Dave Zeltserman - Killer

“What do you do for work?” I asked.

“Wow, a bit abrupt, aren’t we?” she said, her voice light, amused. “But to answer your question, a little bit of this and that, but right now I’m in between jobs.” Her eyes lowered as she took a sip of her coffee. When she looked up and met my eyes again, her smile had turned wistful. “I’d heard about you in the news before, but really didn’t pay much attention. After we met the other day, I went to the library and dug up some of the stories about you. I was so sorry to read that your wife died while you were in prison. That must’ve been hard.”

I nodded, didn’t say anything.

“Those people you killed, let me guess, they weren’t quite as innocent and pure as the driven snow as the papers made them out to be?”

“No, they weren’t,” I said with only a slight hesitation. The two men I had killed with Behrle turned out to be friends of his, and they both turned out to be even worse scumbags than he ever was. I had looked into it after the hit, and they were involved in a string of home invasions, one of which left a teenage girl paralyzed. I had no remorse for those two.

“Fucking newspapers,” she said. “They can make the worst scum out to be a fucking saint.” A hardness momentarily tightened her smile, and I had this sense about her then that she had blood on her hands also. Maybe an abusive partner, maybe some incestuous relative. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had done a stretch in prison too, but I didn’t ask her about any of that.

She was still absorbed in her thoughts, and had absently pulled a pack of Newports from her jacket pocket. She tapped a cigarette out, slid it in her mouth, and was about to light up before she remembered where she was.

“Think they’d throw me in jail if I lit up in here?” she asked, the cig now out of her mouth and held lightly between her index and middle fingers.

“No doubt,” I said.

Her gaze wandered past me, and she stuck out her tongue at a coffee shop employee who had been glaring openly at her. Smiling to herself, she put the cig behind her ear.

“I need this badly right now,” she told me, referring to the cig. She gestured with her eyes that I was welcome to join her outside while she lit up, but I stayed in my seat. She opened her eyes wider in mock surprise over the fact that I wasn’t jumping at the chance to join her, and before she turned to leave, told me she was sure we’d bump into each other again. I was sure of that also.

I was a little surprised she hadn’t given me her name yet. I would’ve thought that would’ve happened after our second “chance” meeting. It turned out she didn’t disappoint me. She was halfway to the door when she turned on her heels and walked back to my table, offering me her hand.

“By the way, my name’s Sophie Duval,” she said.

“Leonard March,” I said.

“As if you’re telling me something I don’t already know,” she said with a wink. I watched the way her slender hips moved as she headed back to the front door. Christ, she was gorgeous. At least thirty years younger than me and absolutely gorgeous. When she reached the door, she stopped to snap off a quick army-type salute in my direction, then left. I wondered briefly when I’d be bumping into her again. I knew it wouldn’t be long.

It was Tuesday when I saw her next. At around seven-thirty in the evening I was walking along Moody Street to my job when I heard footsteps racing behind me. Next thing I knew an arm was hooking mine and a small hand resting on my leather jacket sleeve below the elbow. It was Sophie. Her face was flushed. In a breathless whisper she told me that it looked like a car was following me.

It was a cold late October night with the wind whipping up, and I’d been walking with my head bowed and hadn’t been paying much attention to the street. I turned and saw that she was right. A light blue Chevrolet sedan was creeping along keeping pace with me. There were two men in the car. Both looked hardened. The driver slid his glance sideways and noticed me looking his way. His eyes were cold and empty, his face scarred and with a toughness to it. Without any change of expression, he stared straight ahead and sped away.

Sophie recited some random numbers. I stared at her, confused.

“The license plate,” she said. “Damn, Leonard, you have to pay more attention to what’s going on around you. There are obviously people out there holding grudges.”

“I was hoping I had already slipped into yesterday’s news.”

“Obviously not.” Her face had flushed to a deep red. There was so much excitement in her eyes. “You know, I might’ve saved your life tonight. I might have to think of a way for you to repay me.”

It was possible she was right. Those two in the blue Chevrolet could’ve been Lombard’s boys. They had the look of it. But it could also be part of the game Sophie was running. An awful big coincidence her being there at the right time to warn me about that car, but not if she had arranged it in the first place.

“Any idea how I’ll be able to do that?” I asked.

“I’ll think of something.”

I had thrown it out there, and she decided to play me the right way and not be too anxious for her pitch. If she had asked me then about writing a book with her, she’d be tipping her hand that it was all a con and that she already had her payoff in mind. I wondered which it was with that car. It could just as likely have been Lombard’s boys as an arrangement by Sophie, but the more I thought about it the more I was leaning towards Lombard. Sophie probably knew my routine by now, and was most likely out there looking for me when she happened to see me and the car, then realized quickly how she could use it.

We walked another two blocks without either of us saying a word. The feel of her hand on my arm and the occasional touch of her hip against mine damn near took my breath away, and she knew the effect she was having on me. We were a block away from the side street I needed to take for my job when she told me that this was where she was getting off and that she’d see me around. She let go of my arm and I watched mesmerized as she walked into a small Hispanic grocery store. For a few seconds all I could think of was the feel of her hand on my arm. After the door had closed behind her and she was out of sight, I felt a heavy sigh rumble out of me, and I trudged off to work.

Vincent DiGrassi opens an eye as I approach him. He’s lying propped up on his bed. Both his eyes are now open. As yellowish and bloody as they are, there’s still an alertness to them. He knows full well why I’m there. I pull a chair up next to him and sit so I’m resting the forty-five and its attached silencer on my thigh. What used to be such a robust bull of a man is now only skin and bones. He’s probably dropped eighty pounds in the past year.

“Sal send you?” he asks, his voice not much more than a croak.

“Yeah.”

He digests that, puckers up his mouth, and says in an aggrieved tone, “So you’re dealing with Sal directly now.”

“Yeah, ever since it’s been clear how sick you are.”

The little that’s left of his face folds into an ugly frown. At first I think he’s going to start bawling, but he turns his eyes towards me and stares with utter fury.

“This is bullshit,” he insists.

I shrug. What is there for me to say?

“I’m not talking to no cops. There’s no reason for Sal wanting this.”

I scratch behind an ear, smile at him sadly. “What if you end up hopped up on drugs? Who knows what you say then.

Vincent, you know this has to be done.”

“You little punk, you calling me Vincent now? What the fuck happened to Mr DiGrassi?”