Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007

Dead Gray by Keith Snyder

Copyright © 2007 by Keith Snyder

Art by Laurie Harden

Novelist, filmmaker, and musician Keith Snyder makes his debut as a short-story writer with the following haunting tale. He is, however, not new to the crime genre. In 2002 his novel The Night Men (Walker) was published to rave reviews. For the past few years he’s been concentrating on film projects, including the 9-minute screen opera Credo, which has been in 15 festivals and won 5 awards.

Wearing a dark bulky coat and a hat, carrying a small suitcase, Mr. Burke steps onto the porch. It’s early evening and the clouds are moving.

The slip of paper in his hand says 1247 Maple Street. So do the gold letters on a black mailbox near the front window, and through its curlicue cutout gleams the white of an envelope.

The key is on a blue plastic tag. The door unsticks when he opens it: snick!

The living room is dusty and silent. Mr. Burke likes this.

He takes his hat off. Per a photocopied instruction sheet, he snaps breakers on, ignites the water-heater pilot, plugs in the fridge, phones the recommended pizza joint, the only one in town.

Unpacks his shaving kit, makes himself glance at the mirror.

Old.

He turns the light off.

Takes a pretty lace tablecloth from his small suitcase, spreads it on the dining-room table.

Mr. Burke has come to Long Island.

Half a pizza goes in the fridge. Mr. Burke brushes crumbs into his hand, roams the kitchen until he finds the wastebasket under the sink.

Straightens the dining-room chairs, sits.

Brushes more crumbs off the lace.

Feels the white envelope gleam in the mailbox.

Looks toward the front of the house. Dark now.

Brushes more crumbs. Still in his coat.

Stars in the cold Atlantic sky. Mr. Burke stands on the porch. Here he is; here he’s come. He looks out and up.

Hands in pockets, he shivers, turns to go in.

Nabs the envelope from the mailbox.

BURKE it says, typed. 1247 MAPLE STREET.

A black day planner, the day-per-page kind. Clipped to the inside front cover, a low-res printout: the face of a man in his late thirties, dark hair, clean-cut. Kind of a goofy smile. Underneath, the name JJ Barnett in an old draftsman’s hand. Letter stems at identical angles like banner poles. Bowls and swashes precise. A curve-fitter’s art, now extinct.

Mr. Burke sits on the edge of the bed, smells musty bedclothes.

He flips to today, Wednesday, March 16. In the draftsman’s hand is the word Arrival.

With a diagonal stroke he crosses out the 16. One day down, all tasks complete.

He leafs ahead to Saturday the 19th, where the same hand has written Contact.

Puts the day planner on the dresser, stands to remove the old pistol from his coat pocket, sets it on the day planner so it won’t scar the wood. Takes off his coat, his shoes.

The envelope gleams on the bed.

He washes his face, avoids the eyes of the slight old man in the mirror. Collarbone sticking out. White hair gone thin.

The envelope gleams on the bed.

He watches the old man brush his teeth.

Sits on the bed. Looks at the wall.

Sets his alarm.

Breathes out once. Opens the envelope.

Four words on the first sheet, centered, typed:

Glances at the second sheet, doesn’t read the single typed paragraph centered there. Already knows what it’ll say.

Holds the two sheets in two hands, stares at the wall.

Folds them back into the envelope.

A Long Island Thursday morning of airy light. People know each other in a place like this, born, raised, and die all in the same house. Go to a local school, shop at a local store, marry a local girl. Get a local job, spend your life at it, all in one place. Not like a city, where a guy might be your neighbor if you see him twice a month at the train station.

Mr. Burke has waited near this pastel-blue apartment building since five, watched the emptying of a suburb into Manhattan, the daily flow of chatting neighbors onto the silver trains of the Long Island Rail Road.

The flow ceases by nine-thirty. The old pistol pulls his coat off-center, drags his shirt with it. The heat of the coffee is long gone. His fingers are icy. JJ Barnett pushes out through the glass double door.

He’s big, must be six-two. Pink-rimmed blue eyes, two-day beard, and sweat sheen. Face a little pulpy, indistinct. A crumpled creamsicle-colored shirt of vertical orange and white stripes, hanging loose. Long sleeves. Not washed.

Not expecting company.

JJ never glances back, leads Mr. Burke to the local diner. Nearly empty. Circular wipe marks glisten on the tables in the beige light. Two waitresses killing time.

JJ sits at the counter, doesn’t order like a favorite customer. Doesn’t call the brunette waitress by name. She’s efficiency in denim, slender neck graceful like a Jeep aerial, like a wind-bent rice stalk. JJ eats ham and eggs; no newspaper, no conversation. Eats and looks at nothing.

In a booth across the diner, staring out at the little Main Street in a big senior-citizen’s baseball cap, Mr. Burke angles a little plastic camera on the table without looking at it. Visualize the vector, touch the trigger: click. Little sticker-photo of JJ slides out.

Sticks it in the day planner. Thursday, March 17. Labels it in draftsman’s printing: 11:00 a.m. — diner.

