Dave Zeltserman - Killer

I remember it was a week before he died when my pop took me out to dinner alone at a fancy steak house. He wanted to have a heart-to-heart with me, to impress on me the importance of an education and living a clean, honest life. I never much saw the point of being a wise ass, and tried to act as if I was buying what he was telling me. Maybe I convinced him, but more likely he knew it was going in one ear and out the other. After all, he and my Uncle Lou turned out to be examples of what you got from that type of hard work and honest lifestyle – you were taken advantage of your whole life and then you dropped dead before fifty. And it wasn’t just them – my pop’s father also died young, as did all my pop’s uncles. I don’t think any of them made it into their fifties, but they all worked hard each day of their life as laborers up until the moment they died. Fuck, my brothers who followed the rules and tried to live cleanly didn’t even make it into their twenties.

In a lot of ways it didn’t make sense for me to give up Salvatore Lombard. With my family history I never expected to make it to forty-eight let alone sixty-two, so why make that deal?

I spent a lot of time thinking about it in prison. For years I tried to convince myself that I did it as payback for whoever it was inside of Lombard’s organization who gave me up to the Feds, especially since I had wanted to retire from that life and I’d let Lombard strong-arm me into running that business at the docks. Over time I realized that wasn’t the reason, as much as I wanted it to be. What was mostly behind my making that deal was that I needed a glimmer of hope, no matter how dim, of someday walking out of prison. I don’t think I could’ve managed inside without that. But that probably wasn’t the only reason; at that point in my life I needed to come clean with what I’d done. I don’t know, but I think that was behind what I did, at least at a subconscious level. But no matter how much I struggled over it, I could never be quite sure how much of a role that played in it, if any at all.

I had finished both bathrooms on the first floor and was pushing the cart towards the elevator when I realized I was mumbling under my breath, carrying on a one-sided conversation with my pop. Yeah, I was going to need a radio or something, otherwise this quiet would drive me nuts. Looking around sheepishly, I checked to see if the security guard was nearby and whether he could’ve overheard me. I didn’t see him, and I pushed the cart past the elevator until I spotted him sitting behind the same security desk he’d been at earlier. I doubt he had heard me, he seemed too engrossed in the paperback he was reading. When I started to push the cart back to the elevator, he looked up, startled, as if I had spooked him. Our eyes met for a brief moment before he glanced back towards his paperback, his round pink face turning flaccid. If it wasn’t clear enough earlier, it was clear then that the two of us were never going to have much of a conversation together while I worked there – he was terrified of me, and that wasn’t going to change.

I pushed the cleaning cart into the elevator and took it to the second floor and started on the bathrooms there. Once I was done with those I moved up to the third floor, and then after those were done, started emptying trash cans throughout the building, then vacuuming each office and the hallways.

I was finished by one o’clock. I had no better place to be, and besides, I was supposed to be working until two so I stayed holed up in the last office I had vacuumed. They had a plush leather sofa in their lobby that was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the cot I had waiting for me. A few times I almost drifted off, my eyelids heavy, but I stayed awake until two, and then trotted back to the front security desk and checked the keys in with the apple-cheeked youth working there. He didn’t say a word to me, nor me to him, and I knew that was the routine we had settled into, not that I should’ve expected much else.

Stepping outside I held my jacket collar tight against my throat, trying to seal off the cold. A wind was whipping about and I lowered my head against it. After half a block, I looked up, thinking that I had seen something out of the corner of my eye – a black sedan driving away with its headlights off. I must’ve imagined it because when I looked up the street was empty and the only noise I could hear was the wind. I stood staring bleary-eyed for a moment, then lowered my head again and quickened my pace.

Carl Slagg’s a big fucker. Large ruddy face, barrel-chested, and a good sixty pounds heavier and a half-foot taller than I am. The two of us are in a dive in Charlestown, a walk-down bar off of Washington Street. It’s Saturday night and the place is packed with local toughs, sailors on leave, and chicks looking to drink free and maybe hook up for the night. I’m hoping Slagg doesn’t pick any of these girls up, but with the way he’s flashing his roll there’s a good chance of it, especially given how shitfaced he is. There are some tough broads in the crowd, and I’m sure a few of them have already given some thought to trying to take that roll off him. It would be unfortunate if that happens. This is my first official hit for DiGrassi and I’m hoping it goes down easy. If Slagg leaves with one of these girls I’ll have to take both of them out.

Slagg doesn’t know me, and the few times he’s glanced in my direction it’s been with alcohol-glazed eyes that weren’t paying much attention to anything. Word is that he ripped off a high-stakes poker game in Southie last Wednesday, walking away with twenty grand. Now he’s celebrating. I followed him into this dive three hours ago, almost took him out during one of his trips to the bathroom to return the Irish whiskey he’s been pouring down his throat, but I was told to take care of him outside the bar, so I’m waiting for him to leave.

DiGrassi didn’t tell me the reason for taking Slagg out, nor was I going to ask him, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out. I’d heard one of Lombard’s boys was in the poker game that got ripped off, that the next day Lombard sent one of his men to let Slagg know there was a contract on his head but for half the money taken from the game – ten grand – he could fix the contract and see that it went away. Slagg, the dumb fuck, had to tell the guy to go fuck himself.

Slagg is one boisterous son of a bitch. He’s slamming down shot after shot, all the while his voice booming through the bar as he argues Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins with anyone who’ll listen to him. Now it’s how without Bobby Orr the Bruins would still have won the Stanley Cup. Christ, the guy keeps proving over and over again that he’s too dumb to live.

His voice dies away. He wipes a thick hand across his mouth, his eyes intent on a blonde dye-job standing near him, and she’s eyeing him back. I’m sure she noticed his roll earlier.

He approaches her. His neck bends so his mouth is against her ear. She’s buying what he’s selling her, and I’m thinking how I’m going to be leaving two bodies later, but then Slagg goes too far. Whatever he tells her, it leaves her eyes like hard stones and her mouth showing hurt. He tries to physically move her from her barstool, but then a group of sailors standing nearby come to her rescue. It’s four against one and I’m waiting for the first punch to be thrown, but Slagg’s too fucking drunk and loses his train of thought and ends up stumbling away. He stops for a moment, then continues until he’s heading up the stairs and out of the bar. I leave through a back door, moving fast to catch up with him.

He makes things easy for me, the dumb fuck. After walking half a block, he turns down an alley. Sure enough he’s swaying a bit on his feet while he takes a leak in the alleyway. Watching him, it’s like he’s on a boat that’s listing badly from side to side.