Dave Zeltserman - Killer

The property is on enough of an incline so that after I roll the dead man’s car out of the garage I can coast it down to the end of the driveway, and only then turn over the engine. I have a long night ahead of me. I still have to dispose of the bodies, then have the car chopped up at one of Lombard’s garages, but once I’m done with it I’m finished. The car I drove over with is parked several blocks away. I had stolen it earlier and cleaned it before leaving, so I can let it sit where it is.

Yeah, I might have a long night ahead of me, but I can’t help smiling. By morning I’ll be driving home, and the wedding will still be on as planned. Jenny might be mad for another day or two, but by Saturday my taking off the way I did will be forgotten.

I can’t help wondering about the arsenal this guy had, that I caught him in the middle of making a sawed-off shotgun, and the whole urgency of this on Lombard’s part. I can’t stop wondering who the fuck this guy is.

It takes some effort, but I force my mind off of it. If DiGrassi wanted me to know that, he would have told me. Besides, I have a wedding to think about.

present

When I showed up at work, the same kid from the night before was at the front security desk. He handed me the office keys and tried hard to look through me, acting as if I weren’t there. He might’ve been able to pull off this air of contempt but a tightness around his mouth betrayed him, showing how uneasy he was. I tried to think of something to say to put him at ease, but couldn’t come up with anything. What was I going to tell him? That I was over sixty now, a changed man, and too conflicted over what I’d done in the past to even consider any more violence in my life? Fuck it, it would’ve been a waste of breath. In the end, neither of us said a word to the other.

Like the other day, I started on the bathrooms first. I had my portable radio set up on the cleaning cart and tried listening to music, but I found my mind kept drifting. It didn’t help that my dinner had left me sluggish. I’d had my first cheeseburger and fries since being arrested, and while I’d poured a pot of black coffee down my throat, I’d also had my first beers in fourteen years and I was feeling the effects of them. To keep my mind focused and off the thoughts that kept trying to sneak in, I tuned in to a talk show.

For the first hour they had an author on talking about his latest book. The guy had a thick Irish brogue and it was interesting enough to keep me distracted. I still felt myself moving sluggishly, but at least I was distracted. After the segment with the author finished, I sobered up instantly from the effects of my greasy dinner and two beers when in the next segment they started discussing my release from prison. At first it was tough listening to what they were saying, but after a while I hardened to it. The comments from the people calling in were what you’d expect; what a travesty it was that the state would make any deal that allowed me to walk out of prison. One caller had to point out my ethnicity, claiming that I wasn’t a full-blooded Italian, that my mother had been Jewish, as if that had anything to do with it. Another talked about my pop, how he knew him years ago, and how he was a good man who must be rolling around in his grave now over what I’d done.

The show attracted a few callers who tried to sound like tough guys. These wannabes speculated about how I must have a death wish staying in the area, hinting that there were enough people with grudges against me that I’d be turned into a grease spot soon enough. They tried to sound as if they were in the game, but they weren’t. No one from Lombard’s organization would’ve called that show.

About forty minutes into it, a woman’s voice stopped me cold. She was talking about how much pain and suffering I had caused, her voice soft and halting as if she were on the verge of breaking down. I was pretty sure it was my daughter, Allison. I hadn’t heard her voice since she was eighteen, and she’d be thirty-two now, but I was pretty sure it was her. I stood frozen for a minute listening to her, then realized I’d been holding my breath the whole time. I moved quickly to the cleaning cart and turned off the radio. My heart was pounding a mile a minute.

For a long time I couldn’t move. I just kept playing her voice back in my head, replaying everything she had said as I tried to figure out if that caller had been my daughter. In the end I just wasn’t sure. I almost took out my cell phone with the thought of calling Allison, but I couldn’t do it.

That night I finished up a few minutes before two. Again, no words were spoken between me and the security guard when I checked in the keys. I wasn’t so much tired when I walked back to my apartment – it was more like listlessness. It was desolate at that hour. No traffic sounds, no sight of anyone else. I couldn’t shake this uneasiness in my gut, like I was walking through a graveyard. And I just couldn’t get that woman’s voice out of my head. The one who might’ve been Allison.

Later when I dropped on to my bed, I don’t know if I fell asleep or drifted into some sort of unconsciousness, but whichever it was, I was grateful for the reprieve it gave me from all the thoughts buzzing through my head.

It was two days later that I caught the mouse that had been running around my apartment. I had left a mostly empty peanut butter jar on its side, and when I heard something clattering around inside it, I flipped the jar over. My original plan was to drown the damn thing in the toilet, but when I saw it on its hind legs with its front paws frantically scratching at the inside of the jar, I had a change of heart. Instead I got dressed, put my sweater and jacket on, and carried the jar to a small park four blocks away where I let it down on the grass. After the mouse scurried away from me, I tossed the jar into a trash can and headed back to my apartment. I had just gotten on to Moody Street when my cell phone rang.

No one should’ve had my number. I took the phone out of my pocket and stared at it before flipping it open. I didn’t say anything, I just stood quietly and listened to what sounded like static on the other end. Then a man’s voice came over the phone and told me I was a dead man. He called me by name so there was no mistaking that it could’ve been a wrong number. I didn’t say anything in response. There was another half a minute of static before a click sounded to show that he had hung up.

I’d been so absorbed by the call that I’d stopped paying attention to my surroundings. Usually I was more careful about letting my guard down like that, and I looked around quickly, noticing the cars driving past me and the other pedestrians walking about. A man in his forties seemed to notice me looking at him and stared back. I don’t think he had noticed me before that, and I looked away from him. If anyone had been watching me out there, I couldn’t spot them. After giving it some thought, I headed back to the store where I’d bought the cell phone.

The salesman who had sold me the phone wasn’t there. I tried describing him to the salesgirl on duty. She was in her twenties, very thin, not very attractive. While I explained how I wanted to talk again to this salesman, she stared at me with a humoring expression.

“Sir, what seems to be the problem?” she said instead of answering my question, a plastic smile stuck on her face.

“Someone called me on my cell phone,” I said. “I want to talk to the salesman who sold me this. I think he must’ve given my number out.”

“I’m sure he didn’t do that,” she said.

“He had to’ve,” I said. “I didn’t give my number to anyone, and I was told my number wouldn’t be published anywhere.”