Crash and clatter — the blond waitress stoops to pick up shards of crockery. JJ’s looking over at her too. Mr. Burke ducks under the brim of his big dumb cap, pretends to puzzle over the camera. JJ glances his way — then stands and pays, leaves.

Mr. Burke stands himself, watches the two waitresses so his face is away from the window as JJ passes outside. The brunette’s helping the blonde clean up. He drops a few bills on the table. His heart’s going like he’s escaped death.

“Sorry!” calls the brunette. The blonde’s still crouching over broken dishware. “Need any change?”

Mr. Burke shakes his head. Needs to get after JJ.

“You gonna be back tomorrow? Coffee’s on the house.”

He waves on his way to the door.

“Promise?” He could swear she’s being flirty.

An old man being ridiculous. He nods and shoots her a little smile and she flashes him a big one.

Inside the textured-glass brick wall of an off-track betting parlor is the arm of a striped creamsicle shirt.

Across the street in a little park, Mr. Burke sticks another photo in the day planner. JJ comes out looking tired, shoots his cuff. Sun flares off his metal watch.

PIZZA D-LITE, same joint Mr. Burke ordered his dinner from. JJ’s the only customer inside, eats like he’s waiting for someone.

Two men in black leather stroll in, stroll up to JJ, say a couple things. JJ grins, reaches back under his loose shirttail, pulls a thick envelope from his back pocket, offers it. That thug glances around, points to the other thug. JJ hands the envelope there.

Black leather. Some things haven’t changed. Mr. Burke’s across the street in the donut shop. The plastic camera goes click.

The second thug looks up from counting what’s in the envelope, speaks to the first thug.

The first thug looks at JJ, who explains, still chewing.

There’s a long moment. Then the first thug gives JJ a good-sport whack on the shoulder and everybody smiles except Mr. Burke, who knows what he’s looking at even before the two men leave the pizza joint and cross the tree-shaded street for the donut shop, one of them already making the cell call.

He keeps gazing out the window when they come in. Just a useless old man in a donut shop. Angles the camera on the table.

“Two,” says the thug on the phone, glancing into the envelope. “No, just two.”

Click.

“Do it now?” says the one on the phone. His companion raises his eyebrows, does a little two-handed gun shimmy.

“You got it.” Hangs up, says to the eager one, “If the new one doesn’t work out.”

They both look out at the pizza joint, where JJ’s eating his slice. They buy coffee and leave.

Mr. Burke pastes pictures into his day planner. Writes “If the new one doesn’t work out.” Thinks about it. Draws a question mark.

He watches the light in JJ’s apartment window until it goes out at midnight.

The pizza comes back out of the fridge, the box goes on the lace tablecloth. Mr. Burke eats it cold, reviews today’s photos, looks at the photos and the words “If the new one doesn’t work out.”

Draws a diagonal stroke through the 17. Two days until contact.

The day planner goes on the dresser. The pistol goes on top of it.

He unfolds the two sheets from the envelope.

PLEASE DON’T KILL ME.

Pulls the second sheet out from under it.

“If you kill me,” reads Mr. Burke, “I’ll never…”

Drops it on the dresser and brushes his teeth.

Mr. Burke looks up from the lace tablecloth. Pale flowers float in a small bowl. Sound of water.

He can’t see her, only in agonizing flashes across the table. Beloved blue eyes. Beloved pretty smile.

Her hand reaches for his.

Friday, March 18th.

JJ leaves the same blue building in the same creamsicle shirt and leads him to the same local diner. Mr. Burke waits outside until JJ’s got his ham and eggs, then goes in and sits in the same far booth. The brunette waitress comes out of the kitchen and her face lights up.

“Hey,” she calls across the diner, and his pulse jumps and he ducks under the brim of the cap, but JJ doesn’t look. “So tell the truth.” The mug slides onto the table. “Was it the free coffee or did you come for something else?”

She’s a third his age. The blonde ignores them both.

He smiles and points at the coffee.

JJ tears up his stubs at the same OTB parlor. Eats at the same pizza joint. The thugs in black leather don’t appear.

Mr. Burke crosses out the 18. Tomorrow is contact.

Packs his small suitcase. Brushes his teeth.

Saturday morning and it’s cold. Mr. Burke skips the apartment and waits for JJ inside the diner. As he sits, the blonde cruises by with the coffeepot. Late thirties, good age for a woman. A big blonde, tall, the type he used to like. Crucifix necklace and a sweet smile. The soul of the diner. There was a time…

He glances out the window, catches the eye of a transparent old man lying to himself. There was never a time. There was just the one sweet woman.

“Hey, you.” Smile in the voice. “I need advice from a man of the world.” The brunette waitress slides the mug onto the table. “It’s for my girlfriend. She’s got this guy who won’t talk to her.” Arches an eyebrow. “She says she’s not going to force him to talk, and it’s his loss.” She leans close, looks him straight in the eyes. “What do you think?”

There’s energy in this one. She intends grander things in other places. This town won’t get her; she’s young. A few tables over, the blonde is listening. He glances over; she glances away. Personal dramas are interesting. JJ could walk in and get interested too.

