Dave Zeltserman - Killer

“There’s not much to tell,” she said. “Bad stuff happened to me as a child, I ended up in foster homes, then much worse stuff happened. Now I’m in Waltham trying to figure out what to do with my life, and I meet you.” She paused for a moment, then asked, “Leonard what were your parents like? Were they the reason you ended up working for the mob?”

From her tone and the hopefulness in her eyes, she was really searching for why her own life had taken the course that it did, because if I had made my wrong turn due to environmental factors maybe she had also. Maybe there wasn’t something seriously broken in either of us. It would’ve been easy to lie to her; instead, though, I shook my head.

“My parents? No. Hardly. My pop was what you’d call a salt o’the earth type. As honest and decent as the day is long. A good man who never had a harsh word for anyone, and sweated blood every day as he worked his way to an early grave.” “Your mom, then?”

“My mom and I never got along,” I admitted. “She had a hard life herself, lots of tragedies and losses, but she had nothing to do with me working for the mob either. They gave me a good home. Whatever happened was my doing.”

The skies opened up then, the rain coming down hard and suddenly as if a faucet had been turned on full. I took my jacket off so Sophie could use it to shield herself. We ran the two blocks back to Moody Street, stopping only when we were under an awning. Even with my jacket sheltering her Sophie had still gotten soaked and was looking a bit like a drowned rat. I was so winded I had a hard time breathing, and thought at first that I might be having a heart attack, but the moment passed and my breathing became less ragged.

Sophie handed me back my jacket. With a heartbreaking smile, she said, “What a mess we are, huh? Leonard, dear, I’m sorry you got so wet, but it was very chivalrous of you. I thank you.”

She looked so miserable standing there with her hair hanging down in wet tangled clumps and her threadbare jacket and jeans soaked through. She had also started to shiver. I ignored her protests and draped my leather jacket around her thin shoulders, then told her there was a store a block over where I was going to buy her a new jacket.

“I can’t let you do that,” she said.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Think of it as a gift from the Waltham Police.”

That got her curious, and I explained how the police had first tried to tie me up with an assault charge after I had broken up the attempted liquor store robbery, and later how I squeezed a hundred and fifty dollars out of them. Even with the way she was shivering I could tell that she enjoyed the story.

“I can’t think of a better way of spending that money,” I told her.

She didn’t put up a fight over it, and we made our way through the rain to the next block by darting in and out of doorways and under awnings for protection. When we got to the department store, I first bought a beach towel, which we used to dry ourselves off, then I helped Sophie pick out a ski jacket. It was bulky on her and hid her curves, which was a shame, but it was waterproof, had a hood, and offered much better protection from the cold than what she’d been wearing. When she put it on she gave me one of the brightest smiles I’d ever seen. Yeah, it was going to cost me a hundred and seventy dollars and my funds were dwindling, but it was worth the price. And besides, if I got ten grand for that interview, money wasn’t going to be much of an issue, at least not for a while.

The rain was still coming down in sheets and Sophie insisted that I also buy an umbrella for myself. When I took the jacket and umbrella to the cash register, the cashier gave us a puzzled look as he tried to figure out whether we were father and daughter, and if not, what the possible attraction might’ve been. I couldn’t blame him. Based purely on our appearances we were as mismatched a couple as you could’ve found. After he handed me my change and we had him cut the tags off the jacket, we left him still trying to solve the mystery.

Once we were back outside and under the store’s awning, Sophie put her new jacket on, including the hood, and zipped up, and we both stood quietly for a long moment watching the rain beating down even harder than before. Sophie spoke first, asking how she looked in her jacket.

“Like a million bucks,” I told her.

She rolled her eyes at that. “Yeah, right.” Her expression turned pensive, and she added, “Leonard, we never did talk about the two of us writing a book together.”

I hesitated. I had planned to lie and keep my own little con going as long as Sophie was keeping hers, but I couldn’t do it any more; besides, hers was no longer as much of a con as she probably thought it was.

I looked away from her. “I don’t think us writing a book is possible,” I said, my voice barely audible over the rain. “Monday I’m going to court for wrongful death suits that have been filed against me. Any money that we’d get on a book deal would end up getting attacked by the relatives behind these lawsuits. We wouldn’t make any money off of it.”

I couldn’t look at her, nor could I move. My jaw clamped shut, and as I stood there, I felt a hollowness expanding throughout my chest, making me feel as if I could be crumpled as easily as a piece of tinfoil. I dreaded what I was about to lose. Seeing Sophie, even if it was only a game on her part, and even if it was only for a few spare minutes every couple of days, was one of the few things that allowed me to feel human.

I waited for her to leave me, but instead her hand found mine. The warmth and feel of it were dizzying.

“Leonard, I have to go away this weekend,” she said. “Let’s talk again on Monday after your court hearing. Maybe we’ll figure something out, but even if we don’t, at least it will give us a chance to see each other.”

I nodded. I still couldn’t look at her. I wanted to believe there was a genuineness in what she was saying, and that she wasn’t just trying to keep the con going as long as there was still a glimmer of hope in pulling it off. From her voice it sounded like there was a chance that it was that way, but I didn’t want to risk looking into her eyes and having my fantasy squashed.

We agreed on where and when to meet on Monday, then her lips touched lightly against my cheek as she kissed me.

“That was so sweet of you buying me this jacket,” she said.

My head turned and I caught the look in her eyes. It wasn’t just a con any more. Not entirely, anyway. She gave my hand one last squeeze so that her fingernails left small indentations in my skin, then, smiling weakly at me, she walked off into the rain. I stood silently and watched her as she hurried down the sidewalk and disappeared from sight. Minutes after she was gone I still stood silently as I thought things over. What I should’ve done next was head back to my apartment so I could take a shower and dry off properly. Instead, though, I trudged off to the public library.

It rained constantly that weekend. Saturday morning I felt like a caged animal as I stayed inside my apartment. I was too anxious to sit still, and pretty quickly gave up trying to read the book that I had picked up. My mind kept racing, both thinking about Sophie and what the zoo atmosphere was going be like when I went to the Chelsea District Courthouse on Monday. I also kept thinking about who would be there waiting for me.

I ate an early lunch, frying a sausage and cutting it up so I could add it to a can of minestrone soup, but in the state of mind I was in I could barely taste any of it. By one o’clock I found myself pacing the apartment, too agitated to do much else. I grabbed my jacket and umbrella then and ventured out to a local movie theatre that was a half-mile from my apartment. It was nasty walking with the rain coming down almost horizontally and the umbrella doing little to protect my pants legs and shoes, but I was glad to be out of my apartment, and even though my mind was drifting too much to follow the movie I ended up seeing, I felt better sitting in that dark room with noises and random images to distract me. It didn’t matter that my head was hurting worse than usual and my pants and shoes were soaked – I felt more relaxed sitting there. Maybe it took me back to my childhood, I don’t know. But I ended up sitting through two showings of the movie, and I couldn’t tell you a thing about it.