eyes when she’d first seen her. What a stark contrast it was to the one just a few minutes later.

Carson didn’t think about things like dying or God very often. Her upbringing made her a Christian by default, but she was fairly lapsed in the more orthodox traditions. But watching the life force seep out of Anne made her wonder what really did happen when a person died. Where did they go? Did they go anywhere at all? And more than anything, when would it happen to her?

“It can be a little unnerving,” Battaglia said. “Makes you wonder about life and death. Religion, and stuff.”

Carson met his gaze. “Yeah. Exactly.” She was a little bit surprised at his insight, but glad for it. “Do you ever get used to it?” she asked him.

Battaglia shook his head slightly. “Not really. I guess you get to a point where you find ways to deal with it, but I don’t even think the homicide detectives get used to it.”

Carson sighed. “Used to it,” she said, and was conscious that she had slurred the sentence. “How can anybody get yewshed to shomethin’ like that?”

Battaglia didn’t answer; he only took another sip of his beer.

The two sat in silence for another long minute. The radio played a classic from Aerosmith. The slow, poignant chords of the electric guitar caused a pang in Carson’s chest. A tear rose up in her eye and she quickly brushed it away, masking the motion by taking another drink of her beer. When she looked at the glass and saw there were only two fingers left in the bottom, she took another swallow and finished it off. The pitcher in front of them was likewise empty. Battaglia’s glass was also nearly empty.

Just be a good cop. You’re a different person now.

She let out a rueful chuckle that reminded her of Robert Carew on his porch.

“What is it?” Battaglia asked.

She met his eyes. The gaze burned with fear, darkness, and desire.

“With all that death,” Carson whispered, “I just want to feel alive.”

Battaglia pushed away his glass of beer and rose from his seat. Carson slid out of the booth while he peeled off several bills and left them on the table. They made their way out of the tavern and into Battaglia’s truck. Battaglia drove to her apartment silently. The radio was tuned to the same station that had been playing in the bar, and Carson listened to the tail end of the song. When it ended, she reached up and turned off the radio. Battaglia didn’t object. She sat and listened to the creaking of springs and the truck’s seat and the whirr of the tires.

She knew she was drunk. She knew where this was going. She just didn’t care.

Battaglia stopped at her apartment complex. She led the way to her ground floor apartment, fishing her keys out of her purse. The doorknob opened easily, but the deadlock gave her some trouble. It was never easy to open and she usually had to jiggle the key for several seconds. But she found herself unable to make it work this morning. Part of it was the beer and whiskey, she knew. But part of it was that her hand was trembling.

After a few moments, Battaglia reached past her shoulder and covered her hands with his own. The warm strength of his fingers flooded down her arms like warm electricity. She let her hands fall away from the key and Battaglia worked it for a couple of seconds before it caught and turned.

She thought about saying thank you, but felt that any words might break the spell of the moment. She wondered if that would be a smarter move, wondered if this was all a big mistake. Her logical self screamed in agreement, but the admonition fell on deaf ears.

Battaglia closed the door behind him and turned the deadbolt. When he turned around, any argument from any part of herself fell away. She took one step toward him and he covered the rest of the distance himself.

Then she was kissing him, her lips seeking his hungrily. He pulled her tight to his chest, and she did the same. His tongue plowed into her mouth devoid of any technique, driven only by lust.

She felt his hardness through his jeans and a fiery ache exploded within her. She tugged his shirt out of his pants and they broke their kiss long enough to pull it over his head. In fits and starts, they kicked off shoes and peeled off clothing as Carson led him toward her bedroom. By the time they fell heavily onto her bed, he was naked and only her panties remained. In a moment those, too, were gone.