He’s thinking how to end this when outside, JJ walks past and keeps going.

Mr. Burke fumbles in his pocket for a few bills, throws some on the table, grabs his small suitcase. Doesn’t know how much he’s put down — has a vague impression of a couple of twenties in the pile. Rushes past the brunette, hears an incensed “Hey!” behind him.

Bright outside. JJ’s gone, but there’s only one side street he could have taken. Mr. Burke glances back as he reaches it. Both waitresses are outside the diner, the blonde still holding the coffeepot, a clutch of bills in her other hand, tilted on one foot. Both looking the wrong way.

He takes the corner. A cul-de-sac: the local dry cleaner’s, local hardware store, local liquor store. No outlet.

No JJ.

He whirls. The small suitcase hits his thigh. But no JJ behind him. No ambush.

If he’s in one of these shops, he’s going to come out and see Mr. Burke. That can’t happen.

Cover, soldier.

He steps back to the corner, peers quickly around. The waitresses aren’t outside anymore. He can see the brunette’s back and hips inside, near the register.

JJ comes out of the dry cleaner’s with a gray suit in plastic wrap. It’s draped down his back, his thumb in the metal crook of the hanger.

Mr. Burke stands staring into a nearby window, not seeing anything. It’s only JJ’s switching the suit to his other hand, blocking his own vision, that takes him past Mr. Burke without eye contact. Inside the plastic, the hanger paper crinkles. Mr. Burke feels the breeze from it on his neck.

A barbershop near the pizza joint. The suit hangs in plastic from a coat rack. Old barber pole. Old barber. JJ gets a haircut and a shave, the haircut bringing his cheekbones into prominence, sharpening his whole face.

Across the street in the same donut shop, Mr. Burke throws away his wadded napkin, walks out with his small suitcase, checking his watch.

He boards the Long Island Rail Road toward the city, rides one stop and gets off. Crosses to the other side of the track. Opens the small suitcase, takes off the cap, puts on his hat. Waits for the next train going back where he just came from.

Ten minutes to contact.

The old man steps off the train, peering up from the photo in his hand at the big, clean-cut man waiting on the platform.

The big man smiles. “Mr. Burke.” He lopes forward. They shake awkwardly. The points of JJ’s shirt collar sit over his gray jacket lapels. The jacket lining is pink. He takes Mr. Burke’s suitcase.

They walk to a blue pastel apartment building, where a gardener unloads a lawnmower from his truck.

No clutter, warped baseboards. Bleak light from a thin-curtained window.

JJ sets the suitcase near the kitchen door. “You’ll take the bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa. Next time you visit, I’ll have better accommodations. Dine out, or order in?”

“Let’s stay in.” Voice husky. Mr. Burke hasn’t used it in a while. He sets his hat on one of two armchairs bracketing a little table under the window.

“We got a decent diner.” JJ gestures at the chairs, goes into the kitchen. “Been here forever. Are you really hungry? The food’s good, but they’re the only game in town and they only got one delivery guy.”

“That’s fine.”

“Great cheeseburgers.”

Hesitation. “Good.”

“Yeah,” JJ says into the phone. “I want to order for delivery.”

He turns, phone to his ear, to see Mr. Burke adjusting his coat and sitting. The pocket gapes open briefly.

Pistol.

He turns back around, faces away from the old man. “Yeah, two cheeseburgers.” He gives the address and hangs up, comes back in, sits in the other chair. “About an hour and a half,” he says.

Mr. Burke nods.

“So I guess you’re my dad,” JJ says.

“So they tell me.”

“So they tell me too.”

“DNA tests don’t lie.”

JJ shrugs. “Sometimes they do.”

“Not usually twice.”

“That’s true,” JJ says. “Not usually twice.

Nearby, a lawnmower coughs, then drones like a plane going down.

“Scotch?” JJ rises.

“Yes.”

From the kitchen, JJ says, “Rocks?”

“Neat.”

The clink of cubes on glass. JJ returns with two square tumblers, gives the one with no ice to Mr. Burke. He sits. “I have to say, I’m still not used to this.”

“I know what you mean.” Mr. Burke inhales the vapor.

“I didn’t even know they had that kind of service. Did you?”

“No.”

“Two little tests, here we are.” JJ raises his glass, waits.

Mr. Burke lifts his own. “Sweet women.”

JJ smiles. “Sweet women.”

“There is nothing sweeter.”

They sip. The single-malt hits bottom and burns.

“ ‘Our mobile testing lab comes to you!’ ” JJ quotes. “ ‘Reunite with estranged…’ something. It’s truly amazing, isn’t it? That you saw the same ad. Kind of coincidental.”

Mr. Burke nods, sips again.

“Expensive service,” JJ admits. “But… hey, compared to never knowing your family, what’s two grand?”

Mr. Burke looks straight at him and nods briefly.

