Dave Zeltserman - Killer

I don’t say anything. His color’s not much better than gray now. He looks away, the fury fades from his eyes leaving them glassy.

“You can tell Sal I’m not going to any hospital,” he says. “I plan on dying in my own bed.”

My smile grows more genuine thinking how right he is. I realize this and force a somber look. “Your wife or kids might think differently. Mr Lombard can’t take the chance. You have to know that.”

“Don’t you fucking patronize me,” he spits out. Then, showing his self pity, he adds, “Fuck you. After everything I’ve done for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

His eyes slide sideways to look at me. “That business last year with that skirt you were supposed to hit. The one you claimed was tipped off and made a run for it.”

He was referring to Joey Lando’s inside person. The one I let get away. “Yeah, what about it?” I say.

“Sal and some of his boys thought it sounded funny. They thought maybe you’d gone soft and couldn’t hit a skirt. I went out on a limb for you and convinced them you were on the level. I hadn’t done that you’d be buried in a landfill now.”

He’s staring hard at me, trying to read inside me. He sees what he’s looking for and turns away. “What the fuck do you know,” he mutters. “They were right.”

His thick lips curl to show the contempt he feels for me.

“She was just a kid,” I explain. “It wouldn’t have been right.”

“Who the fuck are you to make that decision? A bank guard died in those robberies your rat punk buddy did and she was as responsible as the other two of them.”

He realizes then the irony in chastising me for being sentimental and not killing one of my targets while at the same time trying to talk me into doing the same now. I can see the confusion clouding up his eyes.

“You don’t have to use the forty-five,” he says after a while. “You can use the pillow instead. That way Angie and my kids can have an open casket.”

He’s bracing himself waiting. I don’t move. There’s been something I’ve been wanting to ask him for a long time.

“That hit I did right before my wedding. Who the fuck was that guy?”

His eyes come alive once he remembers the hit. He starts laughing. It’s a weak, broken-down type laugh, and before too long he starts choking on it, then breaks into a coughing fit. After he settles down, he nods and tells me, “You.”

I’m confused. I ask him what he means.

“The guy you hit was the same as you. Another hit man for Sal.”

“Why’d I hit him?”

DiGrassi makes a face showing his disgust. “’Cause he got soft. Claimed one of his targets skipped town to parts unknown without him tipping the target off. Sal didn’t believe him. Neither did I. So are you going to use the fucking pillow or what?”

I shake my head, push the barrel of the forty-five against his right temple. He’s too weak to put up any fight.

“I’m sorry, Mr DiGrassi,” I say. “But I have to do it the way Mr Lombard told me to do it.”

“Motherfucker,” he starts, “you owe me at least a call to Sal to ask him-”

Before DiGrassi can finish the sentence I pull the trigger and send a good chunk of his brain splattering against the wall. Then I shove the barrel into his dead mouth and shoot off three more rounds. Sal wants his boys to think DiGrassi was a rat. That’s the reason for the violent death. It’s easier to explain the hit of a loyal friend that way. Who knows, maybe we get lucky and the cops think that a rival did the job.

I use the sheet to wipe the blood off the gun. I give DiGrassi’s lifeless body one last look before leaving. He should’ve been grateful to me for taking him out of his misery the way I did instead of all his bitching and moaning, but I don’t want to let a last few minutes color my memory of him. Jenny’s pregnant with our third kid. She’s convinced it’s going to be a boy. I play around with the thought of Vincent March for a name, but decide against it.

DiGrassi’s wife and kids are out of the house, which makes things easier for me. With the house empty, I think about taking a shower to clean the smell of death off me, but I decide that can wait until I go to the YMCA. Besides, they have a steam room there. I let myself out the back door, same way I came in.

present

It was the next day when I spotted two punks working themselves up to rob a liquor store. At the time I was walking to the library and they were standing across the street, both in their early twenties, their heads shaved and their bodies thin to the point of emaciated. They were dressed the same, wearing loose-fitting khaki pants and the type of faded dungaree jackets that you used to be able to buy at army surplus stores. The one that I could see more clearly looked like he was having a tough time standing still, his face folded into a scowl and his eyes fixed in a death stare. I’d been around enough crystal meth users in prison to see immediately that these two were on the stuff. In my younger days I’d also robbed enough stores to know what they were planning even without seeing the bulge a gun made tucked inside one of their waistbands. I knew even before I saw them pull their ski masks out.

I wanted to keep walking. The last thing I wanted to do was get involved, but I stopped in my tracks, paralyzed. I could see how wired these two punks were, and all I could imagine was how trigger-happy they were going to be once inside the liquor store. The people they were going to kill in there would be more blood on my hands. Reluctantly, I found myself jogging across the street, then tapping the one with the gun on the shoulder and asking him if he had a smoke.

He turned to face me, his ski mask pulled on three quarters of the way. His eyes empty as he faced me, his exposed mouth ugly and his body twitching.

“What the fuck you want?” he demanded, his voice just as tight and wired as I had imagined.

“You got a cigarette?” I asked again.

“Yeah, I got something for you to suck on, you stupid fuck.”

He was taking the. 38 from his waistband. There was no doubt from the violence shining in his eyes that he was planning to shoot me. I stepped in quickly, and with my left hand took the gun away from him while at the same time hitting him in the throat with my right. The punch left him making funny noises as he struggled to breathe. Without giving him a chance to recover, I sent him hard on his ass on the concrete sidewalk, then kicked him in the head hard enough to bounce it off the concrete and put him out.

His buddy turned around then. He was still pulling his ski mask on, and I could see the dazed look in his eyes as he first stared at me and then his buddy on the ground. Slowly comprehension worked its way in.

“You dumb motherfucker,” he near spat at me.

It turned out he also had a gun in his waistband, but he was too hyped up to see that I was holding a. 38 on him. He started to pull his weapon out. I could’ve blown him to hell, but instead I flipped the. 38 in my hand and rapped him in the jaw with the gun butt. The blow sent him to his knees and his own gun tumbling out of his hand. I picked it up and dropped it in my jacket pocket. He looked up at me, blood coming out pretty good from his mouth, a thick purple bruise already showing on his jaw. His eyes were big as he noticed for the first time that I was holding a. 38 on him. One of his pupils looked dilated, showing that he had concussion. A little known fact: a blow to the jaw can cause a concussion.

“Get on your stomach,” I ordered.

“Hey, man, you don’t have to do this.”

I gestured with the gun that he’d better listen to me.

“If you quit acting like a dumb fuck, we can give you a cut,” he said.