Killer

chapter 16

present

The next morning my cell phone rang again. I almost didn’t answer it assuming it was the same tough guy from before, but then looked at the caller ID and saw it was my son, Michael. At first I didn’t believe it, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me.

“Michael?” I said, my voice cracking as I answered the phone.

“Yeah, it’s me. You called yesterday.” There was a pause, then, “I guess you’re out of prison.”

I laughed at that. I couldn’t help it. “Come on, you must’ve seen something about it on the news.”

“I don’t watch much TV or read the papers these days.

What do you want?”

“What do I want? Michael, I’m your father. Chrissakes, I haven’t seen or heard from you in over fourteen years.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” There was another long pause before he added, “After what you did you’re expecting some sort of father-son relationship? Are you out of your mind?”

His voice wasn’t angry or sarcastic, just tired. I felt tongue-tied for a long moment before stumbling out with, “Whatever I did, it doesn’t change that you’re my son.”

I’m sure it sounded as stupid and trite to him as it did to me. I sat cringing, waiting for his response. It seemed a long time before he answered me, and when he did his voice sounded like he was on the brink of exhaustion. Like it took every bit of strength he had to respond.

“Let me explain the obvious to you. You murdered twenty-eight people. For money. Whatever you were back then you were never my father. Fathers have real jobs, they’re not mob hit men. They’re not cold-blooded psychopaths. Do you have any idea what all that did to me? How many years of therapy I’ve gone through, and how fucked up I still am? And not just me, but Allie and Paul? And Mom, too. You don’t think that had anything to do with her developing cancer?”

He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t thought about for years. After hearing about Jenny, I read everything I could about liver cancer in the prison library and I knew some people believed stress played a large role in it.

I said, “I just want to see you.” I wanted to ask him for Paul’s address and number, but stopped myself, knowing that that request would lead to a quick hang-up. Instead, carefully choosing my words, I added, “I don’t want anything from you other than that. A half hour, Michael, that’s all I’m asking.”

“Yeah, well, you’re asking a hell of a lot. I spoke to Allie this morning. She doesn’t want you calling her again and leaving any more messages, so don’t.”

“Maybe Allie will change her mind someday.”

“She’s not changing her mind.”

I hesitated, my voice lowering almost to a whisper. “Michael, you’re my son. I love you. I just want to see you.”

He laughed at that, a tired, exhausted laugh. “Next thing you’re going to tell me is that’s what kept you surviving prison.”

I lied then and told him it was partly that. In truth, I wasn’t sure what it was that kept me going all those years. I knew it was self-preservation and anger that made me cut the deal in the first place. During those early years I was driven by wanting to see Jenny again, and to a lesser extent, wanting to walk out of prison as a big loud fuck-you to Lombard. After Jenny died and I no longer had any sort of life waiting for me on the outside, that fuck-you message I wanted to deliver stopped seeming all that important to me. I had to fight while inside prison to make it from day to day, but the thing was, I’d be damned if I knew why I bothered.

Michael took some time digesting what I told him. When he spoke again it was to tell me that I was lying, but there was a hint of doubt in his voice. “Don’t call me again,” he said. “Maybe I’ll call you back someday, I’m not sure, but don’t you ever fucking call me again.”

He hung up then. I felt jittery inside, but also a little hopeful. Before his call, I never thought I would hear his voice again, and it went about as well as I could’ve expected.

Christ, my head was hurting me. Like it was being cracked open like a walnut. I sat for a while with my head bowed, cradling it in both hands. When I could I straightened up and reached for the bottle of aspirin that I kept next to the bed. My hand shook as I spilled several tablets into it. I chewed them slowly without bothering to get any water. I knew they weren’t going to do much good. They never did much good.

Later that morning I was at a coffee shop trying to mind my own business while I ate a two dollar and fifty cent maple-banana-nut muffin and drank a three dollar cup of coffee – all of it costing more than a full breakfast at Lucinda’s diner would’ve cost – when I noticed a woman sitting a few tables over staring at me. She was in her thirties, thick dark hair, dark features, probably of Italian descent, and all I could think was that I was about to have a confrontation with another of my victims’ relatives.