“Listen…” JJ pauses. “I know I said this already in my e-mail, but I don’t want anything from you. I don’t. That’s not why I spent the money. I just wanted to know my people. Truth be told, I guess I didn’t really believe they’d find a match.”

The lawnmower cuts out. Suburban silence. Birds and dogs, the bang of a lawnmower basket against a dumpster, the scratch of a rake. The fall and echo of a train horn — the Long Island Rail Road scours through without slowing.

“Anyway, I was reading your e-mail again,” JJ says. “You were on leave when you met my mother?”

“No. I was here for college. Just before I was called for duty.” Mr. Burke puts his drink down, looks JJ in the eye. “I didn’t know she was pregnant.”

The lawnmower coughs again, drones again, moves away.

“After my discharge, I came back here. Her parents — your grandparents — they told me she was dead and they’d given my son up for adoption. They said I’d never see him.”

“Did you love her?”

Eventually Mr. Burke raises his empty glass.

When they’re both holding fresh drinks, he says, “Sweet women.”

They sip. JJ says, “So you don’t have any pictures of my mom?”

“No.”

“But you did.”

Mr. Burke shifts in his chair. The words have to be uprooted. “One day. We took the train to the old carousel. In Forest Hills. We wanted to take snapshots before I left for Basic. But it was cold. There was no one to take our picture. She took one of me and I took one of her. We had copies made. So we’d both have both.”

“But you don’t have them anymore.”

“The one I took of her…” Shake of the head. “Been twenty years. I had it all through my tour of duty. Then Comanche, Iowa, a water pipe breaks.”

“What about the one she took of you?”

Mr. Burke points at the small suitcase. JJ rises and brings it over.

The photograph shows Mr. Burke in his twenties. Dark hair, slender, a boy looking tough.

Holding it, studying it, JJ murmurs, “My mom took this.”

Pain stabs Mr. Burke’s chest. He winces, considers his glass.

Hell with it.

Sips the fine single-malt. “I’ll tell you my picture of her. She’s sitting across a table. It’s little scraps, little images. Her hand, her eyes. She had pretty blue eyes.” He glances at JJ’s. “There’s a lace tablecloth she was proud of.”

JJ places the photo on the little table. “So you were in the service?”

“Army Corps of Engineers.”

“Nice gig,” JJ says. “All the pay, none of the bullets.”

Mr. Burke’s eyebrows twitch. “Oh, you think so?”

“Yeah, pontoon bridges, right? Not warriors.”

JJ picks up the photo again. He’s looking at it when Mr. Burke says:

“You’d see a helicopter flying in. Dozer slung under it. Two seats on the dozer. One for the driver, one for a guy with a rifle. They’d start pushing dirt. Just these two guys, some infantry around the perimeter. A firebase was overrun, you’d have bodies everywhere. We’d push them into mass graves. The rats would swarm into the graves and feed. You’re away from home that long, anything starts seeming normal. That’s why they didn’t let you go home on leave. You could go to Tokyo, but not back to the world. See anyone you loved. See anything normal.”

He realizes how drunk he must be already. “My men were warriors.”

JJ goes a little unsteadily into the kitchen, brings the bottle back, sits and pours. “That where you got the piece?”

Mr. Burke’s glass stops halfway to his lips.

“It looked old,” JJ says. “I thought it might be your service sidearm.”

Mr. Burke puts the drink down, shifts in the chair to tug the pistol from the folds of his coat pocket. “You didn’t keep your service sidearm.” Looks at it lying on his palm. Black and ugly.

“All the bodies, there’d be weapons scattered all over the place. Pick up an officer’s pistol, trade it for two-three cases of scotch. Then that guy brings it home. Like a war trophy. Tokarev T-33. Russian-made VC officer’s pistol.”

“You got it off the ground?”

“No.”

JJ waits.

“Sometimes,” Mr. Burke says, “a guy you thought was dead. He’d pop up. Take a shot.”

JJ points at the pistol.

Mr. Burke nods.

…realizes how long ago he stopped talking. Blinks up from the Tokarev, unclenches his hands.

“You killed him?”

Mr. Burke still blurry. Clears his throat, doesn’t answer.

“This is the gun of your assassin.”

Mr. Burke’s chin jerks up. His eyes focus and find JJ. He grins.

“Why’s that funny?” JJ says.

Mr. Burke shakes his head, takes his sip, smiling. It’s funny.

JJ indicates the gun, a question. Mr. Burke unloads it, slides the magazine into his pocket, hands it over. Waits half a minute while JJ shows reverence, then takes it back.

“You carry it loaded?”

Mr. Burke slips it into his other pocket. “I just told a story. Your turn.”

JJ looks away, reaches for his drink. “I don’t have a story.”

“Everybody’s got a story.”

“Don’t kid yourself.” Drinks, rattles the ice. “Do I look like her? You’d think I would. ’Cause I sure don’t look like you.”

Mr. Burke studies him. “First I don’t see it, then I do, then I don’t.”

JJ turns his empty glass between his big fingers. “Why’d you wait this long to find me?”

As he’s practiced, Mr. Burke says, “At that time I had no rights.”

