Frank Zafiro - And Every Man Has to Die

But Sully wasn’t him. Obviously he couldn’t tell Sully what was going on in this fucked-up head of his. He couldn’t let on that anything was wrong.

Battaglia cleared his throat and amped up his Brooklyn accent. “Yeah, well, I’d rather crush a little crime, yaknowwhudImean? So why don’t we go up to Hillyud and kick that fenook Kahn outta da district.”

He glanced over at Sully and forced a smile.

Sully’s face lit up. “Now yer talkin’, lad!”

2253 hours

Ludmila Malkinova slid her timecard into the slot and punched the red button. The time clock clunked and she withdrew her card. It read 10:58 PM. Her own watch read 10:53 PM. The clock in the hotel break room was matched to her own watch.

She shook her head. Clyde set the clock late so that they had to arrive early. There was no overtime unless they went over thirty minutes, so he lost nothing by her clocking out five minutes after the hour.

It was the same everywhere. Always the rich took advantage of the poor. Always the business owners took advantage of the workers. Even in her homeland it was the same way. The Soviet government may have professed to treat everyone equally, but that was a lie. At least here, all it cost her was an extra five minutes.

Still, some things were different here. Over dinner tonight, her husband told her about a Russian gangster who had betrayed his own people. That would never have happened in the homeland. America corrupted almost everyone.

She checked at the front desk. Clyde, the night manager who thought he was so sly with his clock games, gave her an appraising eye. “You look tired, Millie,” he said.

“I am mother,” Ludmila answered. She ignored the nickname. She thought it was far too assuming for an unmarried man to talk to a married woman so informally. “My husband works much in the daytime. I must care for children and then work the night. Is hard.”

Clyde shrugged. “Times are tough all over,” he said, though it was clear to her that he had no idea what tough times were like. “Take over for Constanza.”

Ludmila suppressed a scowl. Constanza was a pretty young Hispanic girl who didn’t know the meaning of the word “work.” If she was taking over for Constanza, she’d already be behind in her duties.

Ludmila tried the break room first, and wasn’t surprised to discover the girl there chattering with two other housekeepers. One was Hispanic, but the other was a white girl who must not have spoken Spanish, because Constanza was speaking English to them both.

“And then I see the gun,” Constanza was saying. “It scared me almost to death!”

“Oh my God!” the white girl said. “You’re kidding me!”

“ Es la verdad,” Constanza said, crossing herself and kissing her thumb. “I think that maybe they are going to kill each other. Then I think that maybe they are going to kill me.”

“Was he a policeman?”

Constanza nodded, then shrugged. “ Si . I mean, I think so. He said they were. At least two of them. I don’t know about the other one. He sounded Russian.”

Ludmila’s ears perked up.

“All of them had guns?”

Constanza shook her head. “No, only two. Not the Russian.”

Ludmila’s mind raced. If the Russian was the only one without a gun, then he must be their prisoner. It had to be the ones that Vladimir told her about.

“One of them spoke Spanish,” Constanza said. “And… el es muy guapo .”

The other Hispanic girl burst into a fit of conspiratorial giggles. Constanza joined in.

“What?” the white girl asked. “What did she say?”

“I say that the one who speaks Spanish, he is very handsome.”

“Oh,” the white girl said. Then she joined in with their giggling.

These girls were in their twenties, yet they still acted like thirteen-year-olds. Ludmila’s instinct was to snap at them, get the cleaning list from Constanza, and leave them in the break room to carry on with their immature prattle. But not tonight. Because Vladimir had mentioned something else to her over dinner. Something about a reward.

“What room?” Ludmila asked Constanza.

The girls stopped giggling. Constanza eyed Ludmila suspiciously. Ludmila tried to put on a friendly face, but it didn’t come naturally for her.

“What do you care?” the white girl said.

Ludmila smiled and shrugged. “I only want not make same problem. I no like guns, either.”

Constanza’s disapproving gaze rested on her for another few moments, then she shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “It’s room 420.”

“Thank you,” Ludmila said. “You have cleaning list?”

Constanza pulled it from her apron and held it out to Ludmila. Ludmila reached out to take it from her hand, but Constanza pulled it back.

“Oops!” she said in mock distress.

Ludmila let the friendliness drain from her face and sent Constanza a dark scowl. She kept her hand extended.

Constanza pouted for a moment, then slapped the list into Ludmila’s open hand. “You’re such a sourpuss, Millie,” she said. The other two girls tittered nervously.

“I here to work,” Ludmila said.

“Den go verk,” Constanza said mockingly.

Ludmila left the break room without looking back. She ignored the list, too, slipping it into her own apron pocket. Instead she went into the nearest unoccupied room and flipped the deadbolt behind her. She swung the safety lock over, too.

Ludmila picked up the telephone and dialed her house. Vladimir picked up on the third ring. “ Da? ”

Ludmila smiled, this time for real. “I have something to tell you,” she said.

Friday, July 18th

0716 hours

Thomas Chisolm cruised slowly down the street near the large apartment complex. He wasn’t sure where Carson’s apartment was, so he kept the truck in first gear and let the engine pull him along. It didn’t take long.

He spotted a blue Chevy parked near the corner and stopped. He stared at the truck for a little while. After all, lots of people drove trucks in the Pacific Northwest. Even Chevys. But the joke did little to lighten his mood. Especially not when he saw the license plate holder on the truck that read, “Italians Do It Better.”

Definitely Batts’ truck.

Chisolm sighed. His suspicions at the roll call table last night had just been confirmed. This was going to cause complications. Lots of them. Battaglia and Carson would start going to a majority of their calls together. There would be tension between Sully and Battaglia over it. There would be resentment from some of the other platoon mates, as well.

But the most important thing was the safety implications. Neither one of the officers would operate on professionalism alone if emotion was involved. If a critical incident occurred, he knew that the reaction of either one couldn’t be counted upon.

God damn it. There were about 2.5 billion women in the world. If Battaglia was going to step out on his wife, the least he could do would be to choose one who didn’t work on the same fucking platoon.

Chisolm put his Ford in gear and headed home. He knew that he was going to have to deal with this, and soon. First and foremost to keep the sergeant from finding out and getting involved. But most importantly to eliminate the distraction for either one of them.

“A distracted soldier is a dead soldier,” he said quietly, recalling the words of his commander in Vietnam. Captain Mack Greene had taught him a lot about being a warrior. And Chisolm knew that it was his responsibility to pass it on to the next generation.

Whether they liked it or not.

0913 hours

Day Shift

Battaglia waited until Carson’s breath evened out with sleep, then he slipped out of the bed. He scrounged around for his clothing in the darkness. He found his jeans balled up near the head of the bed, and his T-shirt lay in the doorway next to his shoes and one sock. He searched for the second sock for a little while, then gave up.