Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

Fortunately for him, the kitchen Liquida was in this evening had a nice new gas stove. It was hooked up to a large propane tank. He was guessing close to a thousand gallons. The tank was situated in an area that had once been a garage at the back of the place. As far as he was concerned, it was as good as natural gas. In fact, it was probably better. Propane burned faster and hotter than natural gas and was therefore more efficient. It took less time to cook or, for that matter, to do other things.

Tonight it was one of those other things that Liquida was working on. He had easily slid the stove out and turned off the gas valve where the line came out of the wall. He unscrewed the nut holding the compression fitting from the copper line feeding propane into the stove and was busy installing the small unit that was not much bigger than a deck of cards. It had two quarter-inch copper tubes coming out of each end, both with compression fittings. He screwed one end to the propane line coming out of the wall and the other end to the feed line into the stove. He tightened the fittings with a wrench. When he was satisfied that they were snug, he turned the valve and listened for any hissing of gas. It was silent. He sniffed the air close to the unit-nothing.

Then he picked up the small set of controls from the countertop where he had left it. There were all kinds of buttons and switches, along with a tiny joystick toggle. The unit was designed to control model airplanes in flight. But Liquida cared about only two of the buttons. He pressed one of them and listened once more. This time there was the distinctive hiss of gas as propane leaked from a hole in the side of the little box. Some of the vapor turned to liquid dripping from the hole as it continued to run. He pressed the button again and the hissing sound stopped. He reached down, wiped away the liquid, and watched the small hole. There was no more dripping. Liquida smiled; another job well done.

Herman was hunched over the lock cylinder in the gate with the tension wrench, holding back four of the pins. He was working on the last one, feeling for it with the pick, when suddenly there was a loud whistle from the corner behind him, at the end of the block.

“Shit!” Herman whispered under his breath. He looked back over his shoulder while trying not to pull the tiny tools from the lock. Paul was standing at the corner motioning, drawing one hand with his finger out stretched across his throat, a sign to cut and run. A second later the bright beam of headlights lit him up from behind.

Herman pulled the pick and the wrench from the lock, put his hands in his pockets, and started walking casually back toward the corner where Paul was standing. For an instant the oncoming headlights blinded him as the car turned the corner. It slowed as the driver turned to look, checking Herman out closely. Then the car drove on down the street. It slowed again as the motorized metal doors on a garage in front of a house two doors down from Katia’s started to grind and squeak as they opened. Herman continued to walk and watch as the car pulled into the garage and the doors reversed the groaning and closed behind it.

By then Herman had reached Paul, at the corner.

“Damn it. I almost had it.”

“You told me to warn you.”

“I know. She took a good look when she went by. I doubt they get a lot of walkin’ traffic at night on this street. Bein’ a dead end and all,” says Herman. “We better give it a couple of minutes so she’s not peeking through the front window when I go back.”

Liquida was sliding the stove back into place when he heard a noise out on the front street. He stopped and listened. A car went by, headlights flashing as they blazed past the window in the dining room. He left the stove where it was and headed for the window, which was about six or eight steps up on a landing where the stairs turned and went up to the bedrooms on the second story. The view out was partially obscured by a thorny bush whose branches wound their way through the wrought-iron metal bars that guarded the window on the outside.

By the time Liquida looked out, the car was gone. But as he looked the other way, to the left, he saw a man walking away, crossing the street. The guy was huge, a black man, bald as a cue ball, with shoulders like a bull. If he was Tico he was on supersteroids.

The man was nearing the walkway on the other side of the street. Liquida was just about to turn from the window when another man stepped from the shadows near the corner. The two of them stopped to talk.

Liquida looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to eleven. It was a strange time for a conversation out on the street, too late to be coming home from work and too early for the bars to have closed. When he looked back the two men were gone.

He thought about it for a moment, then went back to the kitchen and finished sliding the stove back into place. He checked to make sure that everything looked just right. It probably didn’t matter. By the time she arrived in the morning, if everything went as planned, she would never have a chance to make it to the kitchen. He would snag her at the front door with the chloroform. He would then arrange her on the floor in front of the stove for her accident. They would find her bones mixed in with all the ashes, probably under the house where the stove would have burned through the floor. And they would never think anything more about it.

After all, this was not the United States where authorities had gadgets to sniff the air and endless money to sift all the debris through screens looking for the reason the gas had exploded. By then, the little plastic box in the back would be vaporized, its metal parts, like everything else that was once part of the house, now just pieces of charred junk to be shoveled into the back of a truck and hauled away.

Liquida was putting away his wrench and closing the lid on his small plastic tool container when he heard a noise again. He glanced back at the window. This time there was no car out on the street. The noise came from out near the front door. He listened. Then he heard it again.

He slid the small toolbox into his left pocket, pulled the knife from the other pocket, and punched the levered button on the side of the handle. The needle-sharp blade snapped open.

Liquida stepped silently through the dining room, then cut through the corner of the living room into the entry, where he pressed himself against the wall next to the entrance to a small powder room near the front door. He stood inches off to the side of the entrance, the knife drawn up in his left hand, close to his ear, ready to be thrust the instant the door opened.

Whoever it was didn’t have a key. They were scratching at the lock with a pick, working on the wrought-iron gate outside. The gate formed a barrier leading to a small exterior entry area maybe four or five feet square. Once through the gate, whoever was there would be in the shadows of the entry area, free to work on the lock at the front door.

Liquida glanced at the inside of the door. It was solid enough, thick tropical hardwood of some kind, but the lock and handle assembly was cheap and very old. It wouldn’t hold for more than a few seconds. Liquida knew this because it was the same way he had entered.

There was a small rectangular viewing port cut at eye level in the wood of the door. The port was open, uncovered on the inside, and protected only by a small brass grid on the outside.

Liquida took a chance and glanced quickly through the opening. The man outside the gate was bent over, looking down, working on the lock. Liquida couldn’t see his face but he could see the bald head and broad shoulders. It was the man he had seen crossing the street. Liquida was sure of it.

He pressed his head back against the wall and thought for a moment. He considered the razor-sharp blade in his hand, and weighed it against the size of the man outside. Even if he could kill him, how would he dispose of the body? Authorities wouldn’t think twice about a woman who died in her own house in an accidental fire. But an unidentified male who died with her would raise questions. And what about the other man, up at the corner? Was he still there? If he came down to join his big friend in the house after the locks were picked, Liquida would have his hands full.