“My grandparents lied to you,” JJ says. “When you came back from Basic? No one adopted me. I was bouncing around in foster homes till I was eighteen. After that I was on the street. Finally came back here. Nobody leaves this place.”

“In those days I had no rights,” Mr. Burke says. “I had no rights. I searched for you but I had no rights.”

JJ’s eyes narrow. “Why look again now?”

“You get to a certain age,” Mr. Burke recites. “And now this Internet… people can find each other. If they want to.” Thinks, nobody leaves this place. Thinks of her.

JJ studies him. Then relaxes.

“Which we did,” he says.

The sun through the closed curtains is a little lower. Mr. Burke takes the lace tablecloth from his suitcase.

JJ gapes.

“No,” Mr. Burke says. “It’s not the same one. I bought it in Hong Kong, long after I found out she was gone.”

JJ raises the nearly empty bottle and Mr. Burke drapes the folded tablecloth on the little table, watches JJ put the bottle down.

Pain shivs up inside his chest. His vision blurs, but he doesn’t wince. He sits. “It makes me feel like she’s been here. It’s something I would never do, so she must’ve been here. In this room. She must be in the next room.”

Across the lace tablecloth, JJ’s blue eyes fix him. JJ’s hand reaches across with the bottle. Sound of the scotch pouring.

It’s so like his dream that Mr. Burke gasps. Rattled, he blurts, “You’re in trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

Mr. Burke slides his day planner from his inside coat pocket, uses his thumb to point at the photo of two thugs taking JJ’s money at PIZZA D-LITE.

JJ stares at it.

“I’ve been here three days,” Mr. Burke says. “I got here early. I saw you with those men.”

“You took pictures.”

“At a certain age they’re more reliable than your memory.”

JJ holds the day planner, his eyes flicking from photo to photo too fast to comprehend anything. “I don’t…”

“I’m old. Old people die. In my case, it’s a bad liver. Doctors won’t say anything you could sue them for. I asked him if he was me and wanted to take a trip, would he wait a year or take it in two months. He said he wouldn’t wait two months.” He takes the day planner from JJ’s hand.

JJ’s looking at him, at the day planner…

“So you want…”

“Just to know you. Nothing else.”

“You’ve been watching me for three days.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have time to get to know you slow.”

JJ nods, eyes still panicked. Says distractedly, “So why don’t you just get a transplant or something?”

“They won’t let you on the organ-donor lists if you like your scotch.” Another hot stab of pain. Bad one. Knows he’s gone pale. “I’ll never know you as well as I’d wish to. But I know you’re out of your league with these men.”

JJ’s mouth opens. He closes it.

“Maybe I can help,” says Mr. Burke. “How much?”

JJ abruptly scratches his ear. Starts to reply, stops.

“Quarter mil,” he says.

“Qua—” A low whistle. “You have a story after all.”

JJ’s not looking at him. “I’m not gonna finally meet my dad and drag him into my problems.”

“What family’s for,” Mr. Burke says. “So I hear.”

“Got a quarter mil?” JJ looks at him, lets the silence answer the question. Rubs his knuckles. “I’m not comfortable with those pictures being out there.”

“They’re not out there. They’re in my pocket.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m an old man with two months to live. You think I’m gonna spend that time getting my son in trouble?”

A jarring electric buzz. JJ rises and presses the door button on an intercom near the kitchen. They wait for the diner deliveryman to make his way to JJ’s apartment. JJ folds and unfolds his arms, clears his throat. Mr. Burke feels it as a rising pressure.

JJ breaks and says, “I—” and the knock comes.

“You bought the booze,” Mr. Burke says. “I’ll get this.”

To give JJ time to bleed off some of that building pressure, he asks for too much back from the slender Middle Eastern man, forces him to start the transaction over. Feels JJ’s pressure behind him, still building. Bleed it. Take longer. Messes up the tip amount, says wait, calls the guy back, gives him another dollar. Manufactures a comedy with the bag and the money, not enough hands.

The pressure doesn’t bleed. The door closes. JJ’s got a look to him. “I need those photos.”

“Smells good.” Mr. Burke smiles.

JJ shakes his head, and Mr. Burke sees himself, an old man who’s played it wrong.

“No need to get excited, son,” he says, and it detonates.

Mr. Burke between the wall and JJ’s solid body. Bag of cheeseburgers spilled on the floor, JJ’s big hand taking the day planner from Mr. Burke’s coat. Perfume smell from JJ’s haircut, JJ’s forearm compressing his neck against the wall.

JJ takes the pistol and the magazine, steps back, day planner between his teeth, eyes darting.

Mr. Burke rubs his neck, breathing hard, sees how far the door is, sees the magazine not yet loaded into the pistol. Thinks about how far he’s come. Sees JJ panicking.

“Okay, son.”

JJ’s hand jerks up with the pistol, the magazine still in his other hand.

“I’m just gonna sit down.”

JJ tracks him with the unloaded pistol. His suit is five years out of date. The forty-year-old Tokarev is the wrong vintage in his hand.

