J. Konrath: Fuzzy Navel

The fifth book in the Jack Daniels series, 2008

1½ oz. peach schnapps

3 oz. orange juice

Pour schnapps in a rocks or

old-fashioned glass filled with ice.

Add orange juice.

IT’S QUIET IN THE SUBURBS. The only sound is from the cab that has dropped me off, making a U-turn at the dead end, then heading back down the quiet, winding road. Its taillights quickly disappear, swallowed up by the multitude of trees.

I walk up the driveway and look at the house. It’s a ranch, laid out in the shape of an L, occupying half an acre of green lawn speckled with fallen leaves. There’s a double-car garage, the door closed. I see Mom through the front bay window. She’s sitting in a rocking chair and reading a book – how much more stereo typical elderly can you get? I check the front door, and as expected it is locked.

I walk around the side of the house, running my hand along the brown brick, passing windows that should probably be washed. This is a big departure from the Chicago apartment. A lot more space. A lot more privacy. I’ve discovered that privacy is important. No neighbors for more than a quarter mile is a good thing. With all of the tree coverage, it’s like being in the middle of the woods, rather than only five miles away from O’Hare Airport.

I stop at the back porch – a slab of concrete with the obligatory lawn chairs, a wrought iron sun table, and a veranda – and I close my eyes, breathing in the cool autumn air. Somewhere, someone is burning leaves. I haven’t smelled that since my youth. I fill my lungs with the scent and smile. It smells like freedom.

The sliding glass patio door is open, and I decide to give Mom a lecture about that. Just because the suburbs are safer than the city doesn’t mean that all of the doors shouldn’t be locked.

I walk into the kitchen, catch the odor of home cooking. A pot is on the stove. I check the contents. Stew. I pick up the spoon, give it a stir, take a little bite of potato. Delicious.

Mom yells, “Jacqueline?”

I consider answering her, but decide a surprise is in order instead. I take out my gun and tiptoe into the hallway.

“Jacqueline? Is that you?”

I look left, then right, scanning for the psychotic cat that lives here. He isn’t around.

“Jacqueline, you’re frightening me.”

That’s the point, Mom.

I peek around the corner and see that Mom is standing up. She’s in her seventies, short hair more gray than brown, her back bent with age. She’s wearing a house dress, something plaid and shapeless. Mom’s eyes dart this way and that way. They settle on me, and she gasps.

“Oh my God,” she says.

“Did I scare you? You shouldn’t leave the back door open, Mom. God only knows what kind of weirdos can get in.”

Mom’s chest flutters, and she says in a small voice, “I know who you are. My daughter told me all about you.”

She reaches for the phone, but I’m on her in three steps, giving her a firm slap across her wrinkled face.

“I’m going to ask you this one time, and one time only. And then I’m going to start hurting you.”

I smile, knowing how it makes the scar tissue covering most of my face turn bright pink, knowing how horrifying it looks.

“Where’s Jack?”

THE TARGET IS two hundred and eighty-three yards away. James Michael Munchel knows all about mil dots, and how to calculate distance with the reticle, but he’s using a laser measuring unit instead. This isn’t cheating. A sniper can and should use every bit of technology available to him in the field, whether he’s on a roof in Dhi Qar, Iraq, or crouching behind some shrubs in the Chicago neighborhood of Ravenswood.

Munchel is sitting on the lawn, legs crossed, the tip of his Unique Alpine TPG-1 rifle peeking out through the leafy green dogwood. He arrived here two hours ago, but had selected this spot three weeks earlier. The house is unoccupied, and Munchel has pulled the For Sale sign out of the lawn and set it facedown. Realtors probably won’t stop by this late. If one does… well, too bad for her.

Munchel is wearing a camouflage jacket, leggings, and black steel-toed boots he bought at the army/navy surplus store on Lincoln Avenue. He can’t be seen from the sidewalk fifteen feet away. Munchel knows this for a fact, because he’s done several dry runs prior to today. He’s practically invisible, even if someone is staring right at him.

To avoid arousing suspicion, Munchel didn’t walk here in full camo. He came in street clothes – jeans and a blue shirt – and awkwardly changed while crouching behind the dogwood, putting his civvies in the black two-wheeled suitcase he towed along.

Munchel scratches his stubble, then peers through the Leupold scope, which has been zeroed out at two hundred yards. The crosshair is slightly above and to the right of the target’s head, to adjust for the wind and the bullet drop. He’ll never admit it, but he doesn’t understand how to determine MOA – minute-of-angle. He can fake it online, while posting on the sniper message boards, but he doesn’t really know how to calculate the actual degrees. In the forest preserve near his house, Munchel can hit a target from five hundred yards and keep the grouping within a four-inch radius. Who cares what the MOA is? It’s good shooting no matter how you calculate it.

The target has his back to Munchel. He’s in his living room, on the first floor of the two-flat, sitting at the computer. Just like he is every day at this time.

Predictability is a killer.

The blinds hanging in the large, three-section bay window are open, and Munchel can see straight down the hallway, all the way to the back of the house. He nudges the rifle slightly, to check what the target is surfing.

Pornography. Some weird shit with chicks wearing rubber aprons and wielding whips.

Freak, Munchel thinks. Deserves everything he’s about to get.

Munchel glances at his watch, a Luminox 3007, the same kind that Navy SEALs use. Less than a minute left. Munchel’s hands start to shake, and he realizes he’s breathing heavy. Not from fear. From excitement. All the training, all the planning, it all comes down to this moment.

The butt plate is snug against his armpit, his face is tight against the cheek pad, the safety is off. The aluminum gun chassis is on the concrete planter behind the dogwood, a hard surface that ensures the gun will stay steady. Munchel takes a deep breath, lets it out through his teeth. His ears tell him there is no traffic coming, which is essential because he’s shooting across the street – it would be bad if a car entered his line of fire at the moment of truth.

The target stands up, walks toward the window, seems to look right at him. Impossible, of course. He’s much too far away, too well hidden. But it’s still unnerving. Munchel chews his lower lip, begins the countdown.

The target turns. Munchel completely empties his lungs and waits… waits… waits… then squeezes the trigger with the ball of his finger, trying to time it between heartbeats like he’s read about online.

There’s a loud CRACK. The target’s head explodes, and he pitches forward.