Dave Zeltserman - Killer

When I drive out of the alley there are no cops, nothing. I start to relax. I rub a hand across my face and feel the coarseness of the glue still stuck there. Before I get home to Jenny I’ll have to make sure I have it all off.

It’s not until I’m driving over the Tobin Bridge that I hear a radio report about the brazen massacre of three men on Monument Avenue done within the hour in broad daylight. I can hear police sirens off in the distance, but no one’s after me. I wonder again how our client in Southie knew about Behrle wanting to rat him out to the Feds. I can’t help wondering who tipped him off.

present

The weekend was uneventful. My headaches were bad, but that was nothing new. Saturday night the same kid was working the security desk, and like the other times we didn’t say one word to each other, but I was beginning to prefer it like that. I made it through the night listening to a classic rock station without my mind wandering too much, which was about all I could ask for.

I had Sunday off, and I ended up buying a recliner, lamp and a few other odds and ends at a garage sale. The guy I bought the stuff from had a pickup truck, and for an extra ten bucks he agreed to help me move it all to my apartment. He didn’t recognize me, and acted both friendly and deferential as if I were some grandfatherly type. He kept asking me with genuine concern if I was okay while I carried my end of the recliner. It was funny in a way since he was breathing harder and was more red-faced from the effort than I was. Anyway, all of the stuff, including the extra ten bucks that I kicked in, ended up only adding up to seventy-eight dollars. The recliner, while a good twenty years old and kind of beat-up with its fabric stained and torn in spots, was comfortable. At least I had a good set-up now for reading.

There was nothing about me in Saturday’s paper. The Sunday paper had an article about me buried in the Metro section, and this time there were no pictures. Both Saturday and Sunday I went to the same diner for breakfast that I’d been going to every morning. It turned out Lucinda didn’t work weekends, which I was disappointed about. The waitress working in her place was a stout gray-haired woman in her fifties and just as surly as Lucinda had been that first day, but at least she didn’t recognize me. Not too many people seemed to. A few did, I could tell from their rubbernecking, and from the shift in their expression – from curiosity to something more like fear, but probably no more than ten people the whole weekend, at least as far as I could tell. None of these people bothered saying anything to me. Some would just move faster to get away from me, others would slow down to get a better look, but not a single word from any of them.

Sunday afternoon I thought about going to the horse track to try to parlay my dwindling funds into something more substantial, at least that’s what I tried telling myself. The truth was I missed going to the track. It wasn’t even the gambling as much as watching the horses. They were such magnificent animals. At one point I had dreamed of owning a race horse. I’d had enough money socked away where I could’ve done it, but then I would’ve had to explain to Jenny how I came up with all that money working at a liquor store. And Lombard would not have been happy with me doing something like that. Part of the deal had been for me to keep a low profile.

In the end I skipped going to the track and went to a free movie at the library instead. Too many people would’ve recognized me if I had gone to the track, and they were people better off not recognizing me.

It wasn’t until Monday morning when my cell phone rang again. Like before, the caller ID indicated the source of the call was unavailable. I let it ring through without answering it. Five minutes later when the phone rang again, I flipped it open and asked who was calling. At first there was nothing but static, then a man’s voice telling me to enjoy life while I still could. It sounded like it could’ve been the same voice I had heard before, but I wasn’t sure.

“You’re such a tough guy,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me this face to face.”

There was another long static-like silence where I wasn’t sure whether he had hung up. Then, “You’ll be seeing me soon enough, March,” and then a click as he ended the call.

Before that, I had been up for hours sitting in my recliner reading one of the books I had taken out of the library. I had a large stack of them piled up next to my chair. As I mentioned before, it was the best way I knew to kill those early morning hours and keep past memories at bay. It was a little past nine o’clock and the call had left me no longer in the mood to do any more reading. I got up and headed to the bathroom where I showered as much of the grime off of me as I could, then doused myself with cheap cologne. Each day the stench of prison was getting a little bit less. I could still smell it on me, but it took more of an effort now.

Lucinda was back at work Monday morning. At ten o’clock when I arrived there the place was mostly empty, and she gave me a wink on seeing me. Later, when I ordered French toast and sausage instead of my usual breakfast, she put her hands to her chest as if she were having a heart attack, then showed me a wry smile, commenting on how my brains were too scrambled to remember my “usual”. She chewed the fat with me for a few minutes, and between her sarcastic cracks, she let on that she was thinking of going back for a GED degree, maybe even college someday. When she came back with a pot of coffee, any suspicions she might’ve had after overhearing that so-called writer the other day were long gone.

I was about to leave when this biker-type walked in, and the way he stared at Lucinda put me back in my seat. He was in his twenties, a big guy wearing a black leather biker’s jacket, jeans, and biker boots. Tattoos decorated his neck and shaved skull.

Lucinda noticed him also and was trying to bravely stare him down, but I could see the worry creasing her brow. The guy walked up to her and grabbed her arm roughly. She tried to pull free but couldn’t.

“You bitch,” he said. “You gonna let me buy you drinks all night, then slip me like that? Fuck that.”

I walked over to him and told him to let go of her. He stared at me as if I were nuts.

“Gramps, this is none of your business. Beat it before you hurt your hip.” “Let go of her or I’ll break your fucking wrist.”

That just annoyed him even more. He reached out to push me away. I stepped aside and grabbed him by his fingers and twisted them back until he fell to his knees.

“You better fucking let go,” he demanded. He was helpless in the position I had him in. I increased the pressure until tears came to his eyes.

“A little more pressure and your wrist snaps,” I told him.

“I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Really? With two broken wrists? ’Cause after I break this one I’m breaking the other.”

Lucinda had been watching this quietly. “Should I call the police?” she asked me.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” I addressed the guy on his knees, the one whose wrist I was nearly breaking. “How much did you spend on drinks last night?”

“Fifty bucks,” he forced out.

With my free hand I took my wallet from my pocket and handed it to Lucinda. “Count out fifty dollars and give it to this scumbag.” After she did that I told the guy he had two choices, accept the money and get the fuck out of there or have more than his wrist broken. I let go of him then.

He stood up holding his wrist as if I had broken it, which I hadn’t. For a moment it looked like he wanted to take a swing at me, but instead he pocketed the money and called me a fucking lunatic before heading out the door. Lucinda stared at me with amazement. “I’m breathless right now,” she said, and she sounded it.