Mr. Burke drops into the chair. Odor of cheeseburgers. Realizes he hasn’t heard the lawnmower in a while. The lawn outside is cut, maybe edged. “Give both of us time to think,” he says.

JJ notices the magazine, slides it into the grip. Examines the gun, racks the top back. Takes the day planner from his teeth, puts it inside his jacket, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Son, I don’t know what you’re into—”

“Yeah.”

“—but I know the look of a man in over his head.”

“Yeah.” JJ backs into the kitchen, takes the phone down from the wall.

Softly, “That’s a mistake, son. Let me—”

JJ raises the pistol. Mr. Burke falls silent, and JJ crosses the living room, stretches the telephone cord, puts the chain on the door. Back in the kitchen he dials, turns away. Top of the phone handset visible at his ear. Line of pale, damp skin at the back of the new haircut.

Soft murmuring, a glance back.

Hangs up, comes back, sits in the other chair. Eyes darting.

“Son—”

JJ stands, aims the pistol straight down onto the top of Mr. Burke’s head.

The Long Island Rail Road rumbles. Nearby, the creak and slam of a screen door.

“I’m dead in two months, boy. You got nothing to scare me with.”

JJ’s breath shallow.

“Who’d you call, son?”

“Shut up.”

“You called those men. From the pizza place. You think you’re in business with them. Those men are going to kill you.”

JJ makes a sound that’s supposed to be a laugh.

“The envelope you gave them had two in it. Two grand, two hundred. Whatever. Two wasn’t enough. They made a call, asked for permission to kill you. Take out my day planner, I’ll show you.”

JJ stares at him.

“I’m half your size, I’m unarmed, and I’m old.”

JJ steps back warily. Takes out the day planner.

“See them calling? See the guy making guns with his fingers?”

“ ‘If the new one doesn’t work out’?”

“If the new one doesn’t work out, they kill you.”

JJ goes white.

“What’s the new one?”

Nothing.

“How long till they said they’d be here?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“How do you want to spend your last nineteen minutes?”

Nothing.

“I know what a grave smells like, son. Either we both leave—”

JJ drops the day planner on the little table. The gun comes up again.

“—or you start talking, or you die.” Mr. Burke sits back.

“Why would you help me?”

“You’re stupid, but you’re my son. Eighteen minutes.”

JJ studies him.

“Maybe less.”

JJ scratches his ear. “I started my business on credit cards.”

“Good.”

“Hundred thou. Zero percent for the first year.”

“First year runs out, you’re at what, nineteen percent?”

“Thirty. I was right on the edge of breaking even.”

“What kind of business?”

“X-ray supplies and stuff. Health support services. You know. Tongue depressors, Q-Tips.”

“How does that business work?”

“We don’t have time.”

“Talk fast. Or let us leave.”

JJ looks at the curtains. Takes a breath. “There’s doctors. They own clinics. They give you an order, you give them a C-note. Everybody knows the kickback, it’s a C-note. These doctors start saying this other guy, he’ll give them two c’s. First I say no, but…”

“Business dried up.”

“I went two c’s. The other guy went two-fifty. I went three. My expenses went through the roof. I knew his expenses had to be going through the roof, too. I knew in my heart if I could just outlast him… Then the credit cards called in their loans. They were going to take everything. I went to this guy.”

“How much did you borrow?”

“Hundred K and change to wipe out the credit cards, another sixty ’cause if I wanted the edge, I needed to get more mobile.”

“More mobile?”

JJ peers through the break in the curtains.

“Yeah. I bought a mobile unit.” He turns suddenly from the window. “I mean — you know, it was a van. It did give me the edge. I dropped the kickback down to one C, but the doctors still called me because they got their stuff faster.”

“Seeing as we’re dead in fifteen minutes,” Mr. Burke says, “let me speed this up. The other guy got a van too. So you’ve got the same problem you started with, only now you owe a quarter mil. What was in the envelope you gave them?”

“I put some aside out of what the guy loaned me. In case I needed it for payments.”

“It used to be five dollars per hundred dollars per week and you never had to pay down the principal. Still?”

“Yeah.” JJ’s gaze flickers toward the curtains.

“Your calculator break? That’s two hundred and fifty percent annual. Twelve grand a week forever.”

JJ leans in, intense. “I knew in my heart.”

“So you owed them twelve grand, and you showed up with two. The last of what you’d put aside because you’re so smart. Was this week your first short payment?”

No answer.

“And now they want everything, not just the interest. You don’t have a choice. You have to liquidate.”

“I did.” JJ changes gun hands long enough to wipe his right on his pants.

“Yeah. ’Course you did. And I know who the buyer was. How many cents on the dollar?”

JJ breathes deeply, looks out the window. “Five.”

“So… seven grand and change. Which they keep. And they own the business, so you can’t use it to make money. JJ, you idiot.” He rises, paces. JJ lets him. “What’s a loan shark want with a company that can’t sell a Q-Tip without dropping three bills?”

Something odd about JJ’s shrug. Mr. Burke frowns. “What was that?”