I stared back. I didn’t care. Let her shout and scream all she wanted. She got up from her table and walked over to me. Up close her hair was all tangled, like a hornet’s nest. It looked like it hadn’t been combed in days, that it needed washing and, even more badly, some work at a salon. But as bad a hair day as she might’ve been having it didn’t hide that her features were striking, even given how skinny she was.

“I must’ve been staring,” she said, keeping her voice soft and low. When I didn’t say anything in response, she showed a trace of a shit-eating grin, and added, “I was there yesterday morning at the Blue Bell Diner when you and that fat guy gave us your two-man show. It was very entertaining. Do you mind if I join you?”

She waited a few seconds for me to answer her, and when I didn’t, she sat across from me anyway, her shit-eating grin stretching a fraction of an inch. I remembered her then from the diner. She’d been sitting at a table in the back and I caught a glimpse of her when I stood up to leave. If she hadn’t been so strikingly beautiful I wouldn’t have noticed her. But as beautiful as she was, she was also somewhat a mess, both with her hair and her clothing, and no makeup on. My first thought would’ve been that she was a drug addict, except her eyes were bright and clear, and her skin too healthy for that.

“Did you follow me here?” I asked, my voice cracking and coming out as a hoarse rumble.

She laughed at that. It was a nice throaty laugh. “Hardly,” she said. “Boy, are you one paranoid sonofabitch, but I guess given your situation I can’t blame you for that.” Her eyes glistened as she looked at me. “I was in here minding my own business when I recognized you from the other day. A coincidence, that’s all.”

“What do you want?”

She raised an eyebrow at that, her grin growing more amused. “It’s not enough that a somewhat attractive woman wants to sit at the same table with you?” she asked.

Somewhat attractive didn’t do her justice. Even as skinny and unkempt as she was, there was real beauty in her. Someone like her wasn’t about to sit down at a table with a guy like me who was thirty years or so older than her, especially looking the way I did, unless she wanted something from me. After the stories broke about me six months ago I started receiving letters and photos from wack jobs who wanted to correspond with me in prison, a few even offering marriage proposals. Maybe it’s a sadomasochism thing, maybe some bizarre attraction to death, or maybe just plain mental illness, but I discovered first hand that there are plenty of sickos out there who are attracted to serial killers, and I guess some of these looked on a professional hit man as being even more of a prize. Maybe this woman was one of them, except she didn’t look it. With the prison letters I received, you could tell right away how insane these women were.

“Again, what do you want?”

Her lips pursing, she asked, “I have to want something?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” she said. Her eyes glistened several degrees brighter as she studied me. “What you went through in that diner yesterday was rough. I felt for you, but I also liked the way you handled yourself.” She looked away for a moment, a solemnness momentarily weighing on her features. “I guess I also felt empathy. I’ve done plenty of things in the past that I’m not proud of, things that weren’t so nice and that I wish I could take back. I wouldn’t be happy if complete strangers kept throwing them in my face. Fuck that guy yesterday, you know. From what you said, it sounds like you did the world a favor killing his scumbag rapist of an old man. Was what you said true? He really did that to that girl?”

I nodded.

“Well, good for you then.”

“I don’t have money stashed away, if that’s what you’re after.”

More of that throaty laugh, her eyes shining again. “You don’t trust people much, do you?”

“Not too much.” I gave her a long hard look, trying to figure out what she was after. “I’m not killing anyone else, if that’s what you’re here for.”

She didn’t say anything in response to that, but the amusement in her eyes and smile showed that wasn’t it either.

“You want to write a book about me, don’t you?” I asked.

She shook her head and told me that she wasn’t a writer, but there was a hesitation when she did so. So that was it. A wild stab in the dark, but I had figured her out. Another hopeful author who wanted to sell my life story for fame and fortune. At least this one was nice to look at, and more than that, had some personality. I felt comfortable with her.

She stood up, an impish smile still on her lips. She told me she had to get going, but that she lived in the area and she was sure she’d run into me now and again. She warned me if that happened for me not to get all paranoid and think she was following me. I had no doubt that I’d see her again. She’d make sure of it. She was smart enough where she’d give it some time before making her sales pitch about me writing a book with her, but I didn’t much mind the prospect of that.

I watched as she walked away, noticing how nice her curves looked with her dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. Although she probably weighed no more than ninety pounds, I realized her build was more athletic and slender than skinny. Usually I liked a woman with more meat on her bones, but she was still stunning enough to stop your heart, especially with the way she smiled. It was almost a shame watching her slip on a bulky cotton jacket, but it didn’t do much to hide how beautiful she was.

