Killer

chapter 27
1992

She’s bundled up in a heavy green winter parka, but from her shoes and the little I can see of her uniform, I’m guessing she’s a nurse. She’s young, and her stare keeps moving from Marzone lying dead on the pavement to me standing over him. Her face is so pale in the moonlight. She wants to scream but she’s too horrified to do so. I just feel sick inside as I watch her, wishing that there was some other way than what I was going to have to do.

Finally the terror releases her enough to let her move. She starts running, but she has those heels on, and there’s ice on the ground, and it’s not too long before she falls and lands on one knee. She’s crying now. I don’t think she has the strength to try running again. My stomach is all knotted up as I walk over to her. I take out the. 32 caliber and place the muzzle so it’s a few inches from her temple. Her mouth is gaping so wide open that when she cries thick strands of saliva drip from it. Oh Christ. I can’t pull the trigger. I just can’t do that to her face, not that type of damage. Instead I try hushing her and end up suffocating her, then lower her lifeless body to the ground. At least she looks undisturbed this way. Like she could be sleeping.

For the first time I look around to see where I am, and realize Marzone led me to the back parking lot of a small shopping plaza. There must be a hospital nearby, and this girl was probably cutting through the parking lot as a shortcut home after a late shift. This was all supposed to go down in a desolate warehouse parking lot with the Luger having an attached silencer. Instead I shot off three rounds with a. 32, and for all the fuck I know neighbors nearby have already called the police about gunshots. I have to get out of there but I can’t leave the girl’s body with Marzone. Lombard’s furious enough with how this has gone so far and having this nurse’s death tied to Marzone would put him over the top.

I jog over to an old rusted Ford station wagon. When I’m on a job like this, I always carry a slim jim and a screwdriver on me. It takes only seconds to unlock the driver’s door, and not much longer than that to strip and hotwire the ignition. I drive the car over to the dead nurse and, after popping the trunk, drop her body inside.

The police still haven’t shown up, no sirens either, which means I’ve caught one break tonight. My hands are shaking as I drive away.

I feel so damn cold inside my skull. At first I think about leaving her body someplace where it could be found so her family can have a funeral for her, but I realize how risky that is. I have to make sure her body disappears for good, which isn’t hard, but still, I hate the idea of it. I hate the thought of how I’m going to be spending the next few hours.

It takes me an hour to drive where I have to go. The coldness deep in my head has traveled to the pit of my stomach, and it just keeps getting worse. By the time I stop the car, I’m drenched in a sickly cold sweat, and that stench of death nearly overpowers me.

I open the trunk and lift her body from it, except she comes alive in my arms and starts fighting me. Somehow I hadn’t killed her the first time, and I feel even sicker inside knowing that I have to do it now for real.