JJ shakes his head, shrugs again, peers through the curtains.

A tickle, a thread. Mr. Burke doesn’t know what it is yet.

“Where’s the profit? Throwing C-notes at every order, plus now you’ve got a van to maintain.” Stops. “Why’d a delivery van cost sixty th—”

The tickle widens to a white flash that blinds him, floods his limbs.

…doesn’t order like a favorite customer. Doesn’t call the brunette waitress by name.

Loses where he is. Cover, soldier! Can’t breathe. Snap out of it, old man! Get practical. Pull in some air.

Steps to the chair. Lets himself down into it. JJ steps in, raises the pistol, holds it steady a foot from Mr. Burke’s forehead.

“You didn’t buy a delivery van,” Mr. Burke says. An old man who’s been played. “You bought a mobile testing lab. ‘Our mobile testing lab comes to you.’ ”

The gun steady.

Mr. Burke passes a hand over his face, breathes tiredly. “So. How does this work? You put an ad on the Internet, someplace where people are trying to find each other. It says you do DNA tests — ‘Our mobile lab comes to you!’ Some sucker bites. You send somebody out in the mobile lab, swab my cheek, pretend to find a match for my DNA.”

The gun steady. Mr. Burke closes his eyes, tracks back through the weeks. “You send the lab out again to ‘verify.’ I get e-mail and a picture from you, pretending to be my son. I come out to meet you.” He closes his eyes. “You weren’t slacking and playing the ponies because you were despondent. You just weren’t scheduled to be in character yet.” Opens his eyes. JJ’s suit looks like a costume. The scotch glasses are props. “I’m not rich. Where’s your profit?”

The gun steady, JJ’s eyes half-lidded. “You’re crazy, old man.”

Mr. Burke studies him. “Old man. Might have an estate. Might be worth something. Find my son, change my will. All you have to do is wait for me to—”

The gun wavers.

Mr. Burke nods. “No reason to wait. Pretty soon I fall down some stairs.” Closes his eyes briefly. “The new one. I’m the new one. The new one doesn’t work out, they kill you.” He smiles without anything in it. “You thought they needed you to run the scam. But they don’t. And you just called and told them the new one didn’t work out. And where you are. And that you’ll wait here. With the new one that didn’t work out.”

JJ’s breathing fast. A different thing occurs to Mr. Burke. He savors it, smiles for real. Wants to explain that he’s not smiling at JJ’s stupidity, but now he’s laughing, and JJ’s pulling him from the chair, raising the pistol high, face dark. The laughter is so violent he can’t force words out, can barely keep his eyes from squinting shut.

The pistol crashes against his temple, and he’s on the floor, his vision red-black.

(Her pretty hand.)

JJ’s standing bent over him, a blur, white hairs stuck to the pistol as he roars. Mr. Burke gasps, thinks he’s going to vomit laughing so hard, tears stinging, head throbbing, funniest thing an old man near death has ever thought of.

“Ah!” He hears his suffocated laugh. “Ah! Ah!” Between asthmatic wheezes he tries to speak. JJ raises the pistol again, whips it down against Mr. Burke’s face, splits his cheek open.

(I’m sorry, my darling.)

JJ hauls him up, roars what?! and Mr. Burke’s sucking air like a fish, pointing with a shaking finger at the little table. JJ drops him, spins, snaps up the day planner. “This?”

Gasping, eyesight blurred. “Back,” he croaks, makes an urgent flipping motion. Minutes left. If that.

JJ pulls out a folded piece of yellow paper. Mr. Burke nods, points, sucks air.

JJ unfolds it. Finds the word at the top. “Transplant.” Looks down at Mr. Burke. “You said you couldn’t have a transplant.”

“Couldn’t be on the list. Still get one from imm—” A rogue upswell of laughter knocks away the end of the word. “Immediate relative,” he manages, and a shrill giggle hangs in the air, and then there’s silence and wheezing. His lungs and head are splitting; the pain shivs his chest again and he moans.

JJ rereads it. Frowns at it.

Shocked horror dawns. “You wanted my liver?” JJ looks up. “You wanted my liver?” Amazed pain in the voice.

Seems like a long time goes by, JJ still just standing there. JJ’s going to kill him. No point lying. No point telling the truth.

I just wanted to know my son.

“Doesn’t matter,” he whispers.

“You’re a dirty con man.” Yellow paper hanging from JJ’s hand. “You’re no better than me.”

“Doesn’t matter. Neither of us has two months anymore.”

JJ stares at him. Seems to click into something different and cold. Looks at his watch. Crouches.

“This is the gun of your assassin.”

Mr. Burke nods, watching him. The end of the barrel nestles in. “This about where your liver is, Dad?”

A little fragment of fear, not too bad. “That’s it.”

JJ shoots him.

JJ lets the yellow paper go, and Mr. Burke watches it flutter down toward him, watches it flutter… then JJ in silhouette in the open door, pretty tablecloth in one hand, Tokarev in the other… and then just the empty doorway.

A silent ballet of illusion and memory.