When she reached the door, she stopped to look back at me and give me a few more seconds of that shit-eating grin of hers. I almost called out to ask her her name, but I knew next time I saw her she would make sure to give it to me.

I felt an uneasiness after she left, and sat back and finished my muffin and coffee without really tasting much of either. When I was in prison I made sure to avoid other people and lived a mostly solitary existence. It wasn’t safe otherwise, and the fight to stay alive and survive my stretch so I could someday walk out of prison gave me enough to focus on to make it easy. Now that I was out I found myself needing some sort of human interaction, and was looking forward to when I’d see this dark-haired beauty again, even if she was nothing but a con artist. And that was really what she was. Her plan was to befriend me, even hold out the promise of sex – not that there was any real chance of that happening – and eventually wear me down so I would agree to writing a book with her. I’d been around more than enough con men to know how this was going to work, but what she didn’t understand was as much as she was trying to play a game on me, there actually was a connection between us. Not enough so that we’d ever end up romantically involved, but there was something there. Right now she was on too much of a high in working her game to get the book deal, but at some point she’d see it also.

My cell phone rang then. I stared at it, frowning, seeing that the caller ID was once again unavailable. I wasn’t in the mood for a vague threat from some wannabe tough guy, so I turned off the phone instead of answering it. I was still stopping by the cell-phone store each day, but so far my salesman hadn’t shown up again, and I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to, that for some reason he must’ve quit his job.

I put the call out of my mind, and instead thought more about the woman who had just left me, and found myself anxiously looking forward to when I’d see her again. I knew it would be soon – she wouldn’t let too much time go by, not with her just starting her game.

It turned out I was right. That Saturday I went to the same coffee shop and she was already camped out there with a dog-eared paperback in one hand and a large cup of coffee in the other. I’d done the same plenty of times when I was waiting for a target.

She glanced up shortly after I’d walked into the shop, and as she saw me her eyes grew exaggeratedly large. With a wicked grin, she accused me of stalking her. I shook my head, but that grin of hers was infectious enough to crack a smile from me, which doesn’t happen often. She waited until after I bought a coffee and slice of lemon pound cake and had been sitting alone for a few minutes before getting up from her table and asking if she could join me.

“It looks like you could use the company,” she said, her grin even more wicked.

“Yes, sure, I’d like that.”

I felt a pang of guilt knowing that I wasn’t going to be agreeing to write a book with her. I should’ve told her point blank there wasn’t any chance of it happening and let her drop her game, but I couldn’t. Like the other day, she was strikingly beautiful, but also unkempt. Her hair was the same tangled hornet’s nest and her clothes were badly worn and tattered. She probably bought them from a similar thrift store to the one I had shopped at earlier, except in her case she had worn them to near threads. She was clearly in the midst of a bad stretch, and had latched on to this book idea as a way to pull herself out. As beautiful as she was she could’ve made a nice income as a stripper, and an even nicer one as a high-class hooker, but I guess no matter how hard up she was for money she wasn’t about to resort to either of those, and that just made me like her all the more.

She took the seat across from me and showed me the paperback she had been reading, The Godfather by Mario Puzo. “I bought it for twenty-five cents at a garage sale,” she told me. Either she was doing research or she was trying to send me some sort of subtle message that I wasn’t getting.

“What do you do for work?” I asked.

“Wow, a bit abrupt, aren’t we?” she said, her voice light, amused. “But to answer your question, a little bit of this and that, but right now I’m in between jobs.” Her eyes lowered as she took a sip of her coffee. When she looked up and met my eyes again, her smile had turned wistful. “I’d heard about you in the news before, but really didn’t pay much attention. After we met the other day, I went to the library and dug up some of the stories about you. I was so sorry to read that your wife died while you were in prison. That must’ve been hard.”

I nodded, didn’t say anything.

“Those people you killed, let me guess, they weren’t quite as innocent and pure as the driven snow as the papers made them out to be?”

“No, they weren’t,” I said with only a slight hesitation. The two men I had killed with Behrle turned out to be friends of his, and they both turned out to be even worse scumbags than he ever was. I had looked into it after the hit, and they were involved in a string of home invasions, one of which left a teenage girl paralyzed. I had no remorse for those two.

“Fucking newspapers,” she said. “They can make the worst scum out to be a fucking saint.” A hardness momentarily tightened her smile, and I had this sense about her then that she had blood on her hands also. Maybe an abusive partner, maybe some incestuous relative. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had done a stretch in prison too, but I didn’t ask her about any of that.

She was still absorbed in her thoughts, and had absently pulled a pack of Newports from her jacket pocket. She tapped a cigarette out, slid it in her mouth, and was about to light up before she remembered where she was.

“Think they’d throw me in jail if I lit up in here?” she asked, the cig now out of her mouth and held lightly between her index and middle fingers.

“No doubt,” I said.

Her gaze wandered past me, and she stuck out her tongue at a coffee shop employee who had been glaring openly at her. Smiling to herself, she put the cig behind her ear.

“I need this badly right now,” she told me, referring to the cig. She gestured with her eyes that I was welcome to join her outside while she lit up, but I stayed in my seat. She opened her eyes wider in mock surprise over the fact that I wasn’t jumping at the chance to join her, and before she turned to leave, told me she was sure we’d bump into each other again. I was sure of that also.

I was a little surprised she hadn’t given me her name yet. I would’ve thought that would’ve happened after our second “chance” meeting. It turned out she didn’t disappoint me. She was halfway to the door when she turned on her heels and walked back to my table, offering me her hand.

“By the way, my name’s Sophie Duval,” she said.

“Leonard March,” I said.

“As if you’re telling me something I don’t already know,” she said with a wink. I watched the way her slender hips moved as she headed back to the front door. Christ, she was gorgeous. At least thirty years younger than me and absolutely gorgeous. When she reached the door, she stopped to snap off a quick army-type salute in my direction, then left. I wondered briefly when I’d be bumping into her again. I knew it wouldn’t be long.

It was Tuesday when I saw her next. At around seven-thirty in the evening I was walking along Moody Street to my job when I heard footsteps racing behind me. Next thing I knew an arm was hooking mine and a small hand resting on my leather jacket sleeve below the elbow. It was Sophie. Her face was flushed. In a breathless whisper she told me that it looked like a car was following me.

It was a cold late October night with the wind whipping up, and I’d been walking with my head bowed and hadn’t been paying much attention to the street. I turned and saw that she was right. A light blue Chevrolet sedan was creeping along keeping pace with me. There were two men in the car. Both looked hardened. The driver slid his glance sideways and noticed me looking his way. His eyes were cold and empty, his face scarred and with a toughness to it. Without any change of expression, he stared straight ahead and sped away.

Sophie recited some random numbers. I stared at her, confused.

“The license plate,” she said. “Damn, Leonard, you have to pay more attention to what’s going on around you. There are obviously people out there holding grudges.”

“I was hoping I had already slipped into yesterday’s news.”

“Obviously not.” Her face had flushed to a deep red. There was so much excitement in her eyes. “You know, I might’ve saved your life tonight. I might have to think of a way for you to repay me.”

It was possible she was right. Those two in the blue Chevrolet could’ve been Lombard’s boys. They had the look of it. But it could also be part of the game Sophie was running. An awful big coincidence her being there at the right time to warn me about that car, but not if she had arranged it in the first place.

“Any idea how I’ll be able to do that?” I asked.

“I’ll think of something.”

I had thrown it out there, and she decided to play me the right way and not be too anxious for her pitch. If she had asked me then about writing a book with her, she’d be tipping her hand that it was all a con and that she already had her payoff in mind. I wondered which it was with that car. It could just as likely have been Lombard’s boys as an arrangement by Sophie, but the more I thought about it the more I was leaning towards Lombard. Sophie probably knew my routine by now, and was most likely out there looking for me when she happened to see me and the car, then realized quickly how she could use it.

We walked another two blocks without either of us saying a word. The feel of her hand on my arm and the occasional touch of her hip against mine damn near took my breath away, and she knew the effect she was having on me. We were a block away from the side street I needed to take for my job when she told me that this was where she was getting off and that she’d see me around. She let go of my arm and I watched mesmerized as she walked into a small Hispanic grocery store. For a few seconds all I could think of was the feel of her hand on my arm. After the door had closed behind her and she was out of sight, I felt a heavy sigh rumble out of me, and I trudged off to work.