Derek Haas - Dark men

“The plan goes exactly the way Doug drew it up. I took the owner to his office while he told the cop to head out back. I watched out of the corner of my eye, you know, as our target got up and stumbled off. I counted to a hundred in my mind, all while I was talking about grease traps and proper temperatures on the refrigeration system and where the ‘wash your hands’ signs have to be displayed in the bathroom and I could see the owner’s eyes glaze over.

“Abruptly, I get to a hundred and I tell him everything looks good and he can count on a top notch report and can he let me out the front? Doug had told me the probabilities were he would follow me out since he liked to park his Dodge Charger right out in front of his bar. Sure enough, he comes with me outside and I watch from across the street as he climbs into the muscle car and drives away.”

“So where’s the complication?”

“There wasn’t one, is what I’m saying. Not on this job…”

“So…”

“So I go to meet Doug at the rendezvous spot which is three blocks away, this street corner near a motel and he’s got this smile big as summer on his face, you know? I’ll never forget it. He’s really happy. Says it went off without a hitch. Drunk detective stumbles down the stairs, the lever sweeps his feet, he cracks his skull, out cold. No way he won’t freeze to death. Doug even rigged it so some water would spill off the gutter above him, ensuring the detective would be found as frozen as a popsicle. No other way to rule this one but straight up accidental death.”

“What about the lever?”

“Doug fixed it with a string so he could slide it away. Everything planned to the last detail, like I said. This is how his mind worked.

“He told me all about the kill as we walked toward the car. I remember thinking I hadn’t seen him this happy since before we were married. And I was happy too, as weird as that sounds. I started seeing this life together, this future together. Me and Doug, a team. Other couples can sit on their asses watching the evening news while we’ll be out-I don’t know-changing the world. That’s something you do, you know? You imagine the work you’re doing is for the greater good although it’s probably just settling some small-time scores. Maybe we can make this work, I thought. Maybe this partnership is all we need to make it work between us, better than it ever was before. It seems silly now, but that’s what was going through my head.

All of a sudden, this black van roars around the corner and I get the uneasy feeling it’s coming up on us. You know that feeling? The kind that warms you up even though it’s cold as balls outside? Doug puts his arm around me all protective like and I remember thinking that was kind of a sweet touch, you know? He wasn’t much of an affectionate person, but he thought to put his arm on my shoulders and I thought that was nice.

“The van barrels up and skids to a stop and three sort of gangster looking guys get out, one black and two white and they call Doug by name. ‘You Spilatro?’ the biggest one says. Doug doesn’t answer, but I can hear his breathing stop and truth be told, I was scared to death. I hear another guy say, ‘yeah, he’s Spilatro,’ and I see this guy’s face as he steps into the light and he’s looking a little familiar, like maybe I know him from somewhere, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t Decker, his old army buddy, the one who brought him into the killing life. After Doug told me about him, I looked him up in some of Doug’s old army pictures, and this is the same guy, I’m sure of it. Doug realizes it at the same time as me and I can see him sigh heavily, like this is all just too much. The first guy, the muscle, raises his hand up and he’s holding a gun, some kind of big automatic. Don’t ask me what kind because I don’t know. The last thing Doug says is ‘don’t kill my wife,’ and crack, crack, the muscle shoots him twice in the chest. Blood flies on to me, I feel it hit the side of my face, and out of the corner of my eye I see Doug drop straight down. You know what I mean? Straight down like all his muscles shut down at once? Well, I just stood there like a jackass, you know, and the three guys pick up Doug’s body and throw it in the van. Decker turns and looks at me and I think maybe he’s deciding whether or not to drop me too, but he just gives me that hard stare men are so fond of, moves around to the driver’s side, and varoom, they’re gone. If this was retaliation for something Doug did, nobody said and I don’t know. The van drove off as though nothing ever happened and I stood there, I swear for an hour or two, not in shock but not thinking either, you know?”

Her voice falls quiet and she takes a sip of her coffee, not raising her eyes. She doesn’t have to blow on it this time.

I give her a moment to play it out, check to see if she’s going to say more, and I have to give her an ounce of respect. She doesn’t try to conjure up a tear or manage a sob.

I lean back and wait. Everything I do, every interaction hinges on the principle of dominance. Dominance can be physical, like cracking a man in the knee to drop him in front of you so he knows you’re better than he is. Or it can be mental: a game of wits, a look, a gesture, a word-anything to gain an advantage over an adversary. Sometimes dominance can simply mean waiting.

After a couple of silent minutes, she looks up, eyes dry. There’s resentment in her eyes, resentment for making her draw this out. Finally, when I have her broken, I speak up.

“You know he’s not dead.”

“You want me to say it?”

“Why pretend?”

She moves the coffee cup back and forth in front of her, grimacing. “He didn’t have to do it for me. He could’ve just walked.”

“Didn’t have to hire the guys, you mean.”

“Yeah. Plan the whole thing out. Tack it on to the end of the other job, you know?” She stops looking at me, at the inside of the diner, at anything. “It was actually… well, it was the sweetest thing he did for me the whole time we were married.”

I nod, but this is not good. Not good at all.

“Can I get out of here now? I’m done with this.”

She’s drained now, played out, bitter. If I squeeze her any more, she’ll pop.

I nod and she hauls herself up, then hovers over me for a second as her shadow falls across half my face. “It’s a bad thing you’ve done, making me say it.” I don’t look at her. “It’s a bad thing you’ve done.” When I feel the shadow move away, I know she’s gone.

We meet in a pre-determined spot, a bench in Battery Park. It’s quiet here this time of day. A patch of green. The water. An old man sits at a table by himself, moving chess pieces around while his lips move. Risina is already sitting when I arrive. For a moment, we don’t speak. Anyone passing would think us two office drones meeting for a quiet date; the guy in sales with the girl from accounting.

“You let her leave.”

“Yeah. She was used up.”

I put my arm around Risina, and she leans into me. For just a few short breaths, we’re back in that fishing village halfway around the world. Maybe this is all we’ll have for a while.

“I thought the idea was to kidnap someone he loves…”

“It is. But he doesn’t love her.”

“He didn’t have to set it up for her like that. He could’ve run off.”

“That’s true.”

“So that means something.”

“He loves the process, not her. He loves the mousetrap. He loves setting up all the pieces and knocking them down. He cooked up the dummy fall at the same time as he plotted out the actual kill. Brought her in on the tandem and made the whole thing one piece, you see? First the kill, then the fall… two parts of the same job. In his mind, they were always one. He doesn’t care about her… he gets off on the complication.”