Her pretty hand reaching out to him, and doctors look down into the gurney and move their heads in unison. Watery lights — nurses float like kelp around the room.

(JJ shoots him.)

An ocean of beeps and alarms.

(Her pretty blue eyes.)

(A child’s voice: Daddy!)

(The type he used to like, crucifix necklace and a sweet smile.)

There was never a time. There was just the one sweet woman.

(Please don’t kill me.)

I hope I drown.

Bed tilted up slightly. Bald doctor with a clipboard.

“Vitals look good. If you don’t get hit by a truck, there’s no reason you can’t live another twenty years.”

“Some doctor you are,” Mr. Burke whispers. “I’ve got—”

“I know what you got,” the doctor snaps. “You got your transplant, is what you got.”

Mr. Burke blinks. The doctor hasn’t looked at him once. “You had a bullethole in your liver. There was a DNA match. The paperwork was right there, all in order. Your doctor told me why you’re not on the lists.”

“I like my scotch.”

“Like it less. I put half a perfectly good liver in you.” Bangs the clipboard into its holder, hard. Takes a videotape from a large manila envelope, drops the envelope on Mr. Burke’s legs. Something’s still in it. “When you’re done with this, I’ll bring the cops in.”

Gives him a remote. Slides the videotape into the slot in the wall-mounted TV. Stops at the door.

“It was a blood clot.” Halfway out the door he stops, finally looks at Mr. Burke. Looks like he wants him dead.

Then leaves.

Mr. Burke lolls back fogged and disoriented in an empty room. Mechanically he tries to comprehend the remote. Arrows and icons on rubber buttons.

The TV screen lights, the tape already playing, started rolling when the doctor inserted it.

The blonde is familiar but he can’t place her.

“Hi, Daddy.”

Toying with her crucifix necklace.

“They say we’re a match.”

She knew him on the stunned second look, the tray falling from her hands, and when Tina knelt to help, she whispered, That’s my dad!

Oh my God! Tina whispered. He’s leaving! Standing. Sorry! Need any change? You gonna be back tomorrow? Coffee’s on the house.

Tina wouldn’t leave her alone about it. She went home to find the old photo.

She holds up the photo of Mr. Burke, dark-haired and young. There’s one of Mom, too, she says, and shows him the lost photo he hasn’t seen in twenty years. They could be sisters.

(Was it the free coffee or did you come for something else?)

“She left me her diary,” slipping the photos into it. “She only used your first name. Grandma and Grandpa told me you were dead. They didn’t mean badly…”

(My girlfriend. She’s got this guy who won’t talk to her.)

And then it came back to her that she was a practical girl. This was silly having her friend speak in her place. She opened her mouth but before she could get a word out he dropped a ridiculous amount of money on the table and bolted.

She searched for an hour. Still carrying the stupid coffeepot. Went back to work, and then Mohammed, blasting in from his deliveries: Show me that photo! Two cheeseburgers! Couldn’t get his money right!

She got the address. Found the apartment door ajar. Took a breath, steeled herself to dress him down.

Called an ambulance, applied pressure. Practical girl.

“If you’re watching this, I guess something went…” She toys with the crucifix again. Tries to smile.

“I believe God wouldn’t have let me save you before if I wasn’t meant to save you again now. Maybe it’s why he kept me in this town all this time.” No more smile. “I’ve always missed you, Daddy. I love you. I hope you love me too.”

The tape goes to static.

In the manila envelope is the diary, two old photos inside.

He lowers his bedclothes, raises the hospital gown.

Touches the staples.

Wails like a child.

“One last thing and I’ll leave you alone.”

The detective is in a chair by the bed. The bald doctor hovers. Gloom outside the gray hospital blinds.

The old man under the bedclothes doesn’t respond. The detective unfolds two photocopied sheets, reads from the top one.

“Please don’t kill me.”

Waits for a response. Reads from the second page. “If you kill me, I’ll never see another sunrise. I’ll never be kissed by another sweet woman, never drink another fine scotch. If you kill me, I’ll never eat another good steak, never breathe fresh air. If you kill me, I’ll never know my son.”

The detective waits.

The bedclothes stir. “Letter I wrote.” Voice rusty. “Mailed it to myself. When I came here.”

“Why?”

“Stop me from shooting myself.”

“You have a gun?”

“No.”

“You have a son?”

“No.”

The doctor clears his throat. They’ve covered this. The detective ignores him.

“Why did you come here?”

“Just looking for a reason not to die.”

The doctor moves closer. The detective glances at him, nods reluctantly, rises.

Hesitates.

“Did you find one?” he asks.

Gunmetal clouds moving outside the diner window. An unfamiliar redhead floats by with the coffeepot.

Diary in his inside coat pocket, photos clipped inside. Videotape in his outside pocket. Envelope, stamp, sheet of paper on the table.

Takes up his pen. In his draftsman’s hand, he writes:

In his coat and hat, carrying his small suitcase, Mr. Burke stops at a mailbox. The envelope is addressed to BURKE. He